Senior Editor
James covers the intersection of commerce, media and advertising technology.
AUTHOR ARCHIVE FOR:
James Hercher
Articles By James
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Why Some Brands Love Voice-Activated Devices Despite Lagging ROI
Brand marketers tend to trail consumer technology habits like an aircraft carrier tracking a fleet of speedboats. And the same dynamic is playing out now with voice-activated search and device use, which has already passed from early adopter stages to an early market majority, according to Adobe mobile VP Matt Asay. Google last year reported […]
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CPG Ad Cuts Raise Tough Questions For Digital Media
The largest advertisers in the world are still dead set on cutting advertising costs and reducing agency fees. On earnings call after earnings call in the past week, consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies sent a clear message to the ad industry: The belt is tightening. On Thursday, Procter & Gamble CEO Jon Moeller told investors […]
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Ad Blocking’s Old Guard Remains Strong, But Faces Growing Competition
Ad blocking is generally associated with early browser extensions like AdBlock and eyeo’s Adblock Plus (ABP), which both make their money through the Acceptable Ads whitelisting platform designed by ABP to monetize ad-block users. But the consumer market for ad blocking has branched into apps, mobile browsers and antivirus software all peddling ad blocking wrapped […]
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Alphabet Running At Full Steam Despite Heavy EU Fine
Alphabet continued its hot growth streak in the second quarter of 2017 with more than $26 billion in total revenue, up from $21.5 billion during the same period last year. The ad giant saw its operating income decrease from about $6 billion in Q2 2016 to $4.1 billion a year later due to a $2.7 […]
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Facebook Wants To Prove Its Value In Mixed Media Campaign
Facebook ads are effective within Facebook, but how good are they within a mixed-media campaign, or when assessed over the entire customer journey? That’s the fundamental paradox of the walled garden: Marketers get great data inside of it, but hardly any outside. But Facebook is trying to shed its reputation for impenetrability. The company has […]
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Zeta Global Buys Boomtrain, Adding Machine Learning Mojo
Zeta Global, a provider of cloud-based CRM and email marketing services, has acquired Boomtrain, a machine-learning marketing technology startup that works primarily with retailers and media companies. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Boomtrain previously raised almost $15 million, and headcount was down 8% in the first six months of 2017, according to LinkedIn […]
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Android And iOS Updates Pump The Brakes On Location Data
Location policy changes for Apple’s iOS 11 update coming in September and Android O, which is still in developer preview, will alter the way consumers dole out location data and have ripple effects for mobile marketing. The most consequential new policy will be on iPhones and iPads, where a blue bar at the top of […]
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Segment To Mount A Go-To-Market Offensive With $64 Million Round
The mobile data platform Segment on Thursday announced a $64 million Series C round led by the Y Combinator Continuity Fund, an investment arm dedicated to the incubator’s alumni, and GV, Google’s venture capital group. The investment brings Segment’s overall funding to $109 million. Its previous investors supported this round as well. The money will […]
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Why Brands Want Lifetime Value In Real-Time Bidding
Some advertisers are shifting from traditional CPM buying to new tactics, often dubbed dynamic CPMs or dCPMs, which connect digital media dollars to lifetime value (LTV) metrics. While most brands still make online ad buys based on cookies and bidstream data evaluated in milliseconds, publishers are starting to accommodate forward-thinking advertisers. For instance, Angie’s List […]
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The Marketer’s Guide To Blockchain
Blockchain, an unmodifiable and unbreachable digital ledger, was conceived 10 years ago to support the cryptocurrency bitcoin. But it has since seeped into new categories, jumping from finance to health care and, more recently, digital advertising. It’s doing so with the backing of big companies like IBM and Comcast, as well as smaller startups like […]
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Shopper Marketing Is Moving Online As Brands Open Data To Stores
Ad tech vendors are clicking “add to cart” on first-party retailer data. As brands and retailers grow more comfortable sharing first-party data, shopper marketing budgets – traditionally spent on last-leg marketing efforts like high-performing shelf space, in-store signage, coupon circulars and co-marketing (“Find us at your nearest…”) – are moving online. “Merchants are talking to me […]
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Online Advertising Puts Another Link In The Blockchain
The drumbeat of blockchain industry news continues this week with the launch of AdLedger Consortium, a blockchain-enabled online advertising group backed by MadHive, a blockchain ad tech startup, IBM, Integral Ad Science and Tegna’s OTT ad subsidiary Premion. As with other initiatives, like Comcast’s fledgling Blockchain Insights Platform, the AdLedger Consortium is still in the […]
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Adobe Doubles Down On Academia To Get Smart About AI And Algos
Adobe is looking to get schooled on AI and data science. While many technology giants foster relationships with academics by offering them lucrative part-time consultancy positions. Adobe is pursuing a different tack: dishing out $50,000 no-strings-attached grants to professors and doctoral students working on projects of joint interest. “What academia provides is more the advanced […]
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Major Amazon And Wal-Mart Acquisitions Could Mark A Retail Turning Point
The convergence of retail and ecommerce accelerated with a blockbuster Friday when it was announced that Amazon would buy Whole Foods for $13.7 billion and Wal-Mart is snapping up ecommerce men’s clothing company Bonobos for $310 million. The market response to the deals was clear, particularly to Amazon’s 11-digit investment in a brick-and-mortar footprint. The […]
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Sharethrough Bids Farewell To Top Execs Amid Shift To Programmatic
The native advertising technology platform Sharethrough parted ways with company president Patrick Keane and CRO Mike Gaffney last week as it focuses on its programmatic exchange. Christopher Schreiber, who had been Sharethrough’s VP of marketing and communications for the past five years, also left the company. The executive departures are not part of broader layoffs, […]
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When It Comes To Receipts, One Shopper’s Junk Is A Data Company’s Treasure
The slang phrase “I’ve got the receipts” has become a way to declare oneself the indisputable winner of an argument. Mobile shopping and analytics companies are learning to love the term as well. As image scanning and recognition software improves and the value of shopper data shoots up, a growing industry is devoted to accessing […]
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Verizon-Yahoo Closes; Here Are The Next Challenges
Verizon completed its $4.5 billion acquisition of Yahoo’s search, email and digital media assets on Tuesday, almost a year after announcing its intent to buy the first-wave internet giant. Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s embattled CEO since 2012, is leaving the company. Just because Verizon has cleared the first and most fundamental hurdle in creating Oath, the […]
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Why Safari’s Desktop Tracker Blocking Matters (Even Though Safari Desktop Doesn’t)
Apple’s announcement on Monday that its Safari desktop browser would block third-party tracking information by default worries the ad tech industry – even though Safari represents less than 5% of paid search clicks, according to data from performance marketing agency Merkle. But not everyone is alarmed. The change is likely just another stepping stone in […]
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Political Media Struggles To Capitalize On Its Trump Bump
While political news drives traffic and engagement, many DC-focused publishers are taking a hit as ad budgets fail to materialize. “There’s a real seasonal cycle for political advertising,” said Jordan Lieberman, politics and public affairs lead at the ad targeting firm Audience Partners. “But the legislative calendar is so messed up, it’s not leaving time for […]
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How Electronic Arts Activates Its Videogame Data
The share price of Electronic Arts has nearly doubled in the past two years, as it reshapes around data and connectivity. The video game company’s focus on driving player engagement has led to major changes for EA’s advertising team. That team has media buying and attribution responsibilities brands typically delegate to agencies or vendors, and […]
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Amazon’s Mysterious Policies Keep Partners Guessing
As Amazon’s commerce and advertising revenues continue to skyrocket, the company’s enigmatic policies remain a core feature of the platform. While leading digital ad platforms like Google and Facebook churn out regular product updates and constantly brief media and customers on policy nuances, Amazon keeps even its closest partners in the dark, according to several […]
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Twitter Hires Ad Tech Vet Bruce Falck To Turn Its Revenue Team Around
Twitter has hired former Turn CEO Bruce Falck to lead its Revenue Product team, according to a tweet Thursday by company co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey. Falck has earned a reputation as an ad tech turnaround artist, stepping in as COO at BrightRoll a year prior to its $640 million sale to Yahoo and then […]
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Can Local Media Players Survive A Facebook And Google Onslaught?
Major ad platforms like Facebook and Google are soaking up the local and small-business market at an eye-popping rate. And it’s taking business away from smaller platforms like Yelp, whose stock has dropped almost 30% after local advertisers moved spend to Facebook and Google. Facebook, for instance, announced March of last year that it had […]
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The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green On Juggling Brands, Agencies And Investors
The Trade Desk first picked up steam in the market around five years ago positioning itself as a pure-play agency toolkit. It won business at the expense of earlier DSPs, such as Turn and TubeMogul, that had frosted their agency relationships by going directly to brands. Now the company is plotting its course as the DSP […]
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The Trade Desk Beats Earnings And Ups Revenue Forecast
The Trade Desk reported $53.4 million in total revenue during the first quarter of 2017, a 76% increase over the same period last year. The company is increasing its revenue guidance for 2017 from $270 million to at least $291 million. Shares jumped from just under $40 when the market closed to more than $47 […]
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For Health Care Brands, Getting To Doctors Is Good For What Ails Them
Every year competition goes up for the limited number of medical residencies in the United States. But that’s nothing compared to marketers’ intensifying race to reach those doctors in the field. While HIPAA’s data privacy regulations have slowed the adoption of programmatic and data-driven marketing around advertising to consumers, companies can still target medical professionals, […]
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Podium Raises $32 Million To Turn Product Reviews Into Conversion Opportunities
The customer review platform Podium on Tuesday announced it had raised a $32 million Series A round on Tuesday to support product development for emerging channels and new marketing applications of customer response data. The round for the Utah-based software-as-service startup was led by Accel Partners and includes Google Ventures, Summit Partners and Y Combinator. […]
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Consorting With The Frenemy: Ad Tech Players Partner For Shared Identity Matching
Seven independent ad tech companies debuted a programmatic consortium on Thursday that pools their supply- and demand-side cookie IDs into one shared identity asset. The consortium is helmed by AppNexus, MediaMath and LiveRamp, which provides the data matching. Other launch partners include Index Exchange, Rocket Fuel, LiveIntent and OpenX. And it’s a shot across the […]
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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 […]