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.
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 […]
Google got dinged by France’s data protection watchdog on Monday for failing to properly collect user consent under the General Data Protection Regulation. It was only a scratch but the ruling could signal a rough road ahead for the industry’s consent framework. The 50 million euro fine levied by the CNIL (the Commission nationale de […]
MillerCoors doesn’t have the opportunity to collect much first-party data: Most of its sales come through independently-owned convenience and liquor stores or bars and restaurants. “It’s very difficult to identify or measure audiences because of the nature of how these businesses are run,” said Brad Feinberg, VP of media and consumer engagement at MillerCoors. “They’re […]
Does the world need yet another tech company to combat malvertising on the internet? “Well, do you still constantly see malvertising when you browse the internet?” said Seth Demsey, co-founder of Clean Creative, an anti-malware company started by a handful of security experts and Oath vets who exited before the name change. Touché. Based in […]
France’s data protection authority issued a 50 million euro fine against Google on Monday for failing to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation. Not only was Google found not to have the proper consents in place from its users to collect and process data for personalization and ad targeting, it may not even have […]
Attention, broadcasters, SVOD services and tech companies in the midst of launching a streaming subscription service (or thinking about it): Netflix doesn’t consider you to be competition. “We compete so broadly with all of these different providers that any one provider entering only makes a difference on the margin,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said Thursday […]
In less than two years, The Meet Group managed to diversify its revenue from a near total dependence on programmatic advertising to a healthy mix of ads, in-app purchases and subscriptions. “I’d say 90% of our revenue was ad-driven before we started to shift,” said Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group, which owns a […]
Most B2B marketers – more than 60%, according to Dun & Bradstreet – spend on programmatic advertising. But when trying to connect their programmatic investment to actual leads generated down in the funnel, they hit a wall. To help them break through, Integrate, a mar tech and data orchestration platform for B2B marketers, is acquiring ListenLoop, a […]
The best-laid media plans of mice, men, buyers and sellers often go awry. On Tuesday, advertising data automation company PremiumMedia360 launched a solution that reduces revenue leakage, payment issues and general reconciliation-related agita for broadcast advertising buyers and sellers. Ad tech middlemen and agencies know the pain of slow payment. They place ads for their […]
Former AppLift CEO Tim Koschella is launching a company called Kayzen to help app marketers bring their programmatic ad buying in-house. Kayzen, which came out of stealth Tuesday after several months in beta, is powered by a bidder that Koschella purchased from AppLift through a management buyout last year. It positions itself as a self-serve […]
There’s no rest for direct-to-consumer mattress marketers. “We’re constantly running tests,” said Scott McLeod, co-founder of DreamCloud, a mattress startup housed under Nectar Home, parent company to a growing portfolio of DTC sleep and home furnishing brands, including Nectar Sleep and ecommerce rug brand Wovenly. “We have disdain for the idea of running something without […]
An American associate professor of media design is perhaps not the first person who comes to mind as the driving force behind an effort to test the limits of European data protection law, but there you go. David Carroll, who teaches at the New School’s Parsons School of Design in New York City, is partway […]
Verizon still intends to allow the entity formerly known as Oath, now called Verizon Media, to access subscriber data for advertising purposes. It was reported on Wednesday that the telco’s new CEO, Hans Vestberg, was planning to completely pull the plug on feeding data from subscribers into its media unit. Verizon Media told AdExchanger that […]
If you’re a mature marketing technology platform: Congrats. 2018 was your year and the future looks bright. But if you’re an ad tech company without a unique value prop that’s jonesing for an exit, apologies, the outlook remains fairly bleak. Although digital advertising is still growing – it’s a $100 billion market today – Google and Facebook […]
Some ad tech companies are getting out of the managed media business – and others are jumping in with both feet. On Monday, mobile analytics company UberMedia sold its managed media business to location data platform Gimbal, marking the latter’s second acquisition of a media services unit in less than a year. Gimbal acquired Drawbridge’s managed […]
California is gearing up to be a privacy battleground in 2019. On Thursday, the city attorney for Los Angeles filed a lawsuit accusing The Weather Channel app and its parent company IBM, of duping users into providing permission to collect geolocation data without explaining exactly how that data would be used, aka, not just for […]
Freight trains take time to build steam. That’s your metaphor for what’s to come in 2019 for the General Data Protection Regulation. “I think people were expecting a massive fine on Day One,” said Forrester principal analyst Fatemeh Khatibloo, “[but] these investigations take time.” Data protection authorities (DPAs) across Europe have their hands full fielding […]
Andy Main, head of Deloitte Digital, is a little tired of hearing people say consultancies are trying to muscle the agencies off of Madison Avenue. “I’d actually say the agencies are trying to copy the Deloitte Digitals of the world,” Main said. “And when someone copies you, I guess you should be flattered.” Unlike Accenture, […]
JEGI Co-President Tolman Geffs will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference on Jan. 23-24, 2019 at the Grand Hyatt New York. “There’s been a hell of a pullback investing in anything that remotely smells like ad tech,” according to Tolman Geffs, co-president of investment bank Jordan, Edmiston Group Inc. But that’s not as dire […]
What does a 13-year-old have in common with a retired woman and a middle-aged man? They all play mobile games. “There’s a misconception that the gaming audience is just kids,” said Brian Ames, president of Activision Blizzard Media (ABM), an advertising division housed within game publishing giant King. “The reality is, though, that gamers are […]
The unlikeliest folks are pushing to pass broad privacy regulations these days. On Wednesday, the Association of National Advertisers, the largest ad trade org out there, urged the Federal Trade Commission to advocate for a national privacy law that preempts the regional laws cropping up all over the country. The FTC is collecting comments in […]
2018 was the year Facebook’s skeletons really came skittering out of the closet, and the drip, drip, drip of bad news is seemingly endless. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that Facebook shared more data with more partners than previously disclosed, including contact information, private messages and friend lists. Facebook’s response to the Times […]
Advertiser interest in over-the-top is picking up steam and dollars – but cross-platform measurement is lagging behind. Data and analytics company Samba TV hopes to speed the process with the acquisition Thursday of Amsterdam-based cross-device graph provider Screen6. Ashwin Navin, Samba’s CEO and co-founder, declined to share the deal price, but noted that the company used a […]
Working with Amazon is about going in with your eyes open, said Charlie Cole, global chief ecommerce officer at luggage juggernaut Samsonite and chief digital officer at Samsonite-owned Tumi. “Amazon has a proven track record of creating brands in a data-centric way,” Cole said. “I’m always a little surprised when people on the brand side […]
Federal Trade Commission Chair Joseph Simons is in favor of a national privacy regime – but beware the potential unintended consequences, he said. “Depending on how you do privacy legislation, you could have an adverse impact on competition, potentially by entrenching the major digital platforms,” Simons told lawmakers during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on antitrust […]
Facebook is setting up a kiosk in midtown Manhattan to dole out free hot cocoa and privacy advice. (Yes, privacy advice.) At a one-day public pop-up event Thursday in Bryant Park, Facebook reps will answer questions about how people can use their privacy settings and manage their advertising experience on the platform. The event, a […]
After around a year of avoiding the spotlight, Google CEO Sundar Pichai spent nearly four hours fielding a grab bag of questions from members of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, discussing everything from the scope of Google’s data collection practices to alleged political bias in search results. The problem, as is often the case […]
AppOnboard is onboarding VC cash hand over fist. On Wednesday, the mobile app demo and analytics startup with a platform allows users to try an application before downloading it, announced its second funding round – $15 million – in less than eight months. AppOnboard’s Series A round in April totaled $15 million. That’s $30 million for the […]
