As Editorial Director, 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 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 […]
Advertising and ad tech companies are rallying around their employees as their entire workforces move to remote setups. They are experimenting with #WFH Slack channels, virtual group exercise classes and photo contests for the best work-from-home selfie. Some sick employees are even getting food deliveries on the company’s dime. With people under lockdown, companies are […]
Between March and June, brands said they’re spending 33% less on digital media, and 39% less on traditional media, as the vast majority adjust spending for the first half of the year. The IAB surveyed nearly 400 senior decision-makers at brands and agencies in the past week. Seventy-four percent of them anticipated a coronavirus-related downturn […]
The six-year-old storage company MakeSpace had plans to go beyond digital marketing and run its first linear TV ads this March. And then the coronavirus pandemic happened. So shortly after starting its linear TV ads, MakeSpace put its plans on hold. “We’re going to completely pause after this week until we can work through the […]
This month, during the pandemic’s Great Toilet Paper Shortage, Wirecutter’s December review of the best bidet became one of its most popular articles. But it’s not all about bidets. The New York Times-owned site’s overall traffic and readership is up year over year – in some cases more than 50%. Wirecutter’s affiliate program is also […]
When ads positively portray people from a racial or cultural group, or contain cultural insights that resonate with members of that group, they measurably boost brand KPIs such as purchase intent, brand loyalty and brand relevance. But efforts to measure cultural inclusivity are in their infancy. One such effort – a new panel-based metric called […]
For David Simon, Cuebiq’s SVP of channel partnerships, RampUp was the beginning of the end. Simon normally spends 75 nights a year on the road, flying 125,000 miles a year and taking 120 flights. But since attending RampUp in early March, he’s been working from home, eating healthier, drinking less alcohol and sleeping better. And […]
While programmatic campaigns for ecommerce clients can optimize to sales in real time, CPG clients get the short end of the stick. When sales surge and change unpredictably – such as during the coronavirus pandemic – it severely reduces marketing agility. To weather these changes, Goodway Group gained access to a CPG client’s critical real-time, […]
The type of content that matters to people has completely shifted as Americans stay home in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital media companies are quickly evaluating what’s doing well or falling flat and adjusting their content production strategies. They’re also figuring out how to produce video content and replace live events as their employees […]
The French video publication Brut emerged with a splash three years ago, just before the French presidential campaign. Brut produces high-quality news content with experienced journalists, but delivered casually, like friends talking to each other. In the short time since its debut, Brut said it became the third-most trusted news source in France. But now, […]
PubMatic unveiled a product Tuesday called Audience Encore, designed to let ad buyers use a publisher’s first-party data across the entire PubMatic exchange. PubMatic Audience Encore lets publishers set up a private marketplace (deal ID) with buyers that includes their audience data. Buyers can then target the audience segment both on that publisher’s site and […]
The technical backbone of digital advertising is being ripped out, and the IAB Tech Lab is committed to helping its members figure out what to do when third-party cookies disappear from web browsers. Although the IAB Tech Lab built a universal ID – DigiTrust – that will continue to run as long as third-party cookies […]
Digital media is starting to feel the effects of COVID-19’s US invasion. Consumer engagement in online content is spiking. And while some advertisers are watching and waiting, others are taking action and shifting media budgets or strategy. The traffic effect At Insider Inc., for example, traffic is way up as people seek information about the […]
Xandr CEO Brian Lesser has resigned, Reuters reported. Xandr did not respond to AdExchanger’s request for comment. There’d been rumblings within the advertising community about Xandr not living up to expectations. AT&T’s ad unit missed internal revenue projections and was off-pace to meet goals it set for later this year, multiple sources told AdExchanger. The […]
WarnerMedia’s wide range of shows, personalities and topics means the company can create vastly different types of branded content. Data plays a key role in matchmaking between the advertiser’s target audience and the content and delivery those potential customers like best. The teams using Launchpad, WarnerMedia’s insights tool, start their sales pitch by showing how […]
In college, Morning Brew CEO Alex Lieberman started sending a recap of the day’s business news to friends looking for finance jobs. Four years later, he’s built a profitable media company that generated $13 million in 2019 revenue, up from $3 million the year before. The company runs lean. After starting the year with just […]
ESI Media owns The Evening Standard and The Independent, but each newspaper approaches affiliate product recommendations differently. “To add value to our consumers, we ask, ‘What’s relevant to our users? And where do we have authority?’” said Sandro Del Grosso, head of digital partnerships and ecommerce for ESI Media. For example, The Evening Standard offers […]
“Just make this little tweak to your page.” With the clock ticking on third-party cookies, publishers will soon be the only part of the ad ecosystem with direct relationships with their readers. Naturally, everyone else wants in on that relationship. Buy-side ad tech has been more aggressive asking publishers to share user data, even as […]
