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.
Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress didn’t always have a “Hall 8.” Today, that’s where they keep all the mobile ad tech – and it’s huge. An entire pavillion packed with vendors and bustling with brands and agency reps looking to get serious about mobile innovation. “The first year I came here, it was very much about the […]
Creativity on mobile – or the lack thereof – was top of mind at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday. “The notion that creativity hasn’t been cracked on mobile – I find that depressing,” said Lindsay Pattison, CEO of Maxus Worldwide, speaking at an IAB event sponsored by Facebook and NASDAQ during the big show. “Most clients […]
On Monday, more than 90,000 tech vendors, manufacturers, marketers, agency reps, carriers, analysts, reporters and sundry members of the C-suite from more than 200 countries descend on Barcelona for Mobile World Congress with a single acronym on their lips: IoT — The Internet of Things. But connected cars, smart washers, chatty fridges, intelligent garage doors and the […]
NASCAR fans are loyal fans – and loyal fans are gunning to engage. But until last week, NASCAR, which acts as a governing body for stock car racing in the US and around the world, didn’t have a way for its fans to show their loyalty through the organization’s mobile app, a linchpin of its overall […]
IronSource is counting its cash. The Israeli ad distribution and app monetization company, which announced an $85 million round in September, said Wednesday that it’s brought in an additional $20 million from a group of unnamed investors led by Access Industries. These two funding events represent the first time ironSource, which works with Yahoo, Google, […]
Women who wear Louboutin stilettos are more likely to watch boxing, have at least four credit cards and compost regularly. Snowboarders overindex for gambling, eating at Applebee’s and always being first in line to buy the newest tech gadget. Diet Coke drinkers likely drive a Mercedes-Benz, shop at Ann Taylor Loft and listen to the radio […]
Getting freemium users to become paid users is a nuanced process that varies from person to person. Users on the brink of turning their free trial into a paid subscription need only a little nudge. Others, admittedly a much smaller number of people, will quickly pay for subscriptions. But neither group is the ideal target. […]
Yahoo hopes to entice the mobile dev community with a suite of tools around app monetization, ad buying and search served through the Flurry SDK. The man leading that charge is Prashant Fuloria, Yahoo’s SVP of advertising products, who came on board after Yahoo’s July acquisition of Flurry, where he spent two years as chief of […]
Yahoo is buoying its push to be a mobile player with a mobile dev suite, revealed Thursday at the company’s first-ever mobile developer conference – but the products, and Yahoo’s plans, are highly contingent on an important factor. Will developers see the value in Yahoo’s app-monetization tools? Flurry’s SDK now includes demand from both Gemini, […]
This is what Yahoo’s been cooking ever since it snapped up Flurry in July – a mobile developer suite made of five new and enhanced mobile products. And these are the top-line takeaways: Gemini native ads and video ads from BrightRoll are now available via the Flurry SDK. And comScore will integrate with Flurry to let developers […]
If an ad isn’t seen, that ad shouldn’t be counted. That’s Facebook’s position on viewability in a nutshell. As the debate around viewability swirls, Facebook outlined its point of view in a blog post Wednesday. “It doesn’t make sense for advertisers to count impressions that never enter a person’s viewable area,” said Brad Smallwood, Facebook’s VP of measurement […]
When Yahoo eyes the future, it sees the words “premium mobile media company” appended to its name in lights. That’s been the hope since Marissa Mayer became CEO in 2012. Recent acquisitions of video DSP BrightRoll and app analytics company Flurry speak to Yahoo’s plans and Mayer herself articulated those plans at the Goldman Sachs tech conference in […]
It’s a mobile world and Rocket Fuel wants a piece of it. The ad network, known historically as a desktop display player, announced Tuesday the launch of Local Lift, a tool that purports to drive in-store foot traffic and measure the results by connecting mobile clicks to store visits. Although this isn’t Rocket Fuel’s first […]
Demand-side platforms (DSPs) have dominated the exchange world for a long time now. But Telefonica-backed mobile exchange Axonix is looking to change that dynamic with the launch of a white-label product that will allow publishers to create their own branded mobile exchanges. “This is about swinging the power pendulum back from the demand side, where […]
Mobile is the mother of all invention at BabyCenter, an online content hub for pregnancy and parenting-related content. Founded in 1997, BabyCenter has always maintained a digital-first mindset – but the changing consumption habits of its more than 40 million global monthly users, mainly current and expectant mothers, means that mobile is fertile ground for […]
Measurement mogul Nielsen is bullish on its evolving digital measurement capabilities – but panels aren’t going anywhere, said CEO Mitch Barns. “The future of measurement is not about choosing between panels and big data,” Barns told investors on an earnings call Thursday. “It’s about combining high-quality panels with granular data sets for the best of both […]
Search doesn’t have the sexiest rep – but there’s a reason for that. “The story was very straight for a long time – Google owned search, so what else was there to talk about?” said Mike Yudin, CTO of programmatic search company adMarketplace. “But now we’re seeing the great unbundling of search and I think that’s a […]
The majority of TripAdvisor’s revenue came from advertising in Q4 2014. Of TripAdvisor’s reported $288 million in fourth-quarter revenue – up 35% from Q3 – $181 million came from click-based advertising (63% of total revenue) and $36 million from display (13% of total revenue). Display CPMs were up for more than 2,000 advertisers in TripAdvisor’s network, President […]
It’s not a case of déjà vu – Israeli performance player Perion has completed its purchase of MakeMeReach, a Paris-based company that specializes in using social networks to monetize apps. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal, revealed Wednesday, comes less than a week after Marin Software bought French social advertising player SocialMoov for just north of $20 million. [In […]
The vodka market is as crowded as a downtown bar on a Saturday night – and Stolichnaya is looking to differentiate. That’s where the millennial male – a social animal – enters the picture. “Our key target is millennial men, ages 25 to 35,” Stoli brand director Sarah Gorvitz told AdExchanger. “We call them ‘authentic experiencers.’” For […]
Two years ago, Dairy Queen was spending about $200,000 a year on research. Today, the brand spends upwards of $1 million to mine consumer insights. “Previously, a lot was done based on emotion,” said Barry Westrum, EVP of marketing at American Dairy Queen Corp. “Now, decisions are backed with data.” Historically, Dairy Queen is a […]
It’s becoming acceptable for men to moisturize – and Unilever is very happy about that. “I’m also happy the world is recognizing that men should be portrayed as parents, as bright human beings and not just bumbling idiots,” said Kathy O’Brien, VP of skin and marketing services at Unilever, speaking at the ANA’s Brand Masters […]
There’s more to mobile than just meeting a KPI. That’s the idea behind a new self-serve analytics tool launched Thursday by mobile user acquisition platform Taptica that aims to help advertisers dig a little deeper into what their mobile users are up to. “Last year was all about KPI – our advertisers were focused on defining […]
Now that Right Media Exchange (RMX) has been officially sunsetted by the powers that be, the Yahoo Ad Exchange has become a private marketplace of sorts, where demand can plug into Yahoo-owned and -operated supply. Yahoo has made a concentrated effort to streamline its ad business in the past year. The company used CES 2014 as […]
Twitter is finally giving its promoted tweets wings to fly beyond Twitter’s own walls. In a blog post Tuesday, Ameet Ranadive, Twitter’s senior director of product, said that advertisers will be able to syndicate promoted tweet campaigns running on Twitter to non-Twitter properties using the same creative and audience targeting parameters. Twitter didn’t get specific on how the […]
Yahoo’s looking to befriend the devs. During the company’s Jan. 27 Q4 2014 earnings call Marissa Mayer confirmed Yahoo’s plan to use its acquisition of mobile analytics platform Flurry and its SDK as a foundation for a soon-to-be-announced mobile ad network. The Flurry SDK has been installed on more than 600,000 apps, in theory giving Yahoo […]
Verizon’s zombie cookie is now killable. In a development initially reported by The New York Times, the telco will allow its users to opt out from what the privacy community and a censorious media referred to as a “zombie cookie.” Previously, there was no way to opt out of Verizon’s persistent tracking mechanism. Users could opt out of having […]
A few years ago, pancake purveyor IHOP was doing more push than pull. “We typically did what many clients do – we pushed a lot of information,” said Kirk Thompson, IHOP’s VP of marketing, speaking at the Ad Club of NY’s MeasurementNOW conference in New York City on Thursday. “We knew a lot about [our […]
The name of AppLift’s game is lifetime user value. The Berlin-based mobile game marketing platform launched a tool called DataLift on Thursday aimed at helping mobile advertisers get a better grip on the overall lifetime value of their users. “Price is what you pay, but value is what you get,” said AppLift CEO Kaya Taner, […]
App attribution company TUNE is dog-earing a significant chunk of a new funding round to go on a hiring spree. Announced Thursday, the Series B cash injection was led by Icon Ventures (which happened to have rebranded from Jafco Ventures on Monday), with contributions from Performance Equity Management and Accel Partners, the latter which also […]
