Senior Editor
James covers the intersection of commerce, media and advertising technology.
AUTHOR ARCHIVE FOR:
James Hercher
Articles By James
-
OPINION: The Sell SiderHow Rakuten Rewards Is Adapting To A New Affiliate Model – The First-Party Ad Platform
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Rakuten Rewards, formerly Ebates, is an 800-pound gorilla in the affiliate marketing business. But what’s the point of being biggest if nobody wants to be in the affiliate business? Since its acquisition by the Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten and […]
-
Oracle’s Moat Launches Outcomes API For CPG Sales, With StackAdapt As Initial DSP Partner
The results are in. Oracle’s Moat Outcomes API, a product that attributes digital ad impressions to in-store product sales, announced its first DSP integration with StackAdapt on Thursday. The product is specific for CPG and retail vertical clients, with Moat licensing data from retail membership and loyalty programs to connect those customers to online identity […]
-
Why Non-Advertising Businesses Are Going Into Ads
One of the most important trends in advertising right now is the rapid growth of ad businesses stood up by non-advertising companies. The OG of this category is Amazon. The online retailer has shown ads can be a high-margin addition to the bottom line, boosting profit without heavy upfront investments for any business with valuable […]
-
Oracle Fuses Together A CDP And CRM For A Lead-Gen Tool
Oracle launched a prospecting and lead-scoring product called Fusion Marketing on Monday, as the company tries to reframe the value of the CRM in a world gone crazy for the CDP. Fusion is the first in a series of what Oracle is calling “Engineered Experiences,” its term for automating workflow processes across different business orgs […]
-
How Online Grocery Seller Hungryroot Benefits From Not Launching An Ad Platform
The country’s largest grocers are adapting to new shopping habits with a hybrid model that combines their brick-and-mortar footprint with online advertising platforms. Although Amazon paved the way with its ad platform and 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods, grocery giants, including Kroger and Walmart, are also investing heavily in sponsored search and programmatic. And now […]
-
Meet System1, The Billion-Dollar Ad Tech Biz IPOing Later This Year
Are you tired of SPACs already? Too bad! There are more SPACs. Another market entrant is the performance advertising company System1, which will list on the Nasdaq later this year, likely by November, after completing a merger with one such “special purpose acquisition company,” said CEO and co-founder Michael Blend. System1’s SPAC arrangement isn’t analogous […]
-
Why Spectrum Brands Is Bringing Its Amazon Advertising Approach To The Web
There is a distinct Amazon approach to advertising, and it’s taking over the rest of retail media. To be successful within the walled garden platform, brands must be sharply focused on search. They also become accustomed to seeing ad costs factored as an incremental part of overall sales. Spectrum Brands honed its advertising approach on […]
-
Mediaocean Switches Private Equity Owners, As It Evolves For An Internet-Delivered Age
Mediaocean will be switching private equity portfolios, moving from Vista Equity to CVC Capital Partners and TA Associates, the company announced on Tuesday. The valuation of Mediaocean or of Vista’s stake was not disclosed, except that CVC and TA are taking on Vista’s equity share. John Nardone, CEO of the Flashtalking ad server that Mediaocean […]
-
Madtech Founders Spot Advisory Opportunity For Ad Tech Vets
A number of longtime programmatic veterans have shifted to independent consultancies, since so many brands, publishers and tech companies need help with data-driven business transformation. And the category gained another competitor on Tuesday with the launch of Madtech Advisors, a consultancy founded by Bob Walczak, who will serve as CEO, and Aditya Kulkarni serving as […]
-
UK Could Scrap Cookie Pop-ups And Some GDPR Restrictions
The British government is considering an alternative to the GDPR in the wake of the country’s split from the EU. Its plans call for fewer cookie notification pop-ups and less aggressive enforcement by regulators. The UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden told The Daily Telegraph that the country should have a new data protection law that […]
-
Shopify Pushes Further Into Social Channels, As The Hunt For Online Customers Intensifies
The first era of online shopping was independent merchants setting up their own sites. And the second era simply belonged to Amazon. But now we’re in a third era, which could be known as the social commerce age. Put differently: the age of Shopify. The ecommerce tech company announced an integration with TikTok on Tuesday, […]
-
Ad Tech Turns To Social Creative To Bring Life Back To Banner Units
Remember the last time a banner ad caught your eye? Same. But one way that advertisers have overcome the low response rates of standard display ad units is to recreate social media content as creative. It’s not a crowded category, notably featuring the programmatic startup Spaceback and Nova, the buy-side business connected to Polar. But […]
-
PODCAST: The Big StoryThe Big Story: TV Drama And Business Data
It must be sweeps week, because TV drama is through the roof. Nielsen lost its Media Ratings Council accreditation for National TV Ratings. The TV currency company calls the loss of the MRC seal of approval a hiatus while it focuses instead on Nielsen ONE, the cross-channel metric expected to launch late next year. Broadcasters […]
-
A US Judge Dismisses First-Ever GDPR Suit In American Court, Brought Against PubMatic
The United States Northern District Court of California dismissed a case earlier this week brought by Hugo Elliott, a citizen of the UK who lives in England, against the American ad tech company PubMatic. The case was dismissed out of hand, so it hardly seems a notable decision. Except that it would have been the […]
-
Earnings Roundup: How Ad Tech And Digital Giants Are Responding To ID Losses
The past few months have been wild for online advertising. Apple has implemented its AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) framework, and Google announced it would delay the phase-out of third-party cookies in Chrome. A tumultuous ride to be sure. What will be the real impact of these moves on ad tech? AdExchanger examined the Q2 earnings reports of […]
-
The Retail Sell-Sider: A Q&A With 84.51°’s Michael Schuh
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s Q&A is with Michael Schuh, VP of media strategy Kroger Precision Marketing’s 84.51°. Kroger, the largest grocery chain in the United States, is capitalizing on major swings in shopping patterns since the COVID-19 pandemic as it expands its retail […]
-
How Church & Dwight’s Orajel Brand Is Reaching Parents Via Their Kids’ YouTube Show
The CPG holding company Church & Dwight started 2021 looking for a new kind of licensing partner for its Orajel kids’ toothbrush and toothpaste product lines. “We wanted to complement our traditional characters from shows and movies with more social influencing brands, say, or Netflix-type brands and characters,” said Kevin Sherlock, C&D’s VP of marketing […]
-
Zeta Global Hones Its Martech Pitch To Wall Street
Zeta Global has had a rocky first two months as a public company. Its stock is down by a little more than a third since IPOing on the New York Stock Exchange in June. But the whims of Wall Street investors don’t always align with the true value of a business. Zeta CEO David Steinberg […]
-
Sports Streamers Bet Picture-in-Picture Ads Can Bring Revenue Without An Ad Break
Streaming networks and programmers are eager to secure more ad inventory as CTV demand surges. But they’re hesitant to include more ad breaks, since that means some users will change channels. Enter the picture-in-picture (PIP) ad. Major broadcasters with sports rights deals have already used this strategy for years, but the streaming ad platform Transmit […]
-
The World’s Largest Ad Blocker Launches A DSP
The German ad-blocker company eyeo will be making more ad revenue than ever after launching a demand-side platform called Trestle on Wednesday. Eyeo operates the ad blocker Adblock Plus (ABP), which can be downloaded as a browser plug-in or a mobile browser app, and created the Acceptable Ads program, a committee of ad blockers (ABP […]
-
CPG Earnings Show Data-Infused Brands Who Are Upping Their Media Spending
The pandemic upended consumer buying habits – and the brands behind these products are not going back to their old ways. Many of the world’s largest food and beverage brands reported quarterly earnings in the past two weeks, and two important themes running throughout those calls was the sharp increase in advertising spend this year […]
-
The Trade Desk Doubles Revenue (In A Weird Year) And Bets The Farm On CTV
The Trade Desk earned $280 million in Q2 2021, doubling its total from the same time last year, the company reported in quarterly earnings on Monday. Its profitability jumped from $25 million a year ago to almost $48 million. The Trade Desk’s crazy year-over-year growth comes with a familiar asterisk during this earnings period: Q2 […]
-
Academic Study Shows European Startup Investments Diminished In The Wake Of GDPR
Investment in European startups has dropped by 36% compared to American or other global startups since the rollout of GDPR. At least, that’s what the data shows in a report published in the academic journal Marketing Science this month. The new report, titled “The Short-Run Effects of the General Data Protection Regulation on Technology Venture […]
-
Can These Search Engines Do The Impossible – Peel Market Share From Google?
After more than a decade of relative stasis in the search engine market – which is to say, Google cementing its dominance at every step – is there an opportunity for Google alternatives to gain share? Some big-name players in the space think so. In June, there was the public launch of Neeva, an ad-free […]
-
Criteo Sees Ad Revenue Rebound, And Reshapes Its Pitch As A DSP And SSP Hybrid
Criteo reported revenues of $551 million in Q2 2021, up 26% from the same period last year, while its profitability increased from $6 million to $15 million. The year-over-year metric is inflated this quarter for practically all advertising companies, because Q2 last year held the worst of the pullback on marketing during the pandemic. And […]
-
How Driscoll’s Stays Sweet As Groceries And Ad Dollars Move Online
Driscoll’s, the century-old fresh fruit company, is no stranger to change. But the transition to online ordering is a tricky one for the brand. Driscoll’s works with geneticists and fruit growers to hone the tastiest berry varieties, and its sales and marketing arm brings the fruit to market. But its marketing and seed-editing machine is […]
-
Amazon Advertising Revenue Eclipses $7B – And Is Still Picking Up Speed
Amazon doesn’t disclose advertising revenues in its quarterly earnings reports. It bundles the ad group into an “Other” category, which consists of advertising and analytics services. But even without a specific number, it’s clear that Amazon’s advertising business is both massive and growing fast. Amazon’s Other category earned more than $7.9 billion in Q2, up […]
-
Conviva Leaps From Video Analytics To Bidstream Data With First Ad Tech Partnership
The streaming analytics company Conviva released its first ad tech product, a contextual data integration with The Trade Desk, on Thursday. Conviva places a sensor in publishers and programmers’ videos or streaming content. The sensor isn’t a third-party data collector like a cookie or SDK. It’s the tool the publishers place in their video players […]
-
Google Cruises On Digital Ad Resurgence And Retail Client Gains
Alphabet reported total revenue of almost $61.9 billion in Q2 2021, a 62% year-over-year increase. The company’s Q2 profit jumped from $7 billion in 2020 to $18.5 billion this year. The eye-popping growth rate is misleading. Q2 last year was a disaster; The first time Alphabet (or Google before that) ever reported a yearly revenue […]
-
Sponsored Product Ads Have Taken Over Amazon Search – And They Won’t Stop There
More and more ecommerce sales are preceded by paid product listings. The advance of ecommerce advertising in the past year and a half can be seen in the revenue growth in Amazon earnings reports and the promulgation of retail media platforms such as Walmart Connect, Target’s Roundel and Google Shopping. Marketers, too, are getting used […]