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 MMM Rides Again, Google Finds Its Place In The Conversation With Meridian
Tracking is a mess. Attribution is broken beyond repair. IP address identity data may go the way of the dodo. Which means marketing mix modeling is back, baby!
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PODCAST: AdExchanger TalksA New Day For Targeting And Analytics
Jeromy Sonne began bootstrapping his ad optimization and analytics startup Daypart.AI in 2023, having missed the heady days of low interest rates. Still, there’s gold in them thar hills for a programmatic startup that isn’t exactly a DSP, isn’t built on cookie-based data and is native to cloud-based advertising.
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The Rise Of Ecommerce Ad Metrics
As ecommerce adoption has grown, measurement has shifted away from proxies towards metrics that show business results – a move away from clicks and views towards sales and profitable growth.
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The UK’s CMA Wants Ad Tech To Spill All The Tea On Their Privacy Sandbox Concerns
Gathering information from industry insiders is a critical part of the CMA’s evaluation process, says Chris Jenkins, director of the its Digital Markets Unit.
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How RMNs Use MFA And Cheap Inventory To Game Attribution Rules
Retail media is built on its attribution quality, but real purchases can be gamed by programmatic metrics and create perverse incentives for RMNs to serve ads across low-quality inventory.
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For Verizon Business, Reaching The Customer Means Empowering The Marketer
The CMO role has evolved “driven by the customer insight and customer data we have as marketers,” says Verizon Business Chief Product & Marketing Officer Iris Meijer.
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Follow The Money: Why Retail Media Is Part Of A Greater CapEx Revolution
This week, we’re looking at retail media but from a different point of view: the Wall Street perspective.
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How A Regional Grocer Is Taking Advantage Of The Retail Media Revolution
Adopting modern data-driven and ad tech tools is a big shift for a regional grocer like Dierbergs Markets, that wants to remain a grocer – not become a technology company.
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There’s A Lot Wrong With Google’s And Meta’s Non-Transparent ‘Refund’ Practices
Google and Meta are playing with fire. Their opaque refund practices have already exposed them to customer blowback – and could lead to class-action lawsuits by disgruntled advertisers.
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How US Intelligence Agencies Buy And Use Programmatic Data For Surveillance
Mike Yeagley, an independent contractor who has scouted and acquired commercial data and technology on behalf of intelligence agencies, is one of the earliest evangelists of using ad tech tracking information to identify and surveil government targets.
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Adalytics Report Torches Ad Tech For Touting MFA Prevention While Scarfing MFA Supply
Practically every ad tech vendor has put out a press release in recent months full of bluster about cutting out made for advertising sites – and yet supply sources remain oversaturated with garbage inventory.
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Cloud-Based Collaboration Is Ad Tech’s Post-Cookie Lifeline – But Will It Last?
Cross-cloud data collaboration technology is the best bet for a post-cookie solution. But it’s vulnerable to similar privacy concerns.
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Topsort Raises $20 Million To Seize The Post-Cookie Market Opportunity This Year
Topsort raised $20 million, with plans to seize the 2024 opportunity for post-cookie ad tech.
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Media Agency Canvas Adds InfoSum As Its First Data Clean Room Partner
Data clean rooms are becoming an important part of how agencies analyze and use data. Canvas, for one, added InfoSum as its first data clean room and collaboration tech partner.
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Performance Max Takes Its First Steps Into Auto-Generated Video
Google announced a suite of updates to PMax that expand its generative AI creative capabilities, including auto-generated videos.
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With Vizio, Walmart Finally Places Its Stake In The Ad Industry
Don’t get me wrong – Walmart is going to sell a lot of Vizio TVs. But its bigger interest in Vizio stems from data and advertising.
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The Trade Desk’s Revenue Is High – But Its Opinion Of The Privacy Sandbox Remains Low
“I know you’re going to ask me specifically about Privacy Sandbox, because nearly everyone else does,” The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green said on the company’s Q4 earnings call.
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Retail Media Has Created ‘Sky Bridges’ Between Content Fortresses
This week, I’m examining how the era of standalone walled gardens and content fortresses has given way to new forms of ad platform partnerships.
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Meet Adalytics, An Asteroid Headed For Ad Tech
This is the story of Adalytics, the advertising analytics startup founded by a computational biology researcher with a knack for uncovering ad tech’s ills and publishing blockbuster research reports to expose them.
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LiveRamp Revenue Bounces Back As It Reaches The Clouds
LiveRamp has always been a facilitator, a data platform that plugs into your tech stack. Nowadays, that means being a cloud-jumping service provider.
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Criteo Profits Bounce Back, But There’s A Tough Year Ahead
The Criteo bounce back is in full effect after the company reported strong profit growth and continues to hit benchmarks distancing it from the old days of retargeting.
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Amazon Juices Profits, With A Big Assist From The Ads Biz
Wall Street wanted profits. Big Tech delivered. That was the case for Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple and – more than any other US tech giant – Amazon.
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Were We Wrong About the Value of First-Party Data?
There are myriad reasons behind any business failure. But the failure of so many DTC brands raises the uncomfortable question: Were we wrong about the value of first-party data?
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Google’s Ad Revenue Rockets Upward Again, But The Open Web Is Getting Less
Google has always been the internet waystation. People arrive to be shuttled someplace else. Increasingly, though, Google is the destination.
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First-Party Data On Ice? How Conagra’s Birds Eye Brand Navigates The New Video Ecosystem
Conagra-owned brand Birds Eye brings a new approach to online video, social shopping and first-party data.
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LiveRamp Acquires Habu, As Walled Gardens Put The Squeeze On Indie Data Collaboration Tech
LiveRamp will acquire Habu for $200 million, further consolidating the data clean room tech category.
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ASICS Shows How Ad Experimentation Is Like Running A Marathon
ASICS is testing data clean rooms and other cloud-based advertising solutions. It shows why vendor and channel tests are important, but not for the faint of heart.
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How A Gym Chain Became An Ad Data Seller
Planet Fitness is hiring an in-house ad sales team to win agency and advertiser budgets for its omnichannel media netw … Wait, what? That’s right. The gym chain has an RMN now.
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Google Tells Ad Tech To Take Its Medicine And Give The Privacy Sandbox A Try
In a blog post on Wednesday, Google’s senior director of product management, Victor Wong, defended the Privacy Sandbox APIs and laid out in very direct terms the flaws Google sees in common criticisms of its sandbox proposals.
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Retail Search Startup Symbiosys Raises $9 Million For Its ‘Collaborative Bidding’ Model
One retail search startup, Symbiosys, which launched last year, is trying to clean up the clutter with an idea it calls collaborative bidding