Tagging Attribution; Automating Marketing

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

Tagging Attribution

Still calling itself a tag-management company, TagMan continues to bend into the attribution space, which helps marketers understand ad-spend performance across campaigns and channels. Yesterday the company announced a partnership with ecommerce retargeter MyThings. According to the release, through the TagMan partnership, MyThings “advertisers can see which vendors played what role leading to a conversion — be it Introductions (first-click) , Assists (mid-journey) or last-click touch points — and adjust their attribution model accordingly.” Read more.

Automating Marketing

Marketing automation companies are popping up more and more as business models shift. Former (but still) email-marketing company Silverpop — now positioned as a marketing-automation company — is offering a landing-page optimization product called “Smart Content,” tying personalization through the email login and/or cookie. According to a press release, “Smart Content connects the marketing database and the website, allowing for real-time, personal content to be written to the webpage as native HTML. So, unlike with hard coded and inflexible iframes, the Smart Content becomes a fluid part of the entire page experience and fits seamlessly within its design.” Read it. Also read AdExchanger’s interview with Silverpop CEO Bill Nussey in April. The next step for many of these marketing-automation companies is to move into the B2C space and beyond their B2B roots — where many of the DSPs/ad networks play today. Marketing-automation players are hungry for an exit, too. See: was Strongmail, now Strongview. (July AdExchanger Q&A)

Inside Funding Continues

The ad network of the “influential and affluent,” Martini Media, has raised a $14 million “inside round” of funding from investors Venrock, Granite Ventures, Reed Elsevier Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. The company said the funds will go toward investment in data products, building its programmatic solutions, international expansion and hiring. Read the release.

Facebook Settles Over ‘Social Context’

Facebook settled with five plaintiffs who sued it for using their “likes” and likenesses in Sponsored Stories ads. Reuters reports “Facebook will pay $20 million to compensate class members, and promised to give users more control over how their content is shared — changes which plaintiff lawyers estimate to have a value of up to $145 million.” Could legal concerns (and not just revenue) be behind Facebook’s investment in retargeting and other more “traditional” data-driven ads? If so there’s some irony here. More.

Amazon’s Mobile Affiliates

Amazon is adding app developers to its Amazon Associates program, suggesting it sees a bright future for affiliates in mobile. “Imagine a developer of a nutrition and fitness app can now offer their customers the ability to purchase vitamins, supplements and fitness gear within the app, directly from Amazon.com,” said Mike George, VP of Amazon Appstore, Games and Cloud Drive. Read the release.

Twitter, Retailer?

Twitter, heading into the ecommerce world, hired Ticketmaster’s former president, Nathan Hubbard, for a newly created head of commerce position. “One of the hallmarks of Twitter’s entire approach has been partnering,” Hubbard told Bloomberg. “We’re going to take the same approach with owners of physical and digital goods.” Purchase data, incoming. Read more.

Yahoo Native

Yahoo is bringing its Yahoo Stream “native” ad product to its redesigned sports, movies, music, TV, celebrity gossip and games pages. Yahoo Stream Ads and the Billboard ad format will both be available on all those pages and Yahoo Mail, which got a refresh last year. As for targeting, Yahoo’s not talking but it looks like “full steam ahead” for contextual. Read the post here.

Pay-Per-Review

Not all press is good press, but brands want to make sure people find out when something positive is said by a third-party publisher. Digiday examines the growing practice of companies paying to have good press amplified, such as McDonald’s using Outbrain to drive traffic to a positive review. “Marketers see third-party content as more valuable,” said Lisa LaCour, Outbrain’s chief marketing officer. “Publishers have an authoritative voice. It’s about validation.” Publishers like CNET are out in front on this trend. Read more.

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