Senior Editor
James covers the intersection of commerce, media and advertising technology.
AUTHOR ARCHIVE FOR:
James Hercher
Articles By James
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Amazon Is The Latest Major Ad Platform Going All-In On Machine Learning Tech
The new hot trend in platform advertising is to put the machines in charge of everything. It’s true of Google, true of Meta and, even more so as of this week, it’s true of Amazon.
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How Brand Power Leads To Pricing Power
Hey readers! This is James Hercher, with the latest AdExchanger Commerce dispatch. This week, we’ll highlight a few recent CPG earnings reports, during which legacy food and beverage brands appear more optimistic about their staying power than their startup competitors.
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This Is What Caused Meta’s Overspending Glitch
Meta’s latest ad platform glitch is complicated because it involves an understanding of the minutiae of how the ad platform is used.
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Meta Has Lost The Pulse Of Its Customer Base As Automation Replaces Human Services
Meta advertisers and the Meta ad platform are still dealing with the fallout from Sunday’s campaign overspending error.
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More Than A Bug? Major System Error Causes Heavy Overspending On Meta Platforms
Hope you had a peaceful Sunday. If you’re a Facebook advertiser, though, that may not have been the case. A bug or error in Meta’s ad system caused campaigns to overspend by more than double their daily spending cap during the wee hours of the morning on Sunday, according to numerous complaints on Twitter, LinkedIn […]
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This Ad Tech Vet Wrote A Book About Precision Data For The General Public
If you don’t know how data products works, but want to understand how data operates in your life an changes social systems, ask the people who do know. Madeleine Want, VP of data for Fanatics Betting and Gaming, has a data product background spanning diverse web and app services. She was Index Exchange’s senior director […]
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Why Data-Driven DTC Ad Buyers Need Creative Types (And DTC Twitter) To Get By
Motion raised $6 million this week and is riding a wave of creative-focused martech, such as Memorable AI raising $2.5 million last October and ad tech vet Omar Tawakol launching Rembrand in February.
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Google Ads Tested Its Privacy-Focused Tech … And The Results Are Meh
How well does Google’s replacement tech for third-party cookies work? So, so (so far), at least based on the results of a recent Google Ads experiment designed to isolate the contribution of the Topics API, first-party publisher IDs and contextual data.
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Big Hopes, Big Backers And A Big Mountain To Climb For Email Data Startup Lockr
A group of martech funds and individual angel investors backed lockr, an online identity management company with B2B and consumer-facing products, to the tune of $2.5 million.
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The Home Depot’s Path To Becoming A Global Advertising Player
Melanie Babcock has been at The Home Depot for almost 10 years, starting in marketing. But, recently, she was made VP of Retail Media+ and monetization in February, with her responsibilities shifting to focus entirely on the revenue-generating ad business.
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Brave Software Prepares For Its Next Challenge: Advertising
Brave Software, which makes the eponymous browser and search engine, is taking the next step by opening a self-serve ad platform option.
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How A Minor Apple WebKit Tweak Can Send Ripples (Or Trigger Tsunamis) Across Marketing Tech
Whenever the butterflies at Apple WebKit flap their wings, “Ad Tech Island” feels the aftershocks. Last week, a small change to Apple’s on-device tech to patrol third-party data collectors sent some mobile and online advertising practitioners into a tizzy over the loss of another sliver of data transparency. They also fret because Apple continues to […]
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The Great SaaS Unbundling Is Here For Retail And Ecommerce
The phrase “subscription fatigue” typically applies to consumers tiring of the ever-growing number of media and entertainment packages. But subscription fatigue could also describe how DTC and ecommerce brands feel about their SaaS costs and vendor rosters.
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With Dread, Advertisers Report A Wave Of Mistaken Google Account Suspensions And AI Miscues
In the past week or so, many Google advertiser accounts have been suspended for the first time, and erroneous suspensions and other account issues have increased at an alarming rate, five agency buyers told AdExchanger.
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What’s Actually Going On Behind Retail Media Network Walls?
American retailers now see themselves as media companies. But in their publisher guise, retailers are in a strange and giddy situation.
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Symbiosys Pitches A New Collaborative Bidding Model For Retail Search And Social
Retail media networks have been adding ad tech audience extensions for the open web and CTV. Now, new startup Symbiosys wants to take retail ad platforms a step further into search and social.
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How Big-Name CPGs Will Learn From And Sideline Ecommerce-Native Rivals
Ecommerce-based brands have serious advantages with online marketing, but big CPGs aren’t contesting the DTC business. They’re buckling down on brick-and-mortar.
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Programmatic Vets Are Behind A Wave Of New Startups Built For A Privacy-First Web
If programmatic ad tech was a canary in the coal mine for how data privacy would affect the online advertising industry, then some of the canaries have escaped and are creating businesses to help coal mine operators do better.
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The Brand Search Squeeze That’s Throttling The Internet
A legendary anecdote by Restoration Hardware CEO Gary Friedman recounts how, almost 10 years ago, Restoration’s marketing team pushed to double its budget because search ads were converting customers at unbelievably low costs. Friedman asked which of Restoration Hardware’s 3,200 keywords drove sales. “Restoration Hardware” was the top performer – followed by 21 common misspellings of […]
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PODCAST: AdExchanger TalksA Walk Down Ad Fraud Memory Lane With Zach Edwards
In this episode, we’ll take a walk down memory lane with Zach Edwards, Human’s senior manager for threat insights to see what progress the online ad industry has made when it comes to basic privacy and security measures.
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Analytics Startup Rayn Is Trying To Make “Digital Twins” A Thing
The idea of a digital twin is to create personas that function as amalgamations of how different people with similar preferences and online patterns think – or how they shop, to be specific. “None of your customers is unique,” Rayn co-founder and CEO Geenen said.
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Can The Temu Takeover Continue Without Ads?
I’m James Hercher, AdExchanger senior editor and your guide this week as we contemplate Temu, an empty shell of an ecommerce business that is propelled by paid media and … not much else.
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Criteo Sets Its Sights On Brick-And-Mortar With Brandcrush Acquisition
On Tuesday, Criteo acquired Brandcrush, a small Australian ad startup that manages physical retail campaigns, including in-store signage, coupon circulars, free sampling and miscellaneous inventory that surrounds a grocery store.
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Why Meta Pins Its Hopes To Payments
It’s not hard to understand why Meta is prioritizing ecommerce advertising with Advantage+ Shopping campaigns, Shops and Checkout on Facebook and Instagram. Meta must reignite its overall advertising business.
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A Clean Room That Works With And Across Clouds? Call It Snowflake’s Chance In Hell
The data clean room category can be split into walled garden giants – Google, Amazon and Meta – and independent operators, such as Habu, InfoSum and Optable. But that simple distinction misses an important player in the clean room market: Snowflake.
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Etsy And eBay Pin Their Turnaround Hopes On Ad Business Growth
The retail media boom isn’t just for Amazon and brick-and-mortar chains. Online marketplaces are also investing heavily in ad platform businesses, albeit for different reasons. Etsy and eBay, two of the most prominent non-Amazon online marketplaces, both reported 2022 year-end earnings on Wednesday – and both framed advertising as a fast-growing revenue pillar with important implications […]
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Why Shopify Audiences Is The Retail Media Player To Watch In 2023
This week, we dive into Shopify, and its potential as a uniquely positioned purchase data supplier to the advertising industry with a product called Shopify Audiences.
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Walmart Ad Revenue Grew 30% To $2.7 Billion in 2022, And Is Buoying Its Profit Margin
Walmart had a mixed day with investors following its earnings call. But the Walmart Connect advertising business was a bright spot, with growth of 30% YoY to $.7 billion in 2022.
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The Fresh Market Adds Live-Video Shopping As Advertiser Demand Pushes Into Publishing
Three years after launching a retail media network, specialty food retailer The Fresh Market has a print magazine and a new live-stream shopping program.
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The First Edition Of AdExchanger’s Commerce Newsletter, And We Go For Max Effect
Hey! This is James Hercher, AdExchanger’s senior editor and commerce industry beat reporter. Welcome to the inaugural dispatch of AdExchanger’s Commerce Newsletter.