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.
Branded content is a priority for Instagram in 2019 – but measurement is seriously lacking. “That’s one of the things I wish you guys would work on,” said Edlynne Laryea, director for global Neutrogena digital transformation and sustainability, speaking at an Instagram media event Tuesday. Although Instagram claims that 68% of its users choose to interact […]
On Monday, Pinterest introed a tool to help retailers automatically ingest their online product catalogs as pins, including up-to-date pricing and stock info. Advertisers can then take the additional step to promote their product pins as targeted shopping ads, which are now available via self-serve after a prolonged beta that started last year. Similar functionality […]
As the specter of California’s Consumer Privacy Act looms over the tech world, many industry giants and trade groups have assumed a new role as collective cheerleader for broad federal privacy legislation. It wasn’t all that long ago that tech companies balked at the idea, but many have changed their tune. That has some Democrats […]
It’s out with the old and in with the new at Nielsen. Revenue for Nielsen’s Watch segment decreased 3.5% to $881 million in Q4, while Buy segment revenue declined 8.4% to $777 million. But freshly minted CEO David Kenny has a plan. Kenny, who joined Nielsen from IBM Watson in November 2018, wants to bring Nielsen’s […]
Facebook wants that upfront money. On Tuesday, Facebook said it will start letting TV buyers purchase inventory in specific programs hosted on Watch. This offering, called Showcase, resembles an upfront buy, as the inventory will be priced against Nielsen-validated demos and sold in advance at fixed prices. This content includes programs like “Sorry For Your […]
How can a brand take advantage of the 5G revolution today? Actually, that’s a trick question. The next evolution of wireless technology after 4G LTE, 5G-enabled devices won’t be available until at least 2020, despite limited test deployments in large cities and a fair amount of boasting from the big telecom companies. But what will […]
Walmart, Nike, Amazon, Dell, Honda, Lowe’s – all brand advertisers you can trust, until a bad actor steals their ad creative to use as a vehicle for spreading malware. The problem grows during periods of higher traffic, like the holidays, said Maggie Louie, CEO and founder of DEVCON, a cybersecurity startup focused on fraud detection. […]
Connected TV: Intuit is getting into it. But the financial software company is not giving up on television’s biggest tentpoles. “We’re doing the blocking and tackling of strong reach and awareness building, but we’re mixing it with more experiential and digital,” said Lauren Stafford Webb, Intuit’s VP of brand marketing. A balance between traditional and […]
Meredith’s overall Q2 ad revenue grew like gangbusters, but digital ad revenue performance was draggy – and will likely be the same next quarter, the company told investors Monday. Advertising-related revenue nearly doubled year over year to $488.9 million – a 111% increase – and digital represents more than $400 million of Meredith’s revenue for its national media […]
Facebook CFO David Wehner recently told investors that even if the economy falters, Facebook’s ability to measure advertising returns is its saving grace. Will the same hold true for small- to mid-sized marketers? AdExchanger called on several analysts and senior marketers to get their take. On the whole, they agreed SMBs will continue to buy […]
A data orchestration strategy isn’t the sort of thing you can just pull out of a hat – a fact that sports cap and apparel brand Lids knows firsthand. “For a long time, that was one of our biggest challenges as an omnichannel retailer: We had no centralized place for all of our customer information,” said […]
Nielsen and Comscore take a lot of heat for moving too slowly and failing to provide the sort of cross-channel measurement buyers and sellers say they crave. But cut ’em some slack, said Beth Rockwood, SVP of portfolio research at Turner. “Both Nielsen and Comscore have made good advances in the last year and they’re […]
Twitter’s got a new metric for Wall Street to chew on – monetizable daily active users (MDAU) – and something to hide: the fact that monthly active user growth is on the decline. Starting this quarter, Twitter will report the number of logged-in users it’s actually able to make money on rather than what CFO Ned Segal […]
Carving out a spot in the ever-crowded direct-to-consumer streaming market is an expensive proposition – and Disney is ready to spend. DTC is “a bet on the future of this business,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told investors on Tuesday, the equivalent of pouring money into building a theme park. “We are deploying capital so that the […]
Zeotap is launching a global identity graph to try and beat LiveRamp to the punch across the pond. On Tuesday, the Berlin-based mobile data platform announced the global rollout of Connect, an identity solution that deterministically links offline data to anonymized online identifiers based on exclusive relationships with telco operators in markets across Europe, India […]
Taptica will acquire RhythmOne for $176 million in an all-stock deal, the companies said Monday. The mobile ad tech firm also gets a matryoshka doll of assets along with RhythmOne, including assets from the latter’s previous acquisitions of YuMe, Burst Media and parts of RadiumOne. Taptica characterized the deal as a bid for connected televison […]
For many app publishers, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was an opportunity to examine each of their many SDK integrations and ask, “Does it spark joy?” The answer, in many cases, was no: It sparks the potential for data leakage and compliance headaches. In 2018, the number of unused SDKs – those that a publisher […]
Attention: Attorney General, State of California Re: California Consumer Privacy Act You’re killing us here. Thanks, The advertising industry The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is set to take effect in 2020 and the advertising community is desperate for some clarification. On Tuesday, a coalition of ad trade orgs sent a joint letter to the […]
Hulu viewers will soon start seeing ads when they hit pause on a show. Coca-Cola and Charmin are on tap to test the so-called pause ads, which allow advertisers to run static display ads on screen when viewers take a break. The ads, in development for most of 2018, will roll out with beta advertisers […]
Facebook is getting beaten up by a punishing news cycle – but, for its part, it’s beating the street. The stock surged more than 17% in after-hours trading on Wednesday. Revenue for the fourth quarter clocked in at $16.91 billion, a 30.4% year-over-year (YoY) increase. Nearly all of that – $16.64 billion – was thanks […]
Reddit is getting into the performance marketing game. On Wednesday, the self-described front page of the internet launched the ability for direct response advertisers to buy any of its inventory across desktop, mobile web and app on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. Until now, advertisers could purchase ads on a CPM model – or cost per […]
Apple actually mentioned the word “advertising” on its earnings call. Although hardware isn’t going anywhere, Apple’s services business, which includes search ads in the App Store, is becoming increasingly meaningful to the company’s bottom line. “Services are scaling quickly,” Apple CFO Luca Maestri told investors on Tuesday. Although iPhone sales were weak during the holiday […]
Facebook’s plan to integrate the backend infrastructure of its messaging platforms isn’t sitting well with privacy advocates, security experts, European regulators or US lawmakers. Alarm bells are ringing all over the place. The Irish Data Protection Authority says it’s going to be “very closely scrutinizing” the situation, particularly where it might involve the sharing and […]
GDPR grievances are spreading like cumulus clouds across Europe. Next stop: Poland. On Monday, the Panoptykon Foundation, a digital rights watchdog in Poland, filed a complaint to the Polish Data Protection Authority (Urząd Ochrony Danych Osobowych or UODO), arguing that data used by Google and other ad tech vendors violates the General Data Protection Regulation […]
Adobe Marketing Cloud’s top executive, Brad Rencher, is leaving the company after nearly a decade. Rencher, who as EVP and GM Digital Experience set the vision and strategy for the software giant’s digital marketing platform initiatives, first joined Adobe in 2009 through the acquisition of Omniture, which later became Adobe Analytics, a key component of […]
Paris-based analytics platform Contentsquare said Monday that it’s raised a $60 million Series C just one year after announcing its $42 million Series B. The fresh round, led by French private equity firm Eurazeo, brings the company’s total funding to $120 million since 2016. This raise, like the last, is going toward research and development […]
Investors are well over their brief love affair with independent ad tech, but other categories –namely mar tech, customer data platforms (CDPs) and advanced TV technology – are now catching their eye. Why? In a word: growth. “Growth is still what commands exit premiums – growth is what people pay for,” said Deborah Farrington, founder and […]
After more than a year in beta, Facebook is letting advertisers use third-party vendors to manage brand safety on its platform. Facebook is putting a ring on its commitment to brand safety by adding a new badge for brand safety protection companies under its marketing partner program. DoubleVerify and OpenSlate are the first two verification […]
Cords are getting cut left and right, but TV still works … right? “We all know that TV does drive ROI, but there haven’t really been any proof points like there has been in digital,” said Donna Speciale, Turner’s president of advertising sales, at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview event in New York City on Wednesday. That’s […]
LinkedIn launched interest-based targeting through its self-serve ad platform on Wednesday after more than three months in beta. B2C marketers are accustomed to targeting prospects based on their interests – “fast food lovers,” “coffee drinkers,” “gym goers” – but there is less interest data available for B2B marketers, said Abhishek Shrivastava, LinkedIn’s director of product. “A […]
