As a staff reporter at AdExchanger, Alison covers advertising agencies and the digital audio landscape. Previously a copywriter at MarketSmiths, she has written digital marketing copy and produced campaigns across multiple verticals. Prior to that Alison worked in editorial at award-winning travel journalism site Fathom. She has a B.A. in International Studies and Spanish from the University of Michigan.
Regulation and an increased demand for user privacy has slowed the flood of money into programmatic advertising globally. Sixty-nine percent of all dollars spent on digital advertising will be transacted programmatically by 2020, up from 65% in 2019, Zenith predicts. And programmatic spend will surpass $100 billion globally for the first time this year. But […]
Most of the information brands have about influencers is flawed. “There’s no validating evidence from the platforms,” said Casey DePalma McCartney, head of PR, influencer marketing and digital engagement at Unilever, at an ANA conference in New York on Thursday. “The biggest issue is validation of the data.” Since Unilever sparked an industry conversation about […]
Most agencies are myopic in their approach to Amazon. They might only focus on retail optimization or just concentrate on search. But Amazon also offers an array of opportunities across OTT, audio, social and branding, said Travis Johnson, global CEO of Amazon consultancy Podean. “What Amazon is doing is very broad, [and] nobody is thinking […]
Kinesso, the data and technology unit IPG launched in October, announced the formation of a Digital Responsibility Practice on Monday. The group will be led by Sheila Colclasure, a 20-year Acxiom vet who was most recently SVP of global public policy at LiveRamp. In her new role, Colclasure will help Kinesso technologists, data scientists and […]
If Instagram permanently removes public likes – a test that went global Thursday – it will greatly impact the influencer marketing industry by forcing influencers to embrace more sophisticated marketing metrics. Marketers will push even harder to evaluate influencers based on clicks, view-through rates and swipe-up engagements with stories, said Daniel Schotland, chief operating officer […]
Red Antler, the agency known for creating brands such as Casper, Allbirds and Brandless, launched a performance agency on Thursday called Good Moose. Good Moose debuts with a team of 12 and performance marketing capabilities across search, social, programmatic and ecommerce. Daniel Romano, Red Antler’s head of performance marketing, will lead the agency as CEO. […]
MDC Partners is the latest holding company to place its programmatic, search and social talent into a team that spans across its media network, MDC Media Partners. The group, which doesn’t have a name, was announced internally on Thursday and contains roughly 100 experts across biddable media and digital planning from agencies Assembly, Unique Influence […]
Though new to advertising, the video app TikTok is learning from competitors’ mistakes to forge strong relationships with buyers and to build a clear sales pitch. Unlike Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snap, which focused on audience growth over advertising opportunities at first, TikTok understood early on how to successfully work with media buyers. Facebook and […]
TV was once the easiest way to reach a broad audience with a consistent message. But now that viewing has fragmented across devices and screens, the TV buyer’s job has become much more complex. Enter LiveRamp, whose business model is built on solving fragmentation. By adding connected TV (CTV) IDs to its IdentityLink ID graph, […]
Roku is sitting in a nice position as the streaming wars kick off. The OTT platform reported on Wednesday net revenue growth of 50% year over year to $260.9 million in Q3. And it will benefit from the proliferation of both ad-supported and non-ad-supported services. More high-profile streaming services will drive more engagement on Roku, […]
Google is taking advantage of all the product discovery happening on YouTube. The company said on Tuesday that advertisers buying Shopping Ads can extend their campaigns so those ads show up on YouTube’s home page and search feed. Google first let marketers use its search data to inform YouTube targeting back in 2017. User behavior, […]
For years, Pandora Jewelry sat comfortably at the top of its category. And then it noticed a disconcerting mystery: a drop-off in customer consideration. “People know us,” said Charisse Hughes, CMO at Pandora Jewelry. “The question is, why aren’t they buying?” Hughes has been leading a two-and-a-half year effort to get to the bottom of […]
Twitter will ban political advertising as of Nov. 22. CEO Jack Dorsey broke the news with a tweet storm on Wednesday, citing conflicts of interest that occur when politicians use targeted advertising to influence votes. Read it. “We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,” he wrote. “A political message earns reach when […]
AT&T rolled out the red carpet for investors Tuesday in true Hollywood fashion – with a flashy event at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank, California, to unveil its HBO Max streaming service. In a presentation resembling the upfronts, AT&T revealed that HBO Max will launch in the United States in May 2020 with 10,000 hours […]
Background music in stores is often heard but rarely listened to. But perhaps that will change with more precise messaging. In that spirit, Vibenomics, whose software curates and sells ads against custom in-store radio stations, will enable targeted messaging via a partnering with Triton Digital’s programmatic audio marketplace. Vibenomics’ digital radio stations operate in 4,000 […]
With Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max and Peacock all hitting the market between this November and April 2020, streaming services will spend big on marketing to attract subscribers and compete for share. In this new landscape, networks will have to reevaluate whether to accept tune-in ads from competitive streaming services. TV networks mentioned in this […]
This story previously said Spotify switched off of Google’s ad stack. A Spotify spokesperson said the company misspoke and that it has only switched off of Google’s order management system, Google Sales Manager. Friction from migrating off of Google Sales Manager in July caused Spotify to take a roughly $10 million revenue hit in Q3, […]
When Roku bought dataxu for $150 million on Tuesday, it said the deal would make it easier for buyers of all sizes to access OTT inventory at scale, and use Roku’s ID off platform. Roku is basically trying to make more inventory, powered with better data, available to advertisers, said Frank Sinton, president and founder […]
Roku’s $150 million purchase of dataxu illustrates the streaming giant’s vision to own and operate an open marketplace for OTT inventory. The deal, announced Tuesday, gives Roku a self-serve buying platform that hooks into both its own and other OTT premium video supply, as well as display and cross-platform media. That positions Roku to operate […]
OTT giant Roku will acquire the demand-side platform (DSP) dataxu for $150 million, the companies said Tuesday. The deal, which is a mix of cash and stock, will strengthen Roku’s self-serve ad buying capabilities, the company said in a press release. Roku has 30.5 million active accounts on its platform and a growing programmatic advertising […]
Digital is still growing faster than any other advertising medium in the United States, but the segment is starting to show signs of maturing. US digital advertising revenues grew 17% YoY in the first half of 2019, reaching $58 billion, according to the IAB’s internet advertising revenue report, released Monday. While that’s the highest first-half […]
When direct-to-consumer cleaning startup Truman’s launched seven months ago, it didn’t just set out to disrupt the way cleaning companies make and distribute products. Its underlying goal was to humanize the category by creating a direct connection with customers. “I like the idea of reimagining what a brand can be in a sleepy category,” said […]
Martin Sorrell went on the attack in a fireside chat with Accenture Interactive senior managing director Glen Hartman. The S4 executive chairman fixated on Accenture’s operating and incentive structure and how much autonomy creative agencies maintained within its network. “Accenture talks about one P&L,” he said during the session at AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO New York. […]
Ad tech company Ad/Fin ceased business operations on Friday after a tumultuous few years of existence. Launched in 2012 as a tool to benchmark pricing data in programmatic media, Ad/Fin made enemies of the agency holding companies when it teamed up with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and Ebiquity on a 2016 report uncovering […]
Reprise is a specialty agency born in the age of channel planning. What started as a search specialty shop combined in 2018 with IPG mobile agency Ansible and social agency Society as audience-based buying took off. While channel expertise still remained relevant, distinguishing agency services by channels didn’t resonate as much with clients. So when […]
Google is still by far the dominant player in search advertising, but Amazon is quickly stealing share as it grows in the number two spot. Amazon’s search business will grow 30% in 2019 to $7 billion, making up 13% of the total US search market, according to a forecast released Tuesday by eMarketer. That’s peanuts […]
The podcast industry is ripe for influencer marketing. That’s the view of Agnes Kozera and David Kierzkowski, co-founders of self-serve influencer marketing platform FameBit, which Google acquired in 2016. The pair has since left Google and is developing an analogous platform for the podcast industry, which has plenty in common with the video influencer market, […]
Publicis reported Q3 earnings on a last-minute call with investors Thursday after results came in worse than expected, causing the holding company to lower its guidance through 2020. Organic growth was down 2.7% to $2.86 billion in Q3, and down 1.4% to $7.6 billion in the first nine months of the year. So Publicis lowered […]
Small businesses in the United States are driving ad spend growth globally, thanks to self-serve and cost-efficient ad buying tools from Facebook and Google. While local businesses traditionally use local TV and radio, producing a commercial can cost thousands of dollars. And even though some DTC brands are targeting on OTT, production for those spots […]
Creatives still struggle to use data. Holding companies may have spent $12 billion collectively on data assets over the past decade, but creative agencies still don’t know how to use those tools, according to Forrester. But creative agency Heat has been able to bake AI into its creative process by tapping into its parent company […]
