As Executive Editor, Sarah oversees AdExchanger’s news and feature coverage and event content. Sarah has written extensively about publishers, sell-side technology and Google. Understanding and explaining the business implications of technically complex topics is her forte. Over her years at AdExchanger, she’s documented the rise and maturity of programmatic tech, as data-driven advertising has spread far and wide in its marketing applications.
Although Google Ad Manager’s policy changes make it a frequent subject of criticism among some publishers, in practice publishers don’t cite these changes as negatively impacting their businesses, according to Advertiser Perceptions’ latest survey of the SSP market. The report polled 150 digital ad sales and operations professionals at sites with more than 3 million […]
Seeing “out of stock” while shopping online has become a familiar experience over the past two months, as products disappeared from online shelves. Online equine shop SmartPak wanted to make that unpleasant consumer experience better. Though only 2% of products it sold were affected by coronavirus-related supply chain issues, SmartPak knew it was losing sales […]
Instead of using media to drive sales, Campbell’s wants to help people cooking at home during COVID-19 use its products – and enjoy themselves in the process. The CPG has kicked off a campaign across Group Nine Media properties that teaches how to use its family of products, which include Campbell’s soup, Prego pasta sauce, […]
One month ago, 24% of ad buyers had paused their campaigns, according to an IAB survey on how COVID-19 has impacted spend. That number has since increased to 37% of buyers, according to the trade org’s latest survey. Overwhelmingly, those who are now pausing their spend had not yet decided whether or not to do […]
Quick-service restaurants have only recently embraced online pickup and delivery. These new systems are now being adopted at a breakneck pace as the coronavirus forces the world to shift to contactless delivery. COVID-19 is accelerating existing QSR trends around use of technology to enable contactless delivery, said Yum! Brands CEO David Gibbs during the company’s […]
2020 hasn’t exactly gone as planned. As the newly appointed president of the IAB, David Cohen barely had time to shake hands with the rest of the leadership team before the nationwide onset of social distancing and working from home. Meanwhile, IAB Tech Lab President Dennis Buchheim, a frequent flyer who normally spent his time […]
With multiple brands centered on food and home, Meredith has been providing help and inspiration to people sheltering in place during the coronavirus pandemic. During the first two weeks of April, traffic for Meredith’s food brands – Allrecipes, EatingWell, MyRecipes and Food & Wine – surged 117%. Traffic to its home and garden brands, which […]
OpenX said Tuesday it has laid off, furloughed or cut hours for 15% of its employees. Most of that percentage were layoffs and furloughs, and the number of people whose hours were cut was small, the company said. OpenX reduced the salaries of its leadership team by 15% to 20%. CEO John Gentry said he […]
For ad sellers dealing with pandemic’s economic effect, the battle is over. The siege has now begun. “The novelty of us not being together, not being able to be with our customers or go to events, is wearing off,” says Doug Weaver, founder of sales training consultancy The Upstream Group. Instead of face-to-face trainings and […]
If brand dollars are increasingly flowing to native social media ads on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, why not bring those ad formats to digital media companies? Bloomberg Media just launched Boost, a self-serve tool that allows brands to repurpose existing social media ads for mobile ad slots on Bloomberg. “For a small amount of […]
It’s difficult to buy or sell homes when everyone is stuck inside. But instead of staying quiet during the coronavirus pandemic, the online real estate resource Zillow wanted its brand to show up. In a situation “where the market is not moving,” at least at the outset of shelter-in-place orders, Zillow’s CMO Aimee Johnson wanted […]
NBCUniversal’s Fandango snapped up Vudu from Walmart for an undisclosed price Tuesday, making it the latest independent streaming service to get gobbled up by a big media player. “We are moving into the consolidation phase of the streaming business,” said Forrester principal analyst Jim Nail, citing this deal and Fox’s acquisition of Tubi in March. […]
The coronavirus pandemic brought everyone online, leading to a surge in traffic. But it’s expensive to process all the programmatic ad requests that come with that traffic. Plus, CPMs are falling industrywide. So two weeks ago, The Trade Desk asked exchanges to stop sending duplicate bid requests for the same ad impression. The request initially […]
For the next five months, Google is waiving its Ad Manager ad serving fees for news publishers around the globe, which have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Read the blog post. Many have seen ad revenue fall as national and local advertisers pull back, and as coronavirus-related keyword blocking makes it difficult to […]
One of LiveRamp’s top priorities is to get publishers to adopt LiveRamp Authenticated Traffic Solutions (ATS) – an email-based identity solution designed to be used in place of third-party cookies. So it brought in former ViacomCBS GM of programmatic Jason White to lead them toward the promised land of authentication, the company said Thursday. White […]
The retargeting company NextRoll, which recently rebranded from AdRoll, laid off 30% of its 700 global staff at the beginning of April due to the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The remaining employees are taking 20% pay cuts, AdExchanger confirmed. The executive team are cutting their salaries by a greater, but unspecified, percentage. […]
Publishers are feeling the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on their ad revenue. An IAB survey of 200 publishers and sell-side programmatic players found that 70% of the group were revising their Q2 forecasts post-pandemic. News pubs hit hardest News publishers in particular are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic, since many brands don’t […]
Although the coronavirus pandemic has caused CPMs to plummet, the news isn’t all bad for publishers. How sites have been affected by the coronavirus’s economic impact vary, depending on the type of content they produce and the type of advertisers they attract. Freestar handles the advertising for 300 publishers – from sports (Barstool Sports) […]
The advertising industry faces “imminent upheaval” as their tracking-heavy approach to digital advertising is being rejected by browsers, regulators and consumers. “Change is no longer a nice idea. It has become a requirement,” said Forrester VP and principal analyst Joanna O’Connell, who authored a report last week about how marketers need to address this […]
Quarantine life for readers of the Betches might look something like this: an evening critiquing the self-quarantining Instagram posts of Bachelor stars while eating delivery, binge-watching reality TV, drinking too much wine and procrastinating an in-home workout in favor of a FaceTime date. So the humor, gossip and lifestyle brand for women quickly adjusted its […]
Forget client dinners, Thirsty Thursdays and team drinks. The advertising world is going all in on the Zoom happy hour. “I wasn’t too sure about Zoom Happy Hours at first. Did I really want another meeting on my calendar? But I soon learned how fun and relaxing they can be,” said Sara Badler, SVP of […]
People are stuck at home and want to cook. Food52, already a resource for home cooks, is stepping up to meet the soaring demand. That means helping readers make easy quarantine recipes, find the best ingredients to stock their pantry and solving the mysterious shortage of yeast everywhere. Food52’s traffic is up 36% in the […]
Quantcast laid off just under 5% of its staff and implemented tiered pay cuts due to the economic impact of coronavirus. The salary cuts are tiered according to compensation level, with some employees taking 5% cuts and the highest-paid employees taking 30% cuts. Its global staff numbers more than 600 employees, according to Quantcast. CEO […]
MediaMath reduced its workforce by 8% through a combination of layoffs and furloughs due to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Remaining employees will take a 10% pay cut and MediaMath paused 401(k) matching. “We are preparing our businesses to weather these uncertain times and taking actions that will strengthen our position for the […]
The advertising department at The New York Times before the coronavirus pandemic is completely different than the one in motion now. The team is working remotely. In-person meetings and planned live events are out. And the hot topics with clients have completely changed. So The New York Times is trying to be helpful as clients […]
The playbook for how to advertise during a pandemic is still being written. Coronavirus marketing fails are inevitable. Retargeting ads for out-of-stock products and tone-deaf or opportunistic messaging trail consumers on the web. “This is an unprecedented situation. You have to think deeply about what is right for your business,” said Forrester principal analyst Jim […]
When Rubicon Project and Telaria announced their merger in December, the coronavirus was only just beginning to raise flags in Wuhan, China. Three months later, the deal is officially done – the merger closed on Wednesday – and Michael Barrett, CEO of the combined entity, is adjusting plans for the integration and product road map. The companies […]
In this new podcast series, AdExchanger editors break the cabin fever by talking with the top thought leaders and practitioners in digital and data-driven advertising – all while under social isolation. The scale of economic losses from the coronavirus pandemic are directly related to earlier missteps, says Insider Inc. CEO Henry Blodget. “The United States […]
The economic volatility caused by the coronavirus pandemic will stress ad tech and accelerate consolidation. Companies that aren’t financially sound won’t be able to handle decreased cash flow caused by a contraction in advertising spend. They’ll also be affected by delayed payments from upstream companies. “There’s going to be a culling. This will expose ad […]
In this new podcast series, AdExchanger editors break the cabin fever by talking with the top thought leaders and practitioners in digital and data-driven advertising – all while under social isolation. The coronavirus pandemic will create far-reaching economic ripples across the advertising industry, says Watson Advertising CRO Jeremy Hlavacek, who’s currently working double-duty while homeschooling […]
