BlueKai Says DAS Is Data-Driven Future; Adobe Updates Its Marketing Stack

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

The Ad Data Space

Data exchange, data management platform and now BlueKai is looking to define a new space – the Data Activation System (DAS). The release explains, “Data Activation spans not only banners, but includes site optimization, CRM, email marketing and other possible pathways. Marketers can validate audiences, build profiles based on differing levels of engagement, and port those profiles to all of their marketing partners in order to maximize ROI.” Read it. The cross-channel positioning would appear be of interest to larger enterprise players looking to map digital data across their own existing toolsets and/or hardware. How about EMC buying BlueKai? Just a thought. On that note, how about reading an Oracle white paper on retailers’ cross-channel buying challenges – here.

Display Salad

“Display ads are the lettuce in the salad. They’re hardly anyone’s favorite part of the dish, especially when the tomatoes are so flavorful and the carrots are so crunchy, but they form the base. And you can’t have most salads without them.” And so begins Daisy Whitney’s feature piece on display in this month’s OMMA Magazine. Read it.

Addressable TV

It’s ALIVE! Addressable television – which has been “on its way” long before mobile was “next year’s next big thing” – is here. Multichannel News’ Todd Spangler reports, “Dish Network and WPP’s GroupM said they have delivered household-addressable advertising nationally in trials with 12 major advertisers — for the first time in the TV industry — to more than 7 million of the satellite operator’s DVR subscribers since October 2011.” Read more.

Facebook High Flyin’ CPMs

TBG Digital examines a few hundred billion social impressions it has managed over the past year and concludes Facebook CPMs have jumped nearly 60 percent. The main drivers are (1) more customers for Sponsored Stories ads, and (2) higher prices for mobile ads starting in Q2 2012, when the lift was measured. But ROI is up! How can this be? “Even though ad costs and Facebook’s earnings per ad delivered have increased, fan acquisition costs are even cheaper than before.” Bonus factoid: Facebook mobile ads had 4x the engagement of Twitter ads. Download the report.

Targeting Check-Ins

Some Foursquare users check in maniacally to their favorite spots. So why not let those spots check them back? AdAge’s Cotton Delo describes plans to do just that. “Through the ‘local updates’ tool, businesses can send their updates to a pool of users who will be picked by Foursquare’s algorithm based on the frequency and recency of their check-ins and the businesses they’ve ‘liked’.” Target loyalty. Read it.

The Adobe Stack

Adobe has renamed and rebranded its Efficient Frontier (EF) acqusition, which occurred in December 2011 (AdExchanger). Adobe’s display/search and EF product maven Billy Mungovan on the company’s Digital Marketing blog illiuminates thusly, “We’re excited to announce that our multi-channel adver­tis­ing opti­miza­tion tech­nol­ogy acquired from Effi­cient Fron­tier has now been rebranded Adobe AdLens. This uni­fied solu­tion for opti­miz­ing search, social and dis­play adver­tis­ing has been enhanced with a new user inter­face inte­grated into the broader Adobe Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing Suite. AdLens also offers data inte­gra­tion with the Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing Suite to pro­vide cus­tomers with improved ad opti­miza­tion, accu­rate fore­cast­ing, and sim­ple deployment.” Read more. Adobe continues to tie together its end-to-end suite of solutions – the proverbial marketing “stack” that Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce and many others are pursuing from various angles.

Hiring CEO

Former Dotmenu CEO Sloan Gaon has been brought on to take the CEO helm at PulsePoint (was Datran + ContextWeb). PulsePoint has been without a CEO since Tim Murray left to join K12 as its President and COO in April. The press release adds, “Prior to joining Dotmenu, Gaon was general manager of the web content channel of Adknowledge, the fourth largest ad network in the world, where he was responsible for managing the strategy, product, sales, business development and P&L of the group.” Read more.

Marissa Mayer

• An Open Letter to Marissa Mayer – Adweek
• What Marissa Mayer Means for Silicon Valley Women – The New York Times

Politics

• Digital Ad Spend Gap Widens Between Obama and Romney – ClickZ
• Voter file digital ad targeting: reality vs. hype – Campaigns & Elections

You’re Hired!

• Shulman Replaces Scarfi as Organic Chief Exec – Agency Spy
• Maxifier Appoints Nicole Falsey as Senior Director, Business Development and Strategic Partnerships – press release

But Wait. There’s More!

• Lessons On Viewable Ads – Cory Treffiletti on MediaPost
• Ebay Beats Forecasts On Strong Growth From Marketplaces, Q2 Revenue Up 23 Percent To $3.4B – TechCrunch
• Simulmedia and FourthWall Media Enter Data Partnership – press release
• Applifier Launches ‘Impact’ Video Advertising Network – press release
• So you call yourself a data scientist? – VentureBeat
• Foursquare to Let Brands Talk to Users Who’ve Checked In Most – Ad Age
• eHow Knows How to Connect with Moms – Demand Media
• Chinese game developer Chukong’s Fishing Joy app achieves number 1 rank in iTunes in 33 countries with help from AdMob – Google Mobile Ads blog
• ecommerce Comment 1 inShare18 Ebay Beats Forecasts On Strong Growth From Marketplaces, Q2 Revenue Up 23 Percent To $3.4B – MediaPost