Allison Schiff is the managing editor of AdExchanger, where she covers mobile, Facebook (sorry, Meta), measurement, privacy and the app economy. Allison received her M.A. in journalism from the Dublin Institute of Technology in Ireland (her favorite place), and a B.A. in history and English from Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.
Over-the-top may be the new hotness, but sellers need to prove it before advertisers will really start to bite. On Thursday, Samsung’s advanced TV division, Samsung Ads, said that it’s partnering with Oracle Data Cloud’s Moat to measure viewability and the invalid traffic (IVT) rates for ad delivery on over-the-top inventory across Samsung Smart TV […]
Adjust raised $227 million in funding – and there’s no need to adjust your screen on the amount. The monster round, announced Wednesday, brings the Berlin-based mobile measurement company’s total funding to $250 million. It was led by new investors Eurazeo Growth, Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners and Sofina, and existing investor Highland Europe. Previously, […]
The US Department of Justice is reportedly preparing an antitrust investigation into Google. But that doesn’t mean Google is headed for a breakup and, at least for now, there are way more questions than answers. Which parts of Google’s sprawling business will the DOJ look into? Will it delve beyond Google’s search practices, which have […]
Apple dropped a mini bombshell Monday at its Worldwide Developer Conference: a privacy-safe logon button for apps. Positioned as “the fast and easy way to sign in without all the tracking” according to SVP of software engineering Craig Federighi, “Sign in with Apple” is a developer-initiated alternative to the single sign-ons offered by the likes […]
When Snap first acquired Placed in 2017, it teased the prospect of proving to buyers how Snap Ads translate into store visits and real-world results. Yet over the next two years, before Snap sold Placed to Foursquare last week, Snap never highlighted the Placed technology in its pitch to media buyers; Placed was never integrated […]
A crop of amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act have been sent to the state Senate for a vote. The bills, which aim to modify and clarify the regulation, were first approved in waves by the California Assembly throughout the month of May. The ones that receive the Senate’s eventual blessing will then head […]
Apple’s high-profile assault on third-party tracking continues. Starting with iOS 13 in the fall, users will be able to log in to apps and services using Apple Face ID without sharing other personal information. The new “Sign in with Apple” button, an unconcealed jab at Google and Facebook, is a way to sign in “without […]
Out-of-home (OOH) advertising is the only traditional media that’s still showing growth, but some advertisers are holding back, because the process of buying billboards and transit ads is like wrangling cats. To try and get more advertisers on board, AdQuick, a startup backed by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, is creating an online marketplace for buying […]
Placed has found a new home. Foursquare is buying the location-based measurement company from Snap. Separately, it raised $150 million in fresh funding courtesy of The Raine Group, some of which is going to fund the acquisition. The rest is earmarked for R&D. The deal, announced early Friday morning, comes less than two years after […]
Mark Zuckerberg has four top priorities for Facebook in the year ahead – but stepping down as chairman of the board ain’t one of them. At Facebook’s annual stockholders meeting on Thursday, numerous resolutions to create a check on Zuckerberg’s power – he simultaneously serves as chair of the board and CEO – were vetoed, as expected. Although […]
Firefly is moving fast. On Thursday, the San Francisco-based startup, which places digital ad displays on the top of private rideshare vehicles and taxis and then splits the revenue with drivers, announced its expansion into New York City, the acquisition of digital ad company Strong Outdoor and $30 million in Series A funding. The round, […]
On the surface, LinkedIn’s plan to acquire cross-device data company Drawbridge may seem like a head scratcher. What does a B2B social network want with a probabilistic cross-device vendor? The deal creates potential for LinkedIn’s marketing products that go beyond Drawbridge’s existing technology assets. If LinkedIn wanted access to an identity graph, it could have […]
While good-acting companies knock themselves out trying to comply with data protection and privacy laws, and regulators debate the minutiae of cookie consent policies, bad actors simply couldn’t care less. The front door may be locked, but the basement windows are wide open. Unauthorized data harvesting from mobile apps has continued nearly unabated in the […]
Facebook is bringing playable ads, an interactive format that lets users demo a mini version of an app before downloading it, to Audience Network starting Wednesday. It’s available within rewarded video and interstitial placements. In the coming weeks, Facebook is also planning to expand access to its rewarded video unit to all publishers across the […]
LinkedIn is buying Drawbridge. The acquisition was announced quietly on Tuesday via a mere mention buried in a blog post, and the deal price was undisclosed. The deal is expected to close by the end of June. Drawbridge CEO Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan and CTO Devin Guan are coming aboard, although LinkedIn declined to share which other […]
France’s data protection authority is giving publishers until the spring of 2020 to design and deploy GDPR-compliant cookie consent notices. Until then, scroll consent – aka, soft or tacit consent – will be acceptable. At a meeting in late April, representatives from the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés told French industry trade organizations […]
When it comes to ad tracking in Safari, Apple usually taketh away. But sometimes Apple giveth advertisers a little something. Meet privacy-preserving ad click attribution for the web. Think of it as Apple throwing a bone to advertisers who need a way to measure the effectiveness of their ads in Safari, which is where tracking […]
Although the Justice Department could try to block the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint merger (maybe), Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai bestowed his blessing on the deal earlier this week. If T-Mobile and Sprint manage to merge, they’ll have around 126 million subscribers and become the third largest telco in the United States behind Verizon and AT&T, […]
Real-time bidding is under the gun in Europe. On Wednesday, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) opened a formal investigation into whether Google’s ad-exchange data-processing practices violate the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). GDPR celebrates its first birthday on May 25. A complaint filed in September 2018 with regulators in Ireland and the United Kingdom triggered […]
On Wednesday, Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS), a division of Comcast Cable, rolled out a self-serve platform that automates the complex process of connecting a media plan to the creative workflow and also unifies linear and digital ad management. The CTS ad suite ingests an advertiser’s media buy – which could include hundreds or even thousands of […]
The programmatic advertising ecosystem is a mess – even its main architect agrees. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Brian O’Kelley, founder and former CEO of AT&T-owned AppNexus, shared a three-pronged proposal for how he’d start to fix the tangled web he helped weave. First, give consumers control and transparency over their data. […]
Remember Do Not Track? It’s back. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-MO, is reviving the decade old concept in proposed legislation that aims to let consumers opt out of online tracking beyond just browser-based activity. In its original form in 2011, Do Not Track (DNT) relied on voluntary participation from browsers to respect a consumer’s desire to […]
MoPub released an SDK update on Tuesday that gives app publishers access to impression-level revenue data. Historically, that type of data – which lets user acquisition managers attribute revenue and lifetime value to specific users at the impression level – has been hard to come by. Most third-party ad networks haven’t been set up to […]
2018 was a pretty good year for Twitter, all things considered. Users are growing, if you don’t look at monthly active users (MAUs). Twitter is starting to get a handle on harassment, with machine learning models proactively identifying 38% of the abusive tweets taken down every week. And the platform has been profitable for four […]
Beyond the money they mint with their owned-and-operated inventory, Google, Facebook and Amazon are, each in their own way, bidding into nearly every programmatic auction that takes place across the open internet. Although programmatic is growing year over year, independent ad tech players are increasingly fighting over the remaining crumbs while the walled gardens cut […]
TransUnion is busily expanding its digital marketing product portfolio. On Wednesday, the credit bureau and consumer data provider acquired marketing tech platform TruSignal. The deal – TransUnion declined to share terms – arrives less than a year after the company hired seasoned ad executive and former MediaLink managing director, Matt Spiegel, as EVP of digital marketing solutions […]
The digital advertising business ain’t easy – just ask any traditional publisher. But there are bright spots. The New York Times had its best year last year for ad revenue – $709 million – in the roughly 15 years since print writ large really started to suffer, said NYT COO and EVP Meredith Kopit Levien, speaking Tuesday at […]
Mobile growth marketers are going through a few growing pains in the transition from ad networks to programmatic. “There’s a lack of knowledge, a lack of resources, a lack of data and it requires a lot of research to find the right partners,” said Gabriel Sampaio, growth lead for digital channels at Rappi, an on-demand […]
Tealium has raised $55 million in new funding, its sixth round, the company said Wednesday. The round, led by Silver Lake Waterman with participation from ABN AMRO, Bain Capital and a smorgasbord of others, brings its total funding to $160 million since 2012. Most of the cash will go toward growth in order to capitalize […]
Facebook says it’s finally going to start rolling out its long-overdue Clear History feature “in the coming months.” That activation means Facebook will have less access to certain forms of targeting data. On Tuesday, Facebook warned advertisers that the tool, which will eventually give people the ability to see and delete the data that third-party […]
