Scaling Right Media; Facebook Mobile Pennies

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The Exchange Can Be Larger

At The Goldman Sachs Technology conference, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer submitted to questioning on her company’s strategy. In response to a question about Yahoo’s ad tech position she said, “Ad tech is fundamental to what we do. It’s been an underappreciated asset, the Right Media exchange works really well. We’ve got a very good, premium salesforce. The exchange can always be larger. We already have notable supply in the exchange, it’s something that works really well for advertisers, it’s something we’re going to keep investing in. Like search, ad tech marches on. We do need to invest in the technology that makes programmatic bidding easy and self service easy.” Read the live recap on the WSJ (subscription).

Facebook Mobile Pennies

Wall Street analysts expected a big influx of mobile ads into the Facebook news feed would juice Q4 revenues in a big way. Instead, revenue growth was merely solid, and as a result its stock price is off 11% so far in February. BTIG said in a note, “We believed advertising revenues were set to notably exceed investor expectations, as we saw Facebook pushing a significantly higher ad load into users’ mobile news feed during the fourth quarter.” MarketWatch story.

Digilant on FBX

The indie trading desk formerly known as Adnetik (and formerly under the Havas Media umbrella) is up and running on the Facebook Exchange. Digilant says it is the first partner to bring FBX targeting to brands in Mexico. It has outposts in both Mexico and in Brazil, which are the #5 and #2 Facebook markets globally according to SocialBakers. Brazil is a big focus for at least two other FBX partners, Turn and Triggit. Press release.

More Yahoo, More Mayer

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is making good on her intentions to buy small companies in areas like mobile. The latest deal, for an undisclosed amount, is with discovery app Alike. Read the release. It comes on the heels of other Yahoo purchases the last few months, including another recommendation app called Stamped, and social sharing tool Snip.It. “We were very impressed by the team and their approach to building personalized experiences. The entire Alike team will join Yahoo!’s mobile organization in San Francisco and Sunnyvale,” a Yahoo rep told Mashable’s Seth Fiegerman. Read more.

Simulmedia Raises Again

It was less than a year ago that targeted TV ad provider Simulmedia raised a $6 million round, but CEO Dave Morgan has decided to add another $5 million from the company’s venture backers. Read the SEC filing. Simulmedia has taken in a total of $32 million since opening its doors nearly four years ago. But why not just start another formal round instead of an add-on? Morgan tells Techcrunch’s Ryan Lawler that he “prefers to raise small inside rounds as the company continues to grow, instead of doing a large mezzanine round” because it gives the company greater flexibility on pricing. Read more.

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Hold My Holdco; When Growth Goes Down

Stopping Banner Blindness

Joe McCambley, co-founder/creative director at interactive ad shop The Wonderfactory, muses not-too-fondly about the early days of internet advertising and helping to create one of the first banner ads at Modem Media for AT&T. He’s proud of that, but not proud of what has proliferated. Agencies and marketers still don’t get that online is lean-forward as opposed to lean-back (people go to the web to do something, not watch something). “The future of advertising lies not in ads as we’ve known them, but in helping all those people on all those elevators get stuff done, or entertaining them,” he says in a post on HBR. “The companies and people that understand content, and utility, will be the ones to thrive.” Read the rest.

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