Email Delivers As AdRoll Addresses Mobile

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

The Email In Retargeting

Self-serve retargeting platform AdRoll has made its second acquisition, this time scooping up email retention service Userfox. The acquisition gives advertisers the ability to collect and use email lists and mobile IDs. The companies did not disclose how much the deal cost. “Userfox stood out to us because they share AdRoll’s vision of making complex marketing technology perform for a broad market,” said Aaron Bell, AdRoll CEO. Read the release. Live Intent (April 2013 on AdExchanger), Facebook’s Custom Audience product and Twitter offer different flavors of email address-driven (or CRM-driven, as in online/offline?) technology.

Slow Boat To Cross-Screen

In a blog post this week, Microsoft Advertising GM Greg Nelson gives an update on data, user permissions and ad policies. When it comes to cross-device IDs, “caution” is the prevailing word, Nelson writes: “We could attempt to connect all the people who use our devices and services without their consent, and deliver the resulting scale (of potentially unengaged or dissatisfied consumers) to advertisers. But we choose not to do that.” Also: Microsoft is simplifying ad formats and advancing plans for programmatic direct sales. Read it.

Marketing Content Automatically

Social media has opened up a new avenue for content marketing as brands struggle to find things to say to fans. NewsCred is one such startup and it has just raised $25 million, according to Re/code. NewsCred works with companies like Pepsi and Sprint to bring original and repurposed contents to visitors on their sites. Read more.

Mood Targeting

A patent filed by Apple shows the company’s intention to serve users ads based on mood and behavior, according to Apple Insider. It seems the capability would best be used in a mobile setting due to the fact that Apple intends to use things like social media use and tone of voice as parameters. Privacy is also addressed in the patent, with Apple stating the information shouldn’t be used for nefarious purposes. Feels so good.

Data Dilemmas

In the world of consumer sentiment as it pertains to data collection it appears that Amazon is trusted while sites like Facebook and Google are not. Ad Age speculates the difference could be in the language and services. For instance, with Amazon users give up their data in exchange for recommendations, whereas with Google and Facebook there is a feeling that these companies own the data and users see no value from that. The difference comes down to how users perceive the collection and use of their personal information. Read more.

Piracy Ads

Even with controls in place to varying degrees, “bad actor” publishers are still getting through. At Digiday, Jack Marshall notes that ad-tech companies are running retargeting ads that are sometimes ending up on piracy sites. He provides screenshots as proof. Marshall writes, ”Ad tech companies should be aware that serving their ads on piracy-related sites implies either that they’re happy to associate themselves with that content or that their tech is incapable of stopping it. Neither is a good look.” Read more.

Earnings