Target Offers Programmatic Campaigns For In-Store Brands; AdRoll Lays Off 29 Employees

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Target’s Targeted Supply

Target is putting together programmatic campaigns for brands it carries in-store by leveraging its in-house DMP in combination with DSP partners. It’s retail “audience extension” of the sort Amazon and Walmart have also dabbled in. According to Brent Rosso, VP of digital media for Target, “It’s about how you can marry the best inventory … to your data and the publishers you have relationship with, and maybe form a private marketplace.” Target just signed a demand-side deal with DBM to go along with a pre-existing MediaMath partnership, and Merkle is helping it develop an in-house trading desk. More at Digiday.

Time To Roll

AdRoll has laid off 29 employees, or roughly 6% of its staff, Fortune reports. “We made prioritization decisions to focus on the growth areas that we’re most excited about,” CEO Aaron Bell said in a statement. “This led to a small number of roles being eliminated. We also opened other new roles, and there was no personnel impact in R&D.” The performance marketing and retargeting company has raised $90 million and has a $150 million revenue run rate. It’s not clear what AdRoll’s growth priorities are, but in a recent AdExchanger interview CEO Aaron Bell said AdRoll has an opportunity to move into mar tech. More.

Code For All

Integral Ad Science will open-source its mobile verification SDK in early 2017, allowing publishers to measure mobile inventory outside of partner integrations. Open-source code is easier for app publishers to set up and will offer reduced latency and ad load across their platforms while opening up more inventory for measurement. “This approach cuts years off for advertisers to be able to measure viewability on 100% of their mobile campaigns, compared to the small percent they are currently able to measure,” CEO Scott Knoll said in a statement. Read the release.

Off To The Races

Google is going full tilt to catch Amazon’s Alexa, which spent the past two years finding its way into millions of homes. Google’s digital assistant came out two months ago, but the company is already opening the platform up to developers to “interact with Google users by building bots that answer questions and, eventually, sell and book things through voice controls,” Bloomberg’s Mark Bergen writes. It’ll be years before developers turn voice-activated AI into a viable business model, says Jason Douglas, the Google product leader overseeing the platform. But don’t let that time frame fool you into thinking this isn’t an imperative. Remember, you practically have to sprint the marathon if you want to be a champion. More.

Cozy Up

Now that Microsoft’s $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn is complete, the fun begins. CEO Satya Nadella tells The New York Times that “the stakes are absolutely high” for Microsoft’s biggest acquisition to date. Rather than squeezing LinkedIn’s platform and 10,000 employees into Microsoft’s existing product suite, the B2B networking site will remain its own company with chief executive Jeff Weiner at the helm. “I absolutely think of LinkedIn as our Instagram,” Nadella said. Top of mind for both companies is expanding LinkedIn’s network. More. Whither marketing revenue, Mr. Nadella?