Oracle Buying BlueKai?; Amazon Speaks

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

Report: Oracle Adds BlueKai

Business Insider reports that BlueKai may be getting acquired by Oracle for $400 million. BI’s Nicholas Carlson and Julie Bort write, “Marketing tech is shaping up to be the next big trend in enterprise tech spending and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison wants to dominate it. Companies spend nearly $4 trillion a year on technology, mostly through their IT departments.” Read more. This acquisition would be the next in a line of Oracle purchases, such as marketing automation company Eloqua in December 2012.

Amazon’s Video Move

Amazon is putting itself in direct competition with online video ad companies, striking a deal with Geico to repurpose TV ads for pre-rolls on Amazon pilots. “We’re testing and learning. It’s early days, and we’re looking at all different video formats. We’re focused on creating a great experience for our customers,” Amazon VP Lisa Utzschneider said. Read on.

Mobile Brand Safety

Nexage released a new product, Nexage Protect, that is designed to provide mobile publishers and advertisers with brand safety measures. The need for mobile brand safety solutions is growing quickly, said Stephanie Layser, MailOnline’s yield optimization manager. “With mobile becoming a bigger part of our bottom line, there are going to be more issues where fraudsters try to game the system and we need to have partners like Nexage that can monitor against that,” Layser told AdExchanger. Nexage Protect includes ad screening controls, malware detection through a partnership with The Media Trust, block lists and other features. Read more.

Healthy Ads

After the seemingly unending challenges of the past, advertising appears to be driving better results at health portal WebMd. CEO David Schlanger said on a call with Wall Street analysts, “Our positive fourth-quarter and full-year 2013 results were driven by our advertising and sponsorship business, which benefited from an improved macro industry environment and our focused efforts to become a more customer-centric and efficient organization. After declines in 2012, we finished 2013 with 10% revenue growth and 68% growth in adjusted EBITDA.” Read the transcript on Seeking Alpha. And read the earnings release.

Big Shopping Data

Ecommerce analytics startup Smarter Remarketer raised $7 million, according to VentureBeat. The small company, which was founded in 2010 by Howard Bates, has SkyMall, Eddie Bauer and Hugo Boss on its roster. “Our engine creates data sequestration profiles that enable customers to make extremely complex campaigns for retailers based on their customer’s buying habits,” Bates said. Read more.