Upsight's New Targeting; Michael Barrett Talks

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Location Location Location

Analytics and marketing platform Upsight is adding another layer of targeting to geolocation data. The company released a new tool on Tuesday, GeoTrigger, that helps marketers target key consumers based on where they are and what they might want. For instance, if a mobile user passes by a storefront, marketers can sent out coupons to that user, but mobile users must opt in for marketers to receive location data. Marketers can also preprogram “geofences,” or strategic boundaries that trigger marketing campaigns. Read more on VentureBeat. And read the release.

Mobile Ad Budget Battle

In an interview with Ad Age, Millennial Media CEO Michael Barrett details his plans to take on major players in the mobile-ad business. Despite Google, Facebook, Twitter and Pandora taking the majority of mobile ad budgets, Barrett argues Millennial Media ‘s offerings for cross-device tracking and attribution set it apart. “It’s a helluva lot easier moving from mobile, what we have, to online than having all these cookies and trying to figure out what the person looks like on mobile,” said Barrett. “We’re in a very leveraged position to take advantage of that. It’s a significant piece of the revenue now. In the coming months, we’ll open that up and make it part of the transaction stream in the exchange. That will give us a nice differentiation.” Read on.

High-Impact Ads

Intrusive ads are on the rise across browsing devices, reports Digiday. In 2013, the top 10 publishers of high-impact ads served a total of 8,989. In the first six months of 2014, publishers ran 4,971 high-impact ads (data from Moat Pro). At this rate, high-impact ads are on track to be 11% higher than last year. One suggested reason for the increase is that the media landscape is becoming more cluttered, and marketers are competing for attention. Read more.

Comcast In Control

Comcast’s acquisition of FreeWheel in March may be making big media providers wary, according to The Wall Street Journal. Companies such as Time Warner, Viacom, Walt Disney Co. and 21st Century Fox all use FreeWheel’s tech to serve ads across TV, tablets, smartphones and desktop. Ad digital ad spend increases, some worry Comcast might have the upper hand. “I understand that on paper it’s a concern,” responded Comcast’s VP of advanced advertising, Rob Holmes. “But our goal is to maximize the value of FreeWheel to the overall ecosystem, and not respecting our clients data in some way would run counter to those purposes.” Read more (subscription).

PubNative Gets (App)Lift Off

Programmatic and native advertising might seem like “strange bedfellows,” but that hasn’t stopped mobile games marketing platform AppLift from funding native ad platform PubNative to the tune of a seven-figure backing. Specific terms were not revealed. As a mobile SSP and native ad exchange, PubNative, which launched Tuesday, is the third in a string of mobile launches in the last two months, following closely on the heels of InMobi and NativeX. But not everyone is convinced of the marriage. Read more at MediaPost.

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Pinterest Gone Fishing

On Tuesday, Pinterest introduced an animated “Follow Pin” feature designed with businesses and brands in mind. The new feature is not associated with any fee, according to one Pinterest spokesperson. Instead, it appears to be Pinterest’s ways of inciting brands to think of their platform in order to drive usage and traffic. Pinterest product manager Jason Costa explained, “Your visitors won’t ever have to leave your website to follow you.” Read what that means on TechCrunch.

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