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.
Acorns is an app that allows users to invest spare change left over from daily purchases in the stock market. Now it’s making an investment of its own with the creation of a digital magazine called Grow aimed at millennials. “We’re looking to satisfy a hunger our users have for financial content,” said Jeff Cruttenden, […]
Dutch cross-device data vendor Screen6 has been flying under the radar and avoided the Nielsen verification route like its well-known competition. Last year, Tapad (recently acquired by Norwegian telco Telenor) and Drawbridge had the accuracy of their device graphs evaluated by Nielsen, coming in at 91.2% and 97.3%, respectively. Screen6 CEO and co-founder David de […]
Almost every game developer uses rewarded video to monetize because it’s lucrative – but there’s also a lot not to like about it. “A 30-second video ad just isn’t that engaging, and there’s no reason for users not to put their phone down when the video’s playing and just wait for it to end,” said Tayber […]
Yahoo reported earnings on Tuesday. Details are below – but that’s hardly what people care about now. The real question is: Who’s going to buy it? Verizon’s the clear frontrunner, but there also a few upstarts. One such is a joint investment group that includes big names like former Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn and […]
Facebook invited three new third-party ad verification partners into its inner sanctum on Tuesday – further evidence that what the buy side demands, the buy side gets. Integral Ad Science, comScore and Nielsen will now be able to verify viewability and attention metrics for display and video ads on Facebook, including mobile web and in-app. […]
Apester, a self-described digital storytelling platform, rounded out its Series A on Tuesday with $12 million, bringing its total funding to $17 million. The fresh infusion, which came after an initial $5 million round in July, was led by Blumberg Capital, with participation from Mangrove Capital, Wellborn Ventures and several others. The cash is earmarked for […]
The irony of digital marketing is that it has to justify itself because it can justify itself. If Michelle Weiskittel, manager of digital marketing at Albertsons Safeway, wants to get the budget to do her job, she must demonstrate as clear a connection as possible between online campaigns and actual sales. Print doesn’t carry that […]
With Oracle’s acquisition of Israeli cross-device vendor Crosswise on Thursday, the number of independent cross-device vendors is getting thin on the ground. Although Oracle declined to comment or disclose details around the transaction, The Times of Israel reported a deal price in the neighborhood of $50 million, citing a source with knowledge of the matter. […]
Ten years ago Axel Springer was a classic print publisher. About 1% of its revenue came from digital. These days, digital revenue tops 70%. It’s been part of what Axel Springer US president Jens Müffelmann calls “a radical transformation” for the German publisher and it was triggered by an unlikely source – circular advertising, long the […]
If there’s one thing that ticks off Jim Kiszka, Kellogg’s senior manager of digital media, it’s paying extra for viewable impressions. “I absolutely resent the fact I have to pay more for viewability,” Kiszka said Wednesday at AdExchanger’s PROGRAMMATIC.IO show in San Francisco. “I wish I could have a refund for the last 10 years […]
You know how sometimes you just want to watch a movie without having to log in and scan the catalogs of every streaming video portal? Enter MightyTV, which came out of beta on Wednesday. The startup, from Admeld founder and former CTO Brian Adams, is a free discovery app for iOS that allows users to […]
Apple and Google own the app economy – and that makes distribution and discovery pretty tricky for the average app developer. “These companies … are monopolizing this ecosystem,” said Chris Cunningham, newly minted CRO of beacon and proximity data aggregation company Unacast, speaking at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Mobile Marketplace event on Monday in New York […]
Mobile game publisher I Got Games (IGG) – which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on paid acquisition – was noticing its user retention tank. The culprit? App-install fraud. IGG has 18 million monthly active users evenly distributed across the world, with roughly 40% coming from the Americas, 30% from Europe and 30% from Asia […]
When YP Canada quietly acquired programmatic mobile ad platform JUICE Mobile for $35 million on March 17, its main concern was to assuage any potential investor concerns that the directory and listings behemoth wouldn’t be able to make its debt payments. YP Canada was $1.7 billion in debt and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy […]
The promise of location data is one thing. The undeniable issues around scale and inaccuracy that come along with it are another. “No one disputes that the accuracy and quality of physical data is way below average,” said mobile tech vet Chris Cunningham, who on Wednesday took the reins as CRO of beacon and proximity […]
It’s possible to sync radio ads and digital billboards to reach drivers with cross-channel messaging – but scale, targeting options and measurement are roadblocks to adoption. For one, there’s just not that much inventory available programmatically yet. “It’s nascent,” admitted Mark van de Crommert, CEO of Mediasynced, an Amsterdam-based TV/online syncing company that recently released […]
A little less than a year ago, Snapchat was still at the beginning stages of working out its advertising strategy. Its ad sales team felt small, at least from the perspective of some agency execs, and unable to keep up with agency and advertiser demand. But in recent months, Snapchat seems to be taking itself […]
There was a problem with 2nd Time Around’s paper-based loyalty program. No one was using it. “It was an inconsistent experience, it wasn’t trackable and we didn’t get any data out of it,” said Kristin Kohler Burrows, president and CEO of 2nd Time Around, a fashion consignment retailer that operates more than 40 stores across […]
The ad industry is still hashing out how to handle the practical implications around desktop viewability, but ready or not, the Media Rating Council released the near-final draft of its mobile viewability standard for public comment on Friday. “I wouldn’t say that everybody is ready for this, but there are numerous people clamoring for standards, and organizations […]
There’s an opportunity around location that extends beyond targeting consumers with ads for mayonnaise or corn flakes when they’re walking down an aisle in a grocery store. “The location data opportunity is still unfolding,” said Tracey Scheppach, EVP of precision video at Publicis Groupe’s Starcom MediaVest. “As agencies start to get smart about things like […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday formally approved its privacy proposal for Internet service providers, despite dissent from several commissioners. “It’s as if we all forgot how the Internet economy actually works today,” said FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, who opposed the proposal aimed at curtailing how telcos and ISPs collect, share and monetize customer […]
Some app developers are raking in the cash hand over fist – Supercell made $924 million in profits last year – and others are eating instant ramen noodles for dinner. Most developers make less than $500 a month, according to Vision Mobile. But that doesn’t mean the ramen eaters don’t deserve access to sophisticated analytics and business […]
Shaina Boone will discuss viewability, fraud and supply chain issues on April 14 at PROGRAMMATIC.IO in San Francisco. Talking about fraud and viewability is one thing – but “actually managing it is an entire program,” said Shaina Boone, managing director of marketing sciences at OMD USA, where she helms the analytics practice. Managing advertiser expectations is […]
Macy’s is getting experimental with location data. “Location data can help us move from cross-device to omnichannel,” said Kimberly Yarnell, VP of digital media at Macy’s, speaking at the Mobile Marketing Association’s mobile location leadership forum on Thursday in New York City. “I like to think about location as being the key to providing context […]
For Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, mobile is no longer a sideshow – it’s the main attraction. Roughly 65% of its website traffic comes via mobile devices. But attributing mobile’s impact on ticket sales was no small feat. “The customer journey has become multitouch,” said Sam Gomez, VP of digital marketing at Feld Entertainment, […]
Mom-and-pop shops can now buy and target their Facebook ads through Square as part of a deeper integration between the two partners. The move, announced Wednesday, makes a heck of a lot of sense. Small business owners that use Square can already automatically share their promotions on Facebook. Now they’ll be able to combine their […]
App publishers are paring down the number of software development kits (SDKs) they use to monetize their ad inventory. On Wednesday, German mobile marketing outfit glispa tossed its hat in the ring with the launch of Ampiri, its mediation solution. Ampiri is built from technology glispa acquired from MoneyTap, a St. Petersburg, Russia-based company with […]
Beyond the headlines, the drama and all the talk, there’s the daily reality of actually putting viewability into practice. “The questions around how to transact around viewability have been such a big issue for both publishers and advertisers that I think there has been a session in just about every major conference over the past […]
Mobile viewability is going through its awkward adolescent phase. There’s no official standard yet – the Media Rating Council (MRC) is planning to circulate a document for public comment in the next few weeks – and vendors are still tinkering with their methods. Which can lead to confusion around implementation, measurement-induced headaches and wonky reporting. “Everyone is […]
App publishers are constantly walking the line between user experience and making money. That’s the “main challenge” facing Baptiste Chardon, the man in charge of handling monetization for French game publisher Ubisoft’s more than 25 free-to-play mobile titles, which range from kid games to less casual offerings. An additional challenge lies in making sure that advertising […]
