Senior Editor
James covers the intersection of commerce, media and advertising technology.
AUTHOR ARCHIVE FOR:
James Hercher
Articles By James
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Can Generative AI Unlock Streaming Media To Millions Of New CPGs And SMBs?
The killer application for generative AI tech in TV advertising right now is very simple: auto-creating videos that small and local businesses can use to run CTV and streaming TV ads.
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Experian Launches Its First-Ever Third-Party Data Marketplace
This week, Experian launched its own marketplace for third-party data vendors at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
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The Ad Measurement Trends That Reshaped Online Advertising This Year
2024 was a year of hectic change for ad measurement. These are a few of the new ad attribution trends and techniques programmatic advertiser should know going into 2025.
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Is 2025 The Year Of Retail Media Standardization?
Achieving consensus on the definitions for even baseline retail media metrics required a tough 18-month slog. Unfortunately, this was the easy part.
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PODCAST: AdExchanger TalksFor Incrementality Testing, It’s One Step At A Time
What is incrementality testing? “I’ve been doing more interviews with journalists lately and realize I need a better answer to this question,” says Haus Head of Strategy Olivia Kory.
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Sonos Goes Back To Basics With A Holiday Brand-Building Campaign
Sonos chief marketer Jordan Saxemard spoke with AdExchanger about balancing brand and performance marketing and the evolution toward a new hybrid kind of ecommerce and retail shopping.
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Why Retail Media Is Spurring Agency Conglomeration
Retail media and tech platforms now represent a return to agency scale dynamics. The proposed Omnicom and IPG merger is the latest example.
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Mars United CEO Rob Rivenburgh On Selling To Publicis, And Where Retail Media Goes Next
“It’s going to be harder for [indie agencies] to compete,” said Rob Rivenburgh, the CEO of Mars United, who also now leads the Publicis Commerce global group.
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Will Retail Media Ruin Retail?
Retailers should always have a shopper-first mentality – and sometimes that may mean having to deprioritize their retail media business.
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Experian Buys Audigent (Guess Ad Tech M&A Really Is Back)
Cyber Monday may be done, but the ad tech deal making just won’t quit. Experian has joined the ad tech consolidation parade with its acquisition of Audigent, a startup DMP and curation vendor.
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Financial Services Advertisers In The UK Just Got Over A Frightful Meta Bug
Call it a Glitchmas miracle. Maybe. Meta finally appears to have resolved a glitch in its ad platform that prevented new financial services advertisers from running campaigns.
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Firestone Walker Brewing’s CMO On Billboards, Non-Alcoholic Beers And Digital Shelves
Dustin Hinz is CMO of Firestone Walker Brewing, which just launched its first non-alcoholic beer line. Now comes the marketing challenge.
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Meet Upright Analytics, A Leader Among New Short-Seller Activist Investors
There is a new breed of financial investor – or dis-investor, perhaps – that targets publicly traded companies with allegedly incriminating reports, while taking short seller positions on the company.
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Integral Ad Science Goes Big On Social Media As Retail Ad Spend Softens In Q3
Integral Ad Science shares dropped more than 10% on Wednesday, after the company reported lackluster revenue growth and softened its guidance for the Q4 season.
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Meet Evertune, A Gen-AI Analytics Startup Founded By Trade Desk Vets
Meet Evertune AI, a startup that helps advertisers understand how their brands and products appear in generative AI search responses.
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The Trade Desk Maintains Its High Growth Rate And Touts New Channels
“It’s hard not to be bullish about CTV when it’s both our largest channel and our fastest growing,” said The Trade Desk Founder and CEO Green during the company’s earnings report on Thursday.
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LiveRamp Outperforms On Earnings And Lays Out Its Data Network Ambitions
LiveRamp reported an unexpected boost to Q3 revenue, from $160 million last year to $185 million in 2024, during its quarterly call with investors on Wednesday.
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Why Old-School CPGs Are Getting Back To Basics
Brands are getting back to basics. They’re rethinking their packaging and trying to figure out how they fit into the new world of retail store shelves. And while they are getting more data-driven, the data is not necessarily for advertising.
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Meta Advertisers Prepare For A Holiday Season Of Gifts And Glitches
In the world of online advertising on big walled-garden platforms – Meta in particular – October through November truly is the season of giving. Of giving advertisers ulcers and panic attacks, that is.
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Based On Its Q3 Earnings, Maybe AIphabet Should Just Change Its Name To AI-phabet
Google hit some impressive revenue benchmarks in Q3. But investors seemed to only have eyes for AI.
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PODCAST: AdExchanger TalksTalking Shop With Mike Ryan, The PMax Whisperer
Just in time for holiday shopping, AdExchanger Talks is taking a dive into the world of ecommerce with Mike Ryan, the head of ecommerce insights at search and commerce consultancy Smarter Ecommerce.
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IAB Tech Lab Made Moves To Acquire Prebid In 2021 – And Prebid Said No
The story of how Prebid.org came to be – and almost didn’t – is an important one for the industry.
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Learning To Love And Let Go Of Attribution Models
Here’s an uncomfortable question for any data-driven advertiser: Is there a good way to measure and attribute marketing campaigns?
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Amazon Lays Out Its Next $50 Billion Opportunity In Advertising
In its sales pitches, hands-on-keyboard sessions and during conversations with ad tech vendors and Amazon sellers, Amazon consistently combined its content fortress with AWS and its investments in AI and machine learning.
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Why Mondelez Piloted A Shopper Marketing Test Between Albertsons And Fetch
“I always said, I think we need to change our title, because it’s not the old school shopper marketing,” said Anne Martin, director of shopper marketing for Mondelez International, which owns Oreo, Ritz, and a variety of other snacks.
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Mid-Tier Ecommerce Marketplaces Are Trying – And Failing – To Make The Numbers Work
Perhaps you’ve noticed – How could you not? – that there is massive competition among the largest ecommerce retailers to be the quickest, cheapest option online. But the mid-tier of ecommerce marketplaces are suffering.
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TikTok Shop’s Biggest Strength Is Its Biggest Weakness
Legislative drama notwithstanding, it’s time to look at TikTok Shop as a first potential sign that live online shopping in the US can be, well, a thing.
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Intent IQ Has Patents For Ad Tech’s Most Basic Functions – And It’s Not Afraid To Use Them
An unusual dilemma has programmatic vendors and ad tech platforms worried about a flurry of potential patent infringement suits.
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Perry Ellis Enlists Wunderkind To Revitalize Its Email Game
For fashion company Perry Ellis, the development of a strong first-party data strategy has also meant a ground-up rethinking of the company’s email marketing.
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Retailers Are Opening Themselves To Programmatic – But Will They Regret It?
Most retailers are long past withholding their shopper data from programmatic tech. They prefer the low-hanging fruit. But was that a good decision?