Senior Editor
James covers the intersection of commerce, media and advertising technology.
AUTHOR ARCHIVE FOR:
James Hercher
Articles By James
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Instagram’s US User Growth Rate Dips In Latest eMarketer Report
Instagram’s US user growth rate sharply decelerated last year, from 10.1% in 2018 to 6.7% in 2019, according to eMarketer’s latest social benchmark report. EMarketer is also lowering its Instagram growth forecast, revised down from 5.4% to 4.5% in 2020, and 3.2% instead of 4.1% in 2021. The main reason why Instagram’s growth forecast in […]
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The Year To Come In Online Data And Identity
2019 brought a tsunami of change to data-driven advertising. And those changes have overflowed into other part of businesses and the economy, as regulators scrutinize the world of digital advertising. Facebook gave the boot to third-party data suppliers. And in 2020, Google says it will make good on a long-held promise to revoke its advertising […]
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The Year In M&A: Broadcasters And Brands Buy In, And Old-School Ad Tech Exits
This was a major year in ad tech deal making. Many deals were opportunistic or outright fire sales, as early programmatic players like Sizmek, Rocket Fuel and IgnitionOne reached the end of the line. Ad tech and data deals were helped by a surge among public company bellwethers The Trade Desk, Cardlytics, LiveRamp, Telaria and […]
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Five Things You Need To Know About The Rubicon-Telaria Merger
Michael Barrett has had his eye on Telaria since his first day as CEO of Rubicon Project in March, 2017, when the company was Tremor Video and was led by then-CEO Paul Caine. But, like with many relationships, Rubicon and Telaria needed to “do a little work on ourselves” before they were fit partners, said […]
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IAB Tech Lab Releases Blockchain Implementation Guide
Blockchain has passed through the wild ride of the early hype cycle, and its advocates are readying for a more mature period of implementation. The IAB Tech Lab Blockchain Working Group on Thursday published its first guidelines for implementing blockchain tech in digital advertising. Hilary Chapman-Roberts, a GroupM product marketing manager and co-chair of Tech […]
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Publisher Tech Player Smart Acquires DSP Liquid M
Smart, a publisher ad server and exchange, is growing out of its supply-side roots with the acquisition of the DSP Liquid M, the company said on Wednesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Liquid M is a relatively small DSP, with a little over $10 million in revenue this year and 20-25 employees, according […]
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Amazon To Drop Dataxu From Fire TV DSP Service
Amazon Publisher Services (APS) will remove dataxu from its Fire TV third-party DSP service, according to sources with knowledge of the change. APS opened its Fire TV inventory to third-party DSPs for the first time five months ago with integrations with The Trade Desk and dataxu. Less than two months after dataxu was acquired by […]
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What’s In A Currency? Nielsen Releases Converged Linear And Smart TV Metric
Nielsen released a measurement solution on Friday that combines the demographic data from its TV audience panel, the People Meter, with Gracenote’s ACR data based on four million US households with LG smart TVs. The data service, which opens to all buyers and broadcasters beginning in January, will mark the first time Nielsen has merged […]
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Why Toyota Loves Distracted TV Audiences
When a Toyota commercial airs, Vinay Shahani, the company’s North America VP of integrated marketing operations, knows that most people who see it aren’t in market for a car. So the company looks at search activity to assess the value of its TV ad spend. Using data and analytics company EDO, Toyota can measure web […]
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Verizon Media Brings DOOH Supply To SSP, Completing Its Stack For Outdoor Screens
Verizon Media, the telco giant’s ad tech and content unit, added digital out-of-home (DOOH) supply to its SSP on Tuesday. The SSP launch completes Verizon’s full-stack DOOH offering, having launched a DSP solution for outdoor media buys earlier this year. Verizon also has a network called Verizon Digital Signage, a collection of 3,000 interactive screens […]
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The IAB Finalizes CCPA Framework As Industry Readies For More Regulators
The IAB on Thursday released its California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) compliance framework, the legal and technical mechanism for using ad-targeting data or first-party publisher data in programmatic advertising. It also released a legal agreement meant to accompany the compliance framework. Get it all here. The finished framework comes only two weeks after it first […]
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GroupM Sees Highest Ad Spend Growth Rate Since 2000. Can It Last?
The United States advertising market is inching up to the quarter-trillion dollar mark. Total ad spend in the United States will reach $244 billion this year, a 6.2% bump from 2018, according to GroupM’s annual media forecast. That’s a very strong growth rate – the highest since 2000 – but it could also be the […]
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Ad Buyers Starting To Use The Trade Desk DSP Over Google, According To Advertiser Perceptions Report
Google’s Display and Video 360 demand-side platform is in a tough fight as offerings from Amazon and The Trade Desk equal or exceed Google’s usage rates, according to Advertiser Perceptions’ quarterly tracking report. The report surveys 314 media executives, split between brands and agencies, about their opinions of the major buying platforms. The report tracks […]
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Can Amazon Be King? How The Ecommerce Leader Could Surpass The Duopoly
Amazon has become the indisputable number three digital ad platform, after Google and Facebook. But while the possibility of Amazon’s advertising business unseating the duopoly has been percolating, can it really surpass either Google or Facebook as an ad industry titan? The numbers are … discouraging, at least in the short term. Google is just […]
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New Salesforce Marketing Cloud CEO Adam Blitzer Doubles Down On CDP
The Salesforce Marketing Cloud is crowning a new leader. Longtime Salesforce vet Adam Blitzer will take the CEO reins from Bob Stutz this month. But the business strategy will remain the same: customer data platform (CDP) all the way. Salesforce introduced its CDP service, called “Customer 360,” in June, and Blitzer colored in more detail […]
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OPINION: On TV & VideoAmobee’s CSO On How TV Convergence Accelerates Ad Tech Maturation
The demand-side platform (DSP) category was starting to get pretty boring. Forrester stopped conducting DSP waves last year, due to the minimal differentiation and innovation. And VC investments have all but dried up. But the programmatic ecosystem has geared back up as tech companies eye “the next battleground” of cross-channel video, said Philip Smolin, Amobee’s […]
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PayPal Drops $4B On Honey, A Browser Extension Rich In Shopper Data
PayPal raised eyebrows and bank balances in the ecommerce marketing technology space on Wednesday when it announced its $4 billion acquisition of Honey Sciences Corporation. Honey operates a shopping tool people install in browsers and apps that scrapes the web for discounts. The deal, expected to close early next year, is a home run for […]
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Adswerve Looks To Recreate DoubleClick Services Strategy With Google Vets
Google’s $3 billion acquisition of the DoubleClick ad server business in 2007 was a massive home run. But today, privacy regulations and changes to digital advertising have transformed Google’s ad tech unit. Google’s original vision for DoubleClick, to combine tech with automation, is still a recipe for scale, because it minimizes hands-on service, said Clint Tasset, […]
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Amazon Opens AWS Data Exchange – And New Opportunities For Data Sellers
Amazon introduced a new way for its cloud customers to buy and use third-party data with the launch of the AWS Data Exchange on Thursday. There are about 90 data companies as launch partners, including PlaceIQ, Epsilon, Acxiom and Foursquare. Unlike data marketplaces such as those operated by The Trade Desk, Oracle or LiveRamp, the […]
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Industry Shrugs As Google Announces Plans To Restrict Contextual Data
Beginning in February, Google will no longer include contextual content categories – content identifiers such as “sports,” “news” or “weather” – in bid requests to ad buyers, the company said Thursday. Google cited privacy concerns as the reason for the change, since contextual categories exposed in a bid request can be appended to individual profiles, […]
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MathCapital-Backed Tech Startup Octane11 Eyes Programmatic B2B
The B2B marketing platform Octane11, the first company incubated by MathCapital, a venture fund backed by MediaMath CEO Joe Zawadzki and ad tech vet Eric Franchi, launched on Thursday. Dan Rosenberg, Octane11 founder and CEO, developed strong feelings about B2B mar tech vendors and where there were unmet needs in the market from his time […]
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Nestlé Launches Internal Programmatic Unit To Scour Digital Media Deals
Nestlé has launched a team of media and tech experts to improve its programmatic supply and analytics. The new hybrid unit, called the Global Digital Media Center of Competencies (DCoC), consists of internal media talent and executives from Nestlé’s holding company vendors, WPP, Publicis, IPG and Dentsu. The team focuses on six core competencies: supply […]
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Voters Will See Fewer Political Ads This Year – Thanks To OTT Targeting
People who live in cities like Boston or Chicago will probably see fewer campaign ads for the 2020 election compared to 2016. They can thank the rise of data-driven advertising for that small respite, as campaign ads shift from broad TV markets to targeted OTT and streaming video. Presidential candidates have historically inundated Boston and […]
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How This Season’s Late Thanksgiving Impacts Retail Advertising
Retail and ecommerce technology companies are forecasting a strong holiday shopping season, except for one problem: the late Thanksgiving this year means there’s one fewer week in the prime shopping period between Black Friday and Christmas. But does it matter if there are fewer days for shopping sprees this year? On the one hand, US […]
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Why CTV Is The Trade Desk’s Biggest Focus Of 2020
The Trade Desk brought in $164 million in Q3 revenue, up 38% from Q3 2018, according to its earnings report Thursday. The company’s profitability ticked down from $20.3 million to $19.4 million in the quarter because of large investments in areas like connected TV (CTV) that will maximize profitability over the long term, The Trade […]
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Nielsen To Divide Into Two Companies, Splitting Commerce Data From Media Ratings
Nielsen will split into two separate public companies, breaking apart its Watch media measurement and metrics business from Connect, which provides market share analytics and attribution in the CPG and retail category. The decision, announced during the company’s Q3 earnings report Thursday, comes after a yearlong strategic review, where Nielsen considered sales offers or other […]
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Comscore Moves Into Next Phase Of Turnaround With New CEO Bill Livek
Comscore named board member and former Rentrak CEO Bill Livek as its CEO, replacing interim chief Dale Fuller, the company announced Tuesday in its quarterly earnings report. Comscore earned $94.3 million in Q3, an 8% decline from the same period last year. Revenue was also down sequentially, after posting $96.9 million in Q2, which was […]
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Senators To Platforms: Hand Over The Algo; DoubleClick Vet Brad Bender Transfers To Google News
Monday’s Links: Algo Secrets A bipartisan group of senators filed the Filter Bubble Transparency Act on Thursday, a bill that would require large internet and search providers (those with more than 1 million users, at least $50 million in revenue and 500 employees) to disclose how and why users see certain personalized content, as well […]
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If Facebook Blocks Political Ads, Democrats Would Suffer
Facebook’s controversy over its decision to allow politicians (but only politicians) to promote lies in ads has led to Twitter saying it would forbid political ads and Scott Galloway, a prescient tech industry analyst, predicting Facebook would ban political ads by Thanksgiving. Yet, if such a ban materialized, Democrats would feel the brunt of it. […]
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Will AT&T's HBO Max Be Blocked By Rivals?; Google Sues Over Antitrust Probe
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Distribution Dilemma AT&T is leaning into its 34 million HBO subscribers to drive sign-ups for its forthcoming HBO Max streaming service. But it may face roadblocks in working with competitive cable providers on distribution, Digiday reports. AT&T has yet to sign on any distribution […]