Senior Editor
James covers the intersection of commerce, media and advertising technology.
AUTHOR ARCHIVE FOR:
James Hercher
Articles By James
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The Trade Desk Share Price Surges In IPO Debut
Now trading on NASDAQ: The Trade Desk. The demand-side platform officially IPO’d on Wednesday morning, with shares trading between $28 and $30, smashing the company’s $16-to-$18-per-share projection (which it amended upward from $14 to $16 the day before its IPO). The stock price as of approximately 3 p.m. Eastern placed the company’s market cap close […]
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Retailers Push Investments In Augmented Reality, Even As Consumer Interest Dips
While consumer interest in augmented reality (AR) has risen and fallen like a tide, retailers and tech vendors see it as more than just a passing fad. Hybris Labs, the retail tech R&D division of SAP, began working on AR products in 2013 after Google Glass debuted, said Hybris Labs team lead Christian Neeb. “There […]
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This Year’s Hotness: Finding And Monetizing Pissed Off Voters
Every year, voter-targeting firms sell audience segments based on trending issues. “We look into our crystal ball and think about what’s going to be big come November,” said Andrew Drechsler, CRO at the liberal data firm HaystaqDNA. And this year, everybody’s crystal ball is showing the same thing: voters who are willing to split or […]
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Adblock Plus Shifts Into Ad Tech With SSP Offering
Germany-based Adblock Plus (ABP) on Tuesday debuted its beta supply-side platform (SSP) offering, called the Acceptable Ads Platform. It marks the company’s first move into an ad tech space it typically criticizes. “We’ve always called the Acceptable Ads initiative an ongoing experiment,” ABP ops manager Ben Williams told AdExchanger. “We’ve improved it over time, surveying […]
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The EU Ramps Up Regulatory Action As Pubs And Advertisers Lose Ground
In the past two weeks, the European Union has further expanded the scope of its regulatory powers and revealed more zealous plans to influence competition between digital properties. In late August, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) released net neutrality guidelines, which become law in 2018, that forbid practices like “fast lanes” […]
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The Trade Desk Amends S-1, Valued Between $550M And $600M
The Trade Desk expects a valuation between $550 million and $600 million, according to an amended S-1 filed Tuesday. The company will make 4.6 million shares available on the market, with an anticipated share price between $14 and $16. At the high end, it hopes to raise $85.9 million, compared to $86.3 million in its […]
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Ibotta Debuts App-To-App Marketplace For Mobile Commerce Partners
The shopping app Ibotta, which gives users cash back for purchases, has streamlined app-to-app buying. Tech from deep-linking vendor Button now allows Ibotta users to make purchases from apps in Button’s network, which includes Hotels.com, Groupon, Jet and Spring. Ibotta hopes to connect commerce apps into an easy-to-use marketplace. While it’s easy to link and […]
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In The Win/Lose World Of Political Advertising, Attribution Is Irrelevant
Digital ad experts are rising in the political campaign world, but digital’s unique measurement capabilities aren’t coming with them. A big part of the problem is that the nature of voting defies measurement. “On the political side, there’s only one interaction a person takes [i.e., his or her vote], and you don’t know for months […]
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Amazon Tests Data And Media Bundling As It Targets New Marketer Budgets
Despite Amazon’s legacy as a giant digital walled garden, marketers say it’s in the early stages of a major expansion into an ad platform model. Specifically, Amazon is testing ways to tie together its properties to form a more comprehensive, full-funnel offer, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the early products. Amazon didn’t return […]
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Digital Channels Make Their Move On Sports, The Last Broadcast Stronghold
Although the Rio Olympics broke its own record for reserved ad dollars set during the London Games in 2012, broadcast is losing its iron grip on live sports media. Ratings for NBC across a portfolio of Comcast-owned properties (like MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Golf Channel, Telemundo and the NBC smart-TV app channel) were down compared […]
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CMO Peter Horst Describes Hershey's Digital Marketing Path, From Bittersweet To Smooth
Peter Horst will speak at AdExchanger’s Omni.Digital conference in Chicago on September 8. After decades of focus on TV and print advertising, Hershey’s is “in the early stages of a long, judicious process of building out a data operation and translating our brands to a digital mindset,” according to CMO Peter Horst. AdExchanger spoke with Horst about […]
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Slow And Steady Gains, As Network Ad Blocker Shine Partners With African Telco
African mobile network Econet Wireless will pre-install Shine’s ad-blocking tech for 40 million subscribers across Zimbabwe, South Africa, Burundi and Lesotho. The deal, revealed Thursday, represents the Israeli startup’s third public telco partner and its second full integration. Although Econet will pre-install Shine’s network-level ad-blocking technology for all of its subscribers, government regulations require Econet […]
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How Donald Trump The Politician Affects Trump The Business
Is it the politics, or are gold-plated faucets not as desirable as they used to be? While Trump’s brand and marketability have boosted his presidential run, a collection of data points – including geolocation data tracking foot traffic to his hotel establishments – suggests the campaign has hurt his business. His companies have experienced some […]
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Facebook Signals Strong Anti-Ad Block Position
Facebook introduced a page-loading protocol on Tuesday that makes its ads almost indistinguishable from Facebook content, and thus prevents ad blockers from working on its site. Andrew Bosworth, the social media company’s VP of ads and business platform, said the change forces ad blockers to choose between not blocking ads or severely undermining the user […]
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On Terminology: "Programmatic" Haters Gonna Hate
While “programmatic technology” has come a long way, many longtime players in the space are now reckoning with the term. AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley penned op eds about the “death of programmatic.” Rubicon Project SVP of market development Jay Sears also has acknowledged the limitations of the terminology. AdExchanger reached out to ad tech executives, some […]
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GoDaddy Becomes The First Brand To Foray Into Programmatic Live Streaming
On Saturday, small businesses will get a chance to pitch ideas to a GoDaddy executive and other experts at the SheKnows Media conference. To drive viewers to the live-streamed event, GoDaddy will become the first brand to deploy a programmatic video live-stream ad unit from Traction Labs. The session is part of a sponsorship deal […]
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Trump Beat His Data-Savvy Rivals, But They Can Still Punch Back
While Ted Cruz’s suspended campaign committee endures to manage assets like fundraiser lists and voter profiles, it has no intention of contributing anything but the bare minimum of its valuable data to the RNC and its voter-file vendor, the Data Trust, said sources with knowledge of the Cruz committee’s plans. The Cruz committee is not […]
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Will Publishers Ever Get A Successful Day In Court Against Ad Blockers?
Many in the US digital media industry have cherished hope of a day in court against ad blockers. It’s a movement that began with a series of IAB summits last summer and which today is slipping along the spectrum from possibility to fantasy. A year ago, the most likely legal route focused on copyright infringement. […]
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Google Credits Mobile And Video Investments For Strong Revenue Growth
Google parent Alphabet finished out Q2 2016 with $21.5 billion in overall revenue, a 21% jump from Q2 2015. It’s also a notable acceleration of growth rate from that year-ago quarter, when top line revenue grew 11%. [Read the earnings release.] The company chalked up the faster growth to investments in mobile and video. “The strength of the quarter […]
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China Bans Ad Blocking, And Adblock Plus Cries Foul
When China released its first set of digital ad regulations two weeks ago, the impact on search was heavily discussed – and understandably so, since it impacted Chinese market leaders like Baidu and Alibaba. “But hidden among (the new regulations) is language that would seem to all but ban ad blocking,” wrote Adblock Plus (ABP) […]
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Google Offers Call Center Measurement As Sales Calls Become Cool Again
Google launched a customer call center measurement and attribution solution on Wednesday alongside new research on call-based marketing. The product uses a unique identifier placed on Google’s search ads with tap-to-call functionality to tie inbound calls to an AdWords campaign. If the user goes to the company site instead and ends up making a call […]
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How Pandora Punches Above Its Weight For Political Ad Dollars
Political ad dollars, even more so than brand budgets, have conglomerated around a handful of major players. Of the more than $1 billion analysts predict candidates and super PACs will spend online this election, “half will go to Facebook and Google, Pandora – those are the big ones – and Twitter,” said Jordan Lieberman, politics […]
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The Hits Keep Coming, As EU Levels More Antitrust Charges Against Google
The European Union’s antitrust commission on Thursday added two formal charges to Google’s ever-growing pile of regulatory burdens. The first charge substantiates a previous objection claiming Google favors its own comparison shopping service in search results. “It means consumers may not see the most relevant results to their search queries,” wrote European Commissioner for Competition […]
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Advertisers Hope To Catch ’Em All With Pokémon Foot Traffic
Early Wednesday morning, a week after the initial US launch of Pokémon Go, a small milling crowd formed outside Barney Greengrass, an iconic Upper West Side Jewish deli and a “PokéStop” – a real-world location anchored in the augmented reality game interface. It’s not unusual for queues to form for bagels and smoked fish, but […]
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Native Programmatic, The Once And Future King
For many in the native space, the always-on-the-horizon prospect of the Promised Land has been a hard sell to other digital stakeholders. And though the industry has grown at a rapid clip, there’s still deep confusion over questions as basic and crucial as “What is native?” Native is “a broad term that lacks definition,” said […]
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The FCC Enters The Online Privacy Food Fight, Hits Brands Square In The Eye
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) on Tuesday issued an impassioned rejection of the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) proposed change to online privacy and data security regulations. Wednesday is the final day of the public comment period before the FCC deliberates on the policy, which would force marketers to ask for permission to track consumers’ […]
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OOH Is Becoming A Measurement Tool For Digital Marketers
The out-of-home market is turning its real-world infrastructure into a tool for data-driven digital media. An OOH campaign nowadays for a CPG client may look more like a tapestry of strategic relationships. The media provider may allow some mobile tracking (in the US that probably means Outfront or Clear Channel, which together account for a […]
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Bounce Exchange Buys GoChime Social Marketing Tech And B2B Roster
Bounce Exchange, a behavioral marketing provider, has acquired B2B social media marketing startup GoChime, Bounce announced on Tuesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. GoChime extends B2B email campaigns to social and display media. It will now be a Bounce Exchange product called “Behavioral Audiences.” GoChime’s relatively small team has already integrated with Bounce’s […]
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With Money Or Without, Republicans Are Struggling To Find Their Voters (And Inventory)
As the primary period comes to a close, Republican uncertainty – not just for presidential candidates, but in races up and down the ballot – remains a prevailing force in political advertising. “What’s still not clear, and it has actually become a little more confusing, is the question of how much Trump will spend,” said […]
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Germany's Axel Springer Wins Partial Court Victory Against Adblock Plus
After a string of court losses, Axel Springer finally landed a blow on Eyeo’s Adblock Plus (ABP). On Friday, a German court granted the German publishing giant a partial victory in its appeal of a previous decision. In question was ABP’s Acceptable Ads initiative, an open source ad-block revenue channel (meaning other ad blockers can […]