Senior Editor
James covers the intersection of commerce, media and advertising technology.
AUTHOR ARCHIVE FOR:
James Hercher
Articles By James
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In An Ecommerce World, Retailers And CPGs Learn To Love Their Stores
America’s most data-driven retailers and product manufacturers increasingly use mobile channels to drive shoppers to a store. Take the big kahuna. Walmart two weeks ago began offering discounts for products selected online and then picked up at a store. Walmart clears the margin on those discounts because the retailer can push products through its stores […]
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At Oracle’s Marketing Cloud Show, The Data Cloud Takes Center Stage
Oracle Data Cloud has become a big business driver for Oracle’s CX Cloud Suite, which includes software for marketing, sales, commerce, social and customer service. In the past 18 months, Data Cloud has also become a big acquirer, with deals for Moat, Crosswise and AddThis. And it has a strong presence even in announcements about […]
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Zeta Global Raises $140 Million – And Is Ready To Go Shopping
Zeta Global, which provides cloud-based CRM, on Thursday revealed a $140 million funding round that it will use to acquire other marketing tech companies. The round was led by GPI Capital and Blackstone’s GSO Capital Partners. The funding is earmarked explicitly for an acquisition, though the company or category are yet to be determined, said […]
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The Ad Tech Rumor Mill Churns News Of A Chrome Ad-Block Addition
Rumors that Google is considering adding a built-in ad-blocking feature to its Chrome browser elicited a mix of shouts and shrugs across the digital advertising landscape. The potential Chrome ad-blocking extension, first reported Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, would block ad formats deemed unacceptable by the Coalition for Better Ads (CFBA), a cross-industry trade […]
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After Moat Deal, New York City Ad Tech Pats Itself On The Back
Many New York City-based ad tech leaders saw Tuesday’s acquisition of Moat by the Silicon Valley titan Oracle as a testament to the city’s distinct startup ecosystem. The Moat deal was a victory for the city and “a validation of the tech scene here,” said DataXu CEO Mike Baker, a prolific ad tech angel investor, […]
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Investors From Ad Tech And Politics Contribute To SafeGraph's $16M Series A
The startup data management platform SafeGraph will emerge from an extended beta period Wednesday with a $16 million Series A investment and its first product, which tracks and analyzes human movement in public places. SafeGraph isn’t disclosing any initial partners or clients, but CEO Auren Hoffman told AdExchanger the company’s business development plans include advertising […]
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Bazaarvoice Spins Its Product Review Network Into A Data Play
CPG brands are among the highest-spending advertisers, but are at the mercy of e-commerce and retail companies that own the data. Bazaarvoice, a hosted platform for ecommerce ratings and reviews, is now ramping up a data collection business to provide those insights-impoverished CPG brands with new ways to measure and target consumers. Bazaarvoice doesn’t sell […]
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Media Companies Bring Programmatic Concepts To Sponsor Deals
Publishers are learning to love influencer marketing as a way to grow broader advertising and sponsorship deals. “An advertiser might come with a traditional sponsorship package, and to complement that, they want a programmatic component,” said Rachel Parkin, SVP of strategy and sales at digital media company CafeMedia. CafeMedia owns a network of women’s interest […]
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Digital Out-Of-Home Media Courts Exchanges With DPAA Programmatic Standards
The Digital Place Based Advertising Association (DPAA), an industry trade group spanning out-of-home media and advertising technology, on Monday released its first programmatic standards for digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaigns. The DPAA hopes these standards, which are like existing openRTB guidelines from the IAB, will facilitate digital out-of-home buys. The DPAA’s standards outline video ad formats […]
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The Rise Of The Ad Tech ‘Investorpreneur’
With early-stage ad tech venture capital (VC) dwindling in recent years, some ad tech entrepreneurs stepped in to fill that funding gap, forming an angel investor ecosystem. While institutional investors are disenchanted with ad tech, insiders are more optimistic. AppNexus founder and CEO Brian O’Kelley said he hopes to invest “in a space I understand […]
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Quarterly M&A Reports: Digital Media Companies Capitalize On Growing Exit Opportunities
M&A reports released in the past week show digital media and ad tech acquisitions continuing at a healthy clip. The trend is driven by increasing exit opportunities. Internet giants, commerce and retail businesses, media companies, agencies, enterprise clouds, private equity firms and telcos are all active M&A parties for data-driven digital startups, said John Prunier, […]
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Modi Media Vets Stake Out Addressable TV Firm For Multi-MVPD Buys
Michael Bologna and Jamie Power – both leaders from GroupM’s advanced television-buying unit Modi Media – have left the media agency and founded an addressable TV media-buying startup called one2one Media. One2one is owned by Cross MediaWorks, a consortium of media and advertising companies. One2one matches advertiser first- and third-party data to multichannel video programming […]
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Amazon Surges In The Crowded DSP Space, According To Advertiser Perceptions Survey
The demand-side platform (DSP) category underwent expected consolidation in the past year, with The Trade Desk’s IPO and formerly independent players like TubeMogul, Turn and Adelphic gobbled up by Adobe, Singtel and Time Inc., respectively. But just because the DSP space has matured doesn’t mean it can’t surprise you. This year, that surprise comes from […]
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Newspapers Begin Staking Out Affiliate Programs
Affiliate marketing is old news, but not for newspapers. Most startup and legacy lifestyle publishers, such as Refinery29 or Condé Nast, and digital-first news companies have had affiliate networks quietly churning out reliable, incremental revenue streams. Now some newspapers, built on crumbling subscription and print advertising pillars, are starting to come around to the idea. […]
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As Liberal Activists Ramp Up, Are Data And Digital Strategy Left Behind?
Since the 2016 election, liberal organizations like the ACLU, Center for American Progress (CAP) and Planned Parenthood have been sprinting like they’re on hot coals, smashing online donation precedents, flooding congressional phone lines and marshaling nationwide protests. But does that energy translate into gains for the Democratic Party’s data and digital media ecosystem? During a national […]
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Senate Kills Off FCC Privacy Regulations
The US Senate on Thursday voted down Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations that would have required internet service providers to get users to consent to be targeted by advertisers. The law would have required the providers (ISPs) to get explicit consent from users before allowing advertisers to buy or target against web browsing histories, geolocation, […]
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Discount Shopping App Ibotta Opens Its In-Store Sales Visibility To CPGs
The mobile app Ibotta, which offers users cash back on purchases from retail and brand partners, is turning its receipt verification system into an in-store attribution tool. Ibotta users can link a loyalty card account or upload a picture of a store receipt to get cash back on products for which it offers discounts. But […]
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Altice Snaps Up Teads For $307M As Telco M&A Continues
The Netherlands-based telco Altice will acquire Teads in a cash deal that values the outstream video ad tech firm at $307 million, the companies confirmed Tuesday morning. It’s the latest in a string of acquisitions for Altice. Earlier this month, the company bought the US programmatic platform Audience Partners for an undisclosed sum, and last year it closed […]
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Foursquare Adds Foot-Traffic Tracking To Its Brick-And-Mortar Suite
Foursquare debuted a foot-traffic measurement tool called Foursquare Analytics on Monday. Foursquare Analytics, which uses opted-in users to measure in-store traffic, began in private beta last year with brands like TGI Fridays, Equinox and Taco Bell. Brands that pay a monthly subscription fee to use the SaaS product. TGI Fridays matches customers from its CRM […]
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Mobile Ad Blocking Takes Off In Asia, Sparked By User Data Costs
Want to know what large-scale mobile ad blocking looks like? Go to Asia, specifically China and India, where the bulk of the world’s new smartphone users are entering the market. A PageFair report last year said mobile browsers with pre-installed ad blockers more than doubled over the previous year and now outnumber those without ad […]
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Adblock Plus Adds Brand Clout (And Gets Clouted)
Soon after Adblock Plus (ABP) developer Eyeo revealed the publisher, brand and ad tech executives on its Acceptable Ads Committee (AAC) Wednesday, many of those members’ employers swiftly distanced themselves. Dell, Condé Nast and Rocket Fuel are among eight companies with members on the committee. The panel would manage ad policies for Eyeo’s Acceptable Ads […]
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Nasdaq-Based Ads Exchange Plans To Bring Wall St. Trading To Digital Media
Along with its eponymous New York stock exchange, Nasdaq Inc. powers more than 80 transactional markets around the world. Now, its blockchain technology powers a startup advertising exchange called the New York Interactive Ad Exchange (NYIAX), which plans eventually to create a market where digital media inventory could be bought and sold like stock on […]
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CenturyLink Doubles Down On Consumer Branding As A B2B Foundation
Brand advertising is becoming a necessary ingredient for B2B success. While US telco CenturyLink sees two-thirds of revenue come from B2B services, consumer-oriented strategies like a national TV campaign and sports sponsorships are taking a larger share of CenturyLink’s budgets, said CMO Bill Hurley. Consumer branding increasingly “lays the foundation” for effective B2B sales, Hurley […]
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Fairmont Tests Facebook Travel Ads – And Is Hungry For More
Hotel and travel brands are looking to pour more performance dollars into Facebook. For years, hotel operators have used the social platform as a source of online check-ins, reviews and customer service responses, but “the next step was taking it to advertising,” said Chris Georgas, digital marketing manager for Fairmont Hotels. After debuting its Dynamic […]
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With Brands On Board Or Not, Right-Wing News Is Full Steam Ahead
In the months leading up to and following the US presidential election, publishers with right-wing and occasionally extremist views, such as Breitbart and InfoWars, have joined stalwarts like the Drudge Report and Newsmax on the Republican right. In spite of their growing audiences, monetization can be tough for these challengers. Some brands have stayed away, […]
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P&G’s Pritchard: Marketers Need More From Digital Platforms Than Audit Agreements
Speaking Thursday at the ANA Media Conference, Procter & Gamble Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard was pleased that Facebook and Google had agreed to independent MRC audits, but he emphasized that the audits are only the first steps toward improving the media supply chain. “It’s not enough to accept [audit pledges] until the audits are […]
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PebblePost Comes Knocking With $15 Million For Programmatic Direct Mail
PebblePost on Tuesday announced a $15 million Series B funding round to expand its programmatic direct mail offering. RRE Ventures joins as the startup’s lead investor. PebblePost takes in CRM data and tags a brand’s website, matching visitors to home addresses in its own database and against third-party onboarders. Seventy percent of site traffic can […]
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Last-Click Attribution Seems Unkillable
Alain Portmann and Oscar Garza will speak about last click attribution at Programmatic IO on April 5 in San Francisco. Last-click attribution may never die. Although digital multitouch attribution (MTA) pioneers like Visual IQ, Google’s Adometry and AOL’s Convertro hit the market more than a decade ago, last-click remains the prevailing measurement model. Big brands and network agencies still tend […]
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Ad Blocker Shine Shifts To Ad Targeting And Rebrands To Rainbow
The Israeli startup Shine is rebranding to Rainbow as it abandons its ad-blocking roots in favor of ad-targeting and verification services, the company revealed Friday. “We have been really trying to identify a path forward and the commercialization opportunities for the base technology,” said CRO James Collier, who joined the company last July. Shine (ahem, […]
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With Ad Tech, Nielsen Catalina Solutions Sheds Its One-Trick-Pony Reputation
Nielsen Catalina Solutions’ (NCS) original value prop focused on connecting media consumption with in-store sales for CPG brands. But in the past two years, NCS has moved beyond attribution and into building programmatic audience segments. Programmatic targeting is already almost 25% of NCS’ business, with a revenue goal this year between $20 million and $25 […]