Senior Editor
James covers the intersection of commerce, media and advertising technology.
AUTHOR ARCHIVE FOR:
James Hercher
Articles By James
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As Election Nears, Ad Tech Looks Toward New Opportunities – And To Avoid Past Mistakes
With the 2020 US presidential election cycle heating up, advertising and technology companies are once again jockeying to secure their share of the coming deluge of political media budgets. But the commercial tech crowd is taking a more judicious approach to political advertising this time around, having learned some hard lessons in 2015 and 2016, […]
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Havas Tests Zeotap And InfoSum Data Partnership As Agencies Enter Onboarding
Brands are eager to onboard and match data sets, but don’t want first-party data to leave their own systems. They want user-level targeting, without the risk in trafficking actual consumer data. Zeotap and InfoSum are tackling this data paradox with an onboarding partnership, announced on Monday, that allows marketers and agencies to sync data from […]
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Facebook Holds Firm On Political Ad Policies, Will Still Allow Lies And Targeting
Facebook clarified its political advertising policy on Thursday. And the update is: No update. Facebook has been at the center of a PR and policy firestorm over its political advertising policies since October, when President Trump’s reelection campaign ran an ad featuring a lie about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. At the same […]
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How Sperry Entered The World Of Athlete Influencers
It’s easy for a major advertiser like Allstate Insurance to pay up for a mega athlete like Aaron Rodgers. But if you’re a smaller brand, such as the shoe manufacturer Sperry, it can be difficult to find the right athletes who won’t break your budget, but who still have the cachet to boost your brand. […]
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Meredith Acquires Product Recommendation And Affiliate Network SwearBy
The women’s lifestyle media company Meredith is advancing its commerce strategy another step with the acquisition of SwearBy, an affiliate marketing platform used by women to save and recommend products. The deal, which will be announced Thursday morning at CES, is Meredith’s second affiliate-focused acquisition in the past year, following its purchase of Linfield Media, […]
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Tremor Acquires Unruly From News Corp, Further Bridging Buy And Sell Sides
Video ad tech company Tremor said Monday it will acquire the outstream video advertising platform Unruly from News Corp. In exchange, News Corp gets a 6.9% equity stake in Tremor, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, giving News Corp about $20 million worth of Tremor stock, based on the video advertising company’s $275 […]
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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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