Tumblr Ad Network?; OpenX Sees Momentum

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Where’s Tumblr’s Ad Net?

Amid all the big conferences and big parties associated with New York’s annual Advertising Week, there’s the big complaints about big frustrations. Among the many cavils catalogued by Adweek’s Mike Shields is the impatience with Tumblr’s still-emerging marketing offerings. “This is a very visual medium,” said Danielle Strle, Tumblr’s director of product & partnerships. Shields adds, “If I’m a brand like Coke or Absolut or something, I’m way more excited about Tumblr than Facebook. So why doesn’t Tumblr roll out an ad network?” Why indeed. Read more.

Acxiom Agnostic

ClickZ’s Kate Kaye catches up with Acxiom and its CMO Tim Suther during Advertising Week in NYC last week. Suther talks about this company’s cross-channel ad targeting vision and notes the importance of partnership. Kaye writes, “Acxiom also works with DSPs and agencies – working with them in conjunction with their trading desks, for instance. ‘We view all of these companies as partners,’ said Suther, stressing the fact that the company has no stake in media outlets chosen by ad clients.” Read more.

Facebook Retargeting Made Easy

Perfect Audience, a retargeting specialist that works with small agencies, is the latest startup to hitch its wagon to Facebook Exchange. The Chicago-based company has raised a $1.1 million round to build up its technology operations, Techcrunch’s Anthony Ha reports. Read it (Perfect Audience’s hometown paper, The Sun-Times, has more.). Perfect Audience’s co-founder and President Brad Flora tells Ha that it usually takes a few days to learn how to use most Facebook Exchange products, and there’s often a minimum ad buy. “With Perfect Audience, on the other hand, anyone can run a campaign of any size,” Ha writes. “You just create or upload the ad, fill out a form with the basic campaign information, provide a credit card, and you’re good to go.”

Exchange IPO

OpenX CEO Tim Cadogan discusses his company’s future with The Business Insider’s Jim Edwards who writes, “In Q4 2011 [Cadogan] reported an annual revenue run rate of greater than $100 million, and that OpenX was profitable. That one-off note was interpreted by many as testing the water for an IPO, but Cadogan hasn’t added to it since. Now, Cadogan says, ‘we’re well ahead of that today … and we’ve continued in that vein.'” Read more.

FBX Ad Sizes

Triggit CEO Zach Coelius keeps preaching the gospel of Facebook Exchange, telling AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka why it’s a powerful opportunity. Challenged by Kafka on the weak creative palette, he says, “The ad units are smaller than some of the others that we have, and if they were bigger they would work better. But they’re definitely not limited, and they’re not working poorly. They’re working incredibly well. I could only imagine what we could do if they gave us a bigger canvas to paint on.” More.

Criteo’s Data Story

Criteo talks attribution and data complexity in a Q&A on eConsultancy. “As an industry we often make display seem unnecessarily complex,” says Michael Steckler, MD Northern Europe. “Ultimately knowing the most important data that drives greater user experience and ultimately more sales is where advertisers should focus. However we are now in a world where there is an inordinate amount of data to dissect. This takes time, investment and real technology that can automatically make decisions based on a myriad of factors.” Read more.

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