IBM Invests $100M In Ads; Another Cross-Device Acqui-hire

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

IBM Invests In Ads

IBM says it’s investing $100 million into, wait for it, services! According to The Wall Street Journal, a new division called IBM Interactive Experience will lead the charge and “pulls together IBM’s digital marketing agency and its other marketing-related businesses such as data analytics and design, all of which are aimed at helping companies target and market to customers more effectively.” Read it (subscription). Agency holding companies keep getting more company. Related: IBM may acquire marketing automation company Silverpop says Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Cross-Device Buy

Positioning it a cross-device targeting acquisition, four-person mobile ad tech firm Media Armor has been bought by Nomi for an undisclosed sum, according to TechCrunch. Founders Elizabeth Zalman and Eric Brown will move from Boston to NYC and assume executive roles within their new company. Read more. This follows the acquisition of another firm working in the cross-device space – Admobius – by Lotame. Some cross-device tech needs a bigger home? Read this article from January on AdExchanger for more on Nomi.

Pay You Later

Media company Say Media is apparently not getting paid by its advertisers as quickly as it would like. Ad Age’s Michael Sebastien writes, “Say Media told publishers in its ad network that it will begin paying them on a 120-day payment schedule effective Apr. 1, slowing payment from an average of 85 to 90 days.” Read more.

Bolstering Programmatic

Digital advertising company CPXi banked $30 million in funding to build out its programmatic creative and programmatic media technologies. Along with that news the company announced that CMO Jeff Hirsch has been promoted to president. According to the release, CPXi did $111 million in revenue in 2013. Read the release. CPX acquired AdReady in 2013. Perhaps more acquisitions are on the way.

Pinterest To Adopt Native Ads

For the first time, Pinterest is gearing up to launch native ads on its platform. Digiday has the mockups of what we can expect come April. With an initial offering to about a dozen brands and a mandatory six-month commitment, the CPM is set at approximately $30. Promoted pins will include geotargeting capabilities, as well as targeting based on mobile device – which is significant considering more than 75% of Pinterest traffic occurs on mobile. Read more.

RMX CEO Spotted

Former Right Media (acquired by Yahoo in 2007) CEO Mike Walrath is profiled in The New York Times. The entrepreneur gets star treatment. The article includes a bit of advertising nostalgia: “[Mike Walrath] started Right Media with [Moat co-founders] Jonah and Noah Goodhart, two brothers who had been big buyers of DoubleClick ads and were intrigued by an idea Mr. Walrath had for an open auction marketplace for web publishers and advertising networks.” Read more. And read Walrath’s 2010 “Thinking About The Marketing Services Company Of The Future” on AdExchanger. Finally, see Walrath meet a man in a chicken suit.

You’re Hired!