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.
When DISH Media hired Dave Antonelli from the AI startup Cognitiv to lead its advertising strategy and sales, a key reason was his experience in startups around new tech. “When you work at a startup, you have to think and move quickly in a dynamic market, and that’s no different than what we are doing […]
Facebook set aside $3 billion for a potential FTC fine, the company revealed Wednesday when it announced its first quarter earnings. Facebook estimates the fine, which stems from its privacy practices, could range from $3 billion to $5 billion. “We are focused on building out our privacy-focused vision for the future of social networking and […]
Google held a meeting Thursday with its top publisher partners to discuss numerous new product changes, collectively called “unified pricing,” that could upend publisher strategy and leave them with less control over their ad inventory. It soon got heated. Multiple publishers in the group, whose attendees included The New York Times, News Corp, Dotdash, Watson […]
Starting this week, luxury bedding startup Boll & Branch will add TV to its marketing mix, joining many other direct-to-consumer brands. But the data-driven company is being disciplined, which means using a different strategy than other DTC brands and the traditional marketers that dominate TV. It’s targeting a broad national customer base, not just urban […]
While most DSPs let marketers increase or decrease bids based on factors like time of day, Beeswax is upgrading that idea with a product that lets buyers optimize bids based on up to 40 factors from the bid requests. Bid Models, which graduated from beta Wednesday, uses multivariate bidding algorithms to help marketers find “pockets” […]
At AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O conference in San Francisco on April 30, Laura Nelson, Disney’s SVP of advertising solutions and performance advertising, will share how it’s selling connected TV as consumer habits and advertising preferences change. Disney is on a mission to unify its inventory across platforms and offer buyers alluring scale against much smaller audience […]
Healthline Media embarked on the road to recovery by taking a content-focused approach to health information. The profitable company racked up more than $100 million in revenue last year. With audience growth rates topping 60% year over year, Healthline is on the cusp of eclipsing slow-growing WebMD as the web’s top health property. The ascension […]
Traditionally, a company like TIBCO, which sells integration and analytics software, thrives on events and field sales, where company reps can explain its products in person. But client buying habits have changed, even in the world of complex B2B solutions. “We heard from customers that they were spending more time online learning about products before […]
BuzzFeed thrives on using data to inform its advertising programs, social strategy and editorial. But its cookie-dependent data-management platform (DMP) had too many holes in how it collected data. So the publisher switched to Permutive, a next-gen DMP that uses a browser’s local storage to find patterns in how its users engage with content and […]
Publishers get paid for their ads 60 days or more after they appear – if exchanges pay on time. That delay forces publishers to keep more cash on their balance sheet. Instead of investing profits to grow their business, they hold onto that cash to cushion late payments. OAREX (Online Advertising Revenue Exchange) is one […]
It’s a tough time for all publishers, and local publishers especially. To combat those challenges, Advance Local – part of the same media company that owns local pubs like NJ.com and NOLA.com – created a tech incubator in 2015 called Alpha Group, to come up with the next big idea. Founded by one of its […]
Large, established companies such as P&G, Verizon and Kellogg’s are building direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands to compete with the challengers encroaching on their territory. In addition to investing in or acquiring other DTC brands, there are strategic advantages to a company building its own. P&G for instance thinks of buying, building and acquiring brands as a […]
BuzzFeed is in the midst of a transformation from a fast-growing startup to a sustainable digital media company, with Chief Revenue Officer Lee Brown leading the charge. Over the past two years, BuzzFeed’s expanded into every revenue opportunity it can, including programmatic, affiliate and brand licensing. In programmatic, for example, BuzzFeed started with a basic […]
If Google Chrome follows Apple’s ITP and Firefox’s ETP to create a cookie blocker that limits third-party tracking, what would it look like? Google is considering its options, according to an article by AdWeek that said multiple teams at the company – not just its advertising division – are contemplating how to limit third-party data […]
Pluto TV is the anti-Netflix. It’s free and ad-supported. Users scroll through channels and watch whatever show is already playing, replicating the channel surfing that’s a hallmark of old-fashioned TV watching. Viacom spent $340 million in cash to acquire Pluto TV in January, validating the concept and its audience. The deal felt like “Cinderella getting […]
McCormick, the 130-year-old seasoning manufacturer, worked together with BuzzFeed’s food publication Tasty to co-develop Tasty-branded seasonings. For BuzzFeed, selling co-branded products is a revenue opportunity that supplements its ad business. For McCormick, which usually sells in supermarkets, it’s an opportunity to reach millennial chefs and to directly get both customer data and distribution – usually […]
As all online advertising exchanges – including Google – switch to a first-price auction format, marketers and publishers can trust they will be run fairly. The auction type ensures that the exchanges, acting as the auctioneers, have no incentive to cheat. “First-price auctions wipe out a lot of ways auctioneers would be tempted to bend […]
When Campbell’s made its $6.1 billion acquisition of CPG company Snyder’s-Lance last May, it wanted to bring its marketing prowess to snack brands that hadn’t received media investment in decades, like Kettle, Cape Cod and Snyder’s of Hanover. “They were more product innovation focused, and less advertising focused,” said Karen Marks, VP of integrated marketing […]
The power of the brands owned by Meredith – including Better Homes & Gardens, People, Food & Wine, Family Circle – first attracted Catherine Levene to join the publisher as chief strategy officer in January. “I’m a big believer in trusted brands, and this company has a huge portfolio of trusted brands. The opportunity is […]
Years ago, TV buyers didn’t bother with connected TV (CTV) because it offered little benefit for a lot of hassle. “Digital players were the earliest adopters. Because it was TV-like, everyone wanted to get into the video game.” said Gibbs Haljun, total US investment lead at Mindshare. But young viewers leaving linear TV changes that […]
Bid shading is a technique buyers use in first-price auctions to avoid paying too much, and its importance has increased as every major exchange has switched over to a first-price auction. “Bid shading uses an aggregated view of the market to avoid overpaying,” said Matthew McIntyre, head of programmatic EMEA for Essence. “DSPs or exchanges […]
Google’s move to create unified, first-price auctions for publishers using Google Ad Manager doesn’t just change the auction type. It impacts pricing, header bidding, publisher floors and how publishers see AdWords demand. Under the new rules, all exchanges will bid for an impression at the same time, and Google will lose the “last look” it […]
Google will move to first-price auctions for Google Ad Manager, its publisher exchange and ad server, by the end of 2019. At that time, it will also run a single, unified auction and remove last look, ceding a key advantage Google held in a second-price world. Google Ad Manager will be the last major exchange […]
Cars.com knows that most people shopping for a car come to its site, which creates some of the best in-market auto data available. The only downside? The higher the quality of data, the smaller the audience for marketers to target. Cars.com counts about 7 million people in-market for cars at a given time. In contrast, […]
Rubicon Project’s revenue increased 32% in Q4, earning $41.4 million on $301 million in ad spend. It met its goal for a positive adjusted EBITDA and, as a bonus, became cash flow positive a year ahead of projections. The news sent Rubicon’s stock up 15% in after-hours trading. But Rubicon also noted pressure in its […]
Ad buyers need to be on the lookout for a new problem called “declaration fraud,” where buyers paying for full-screen mobile video ads instead get itty-bitty versions that take up less than 5% of the screen. The trick takes advantage of the same loophole sellers used to spoof domains prior to ads.txt. Here’s how it […]
Marketers’ push for viewability, ads.txt and GDPR eventually led to the Chapter 7 bankruptcy of RockYou, an ad network and media holding company, on Feb. 13. The bankruptcy filing listed $14.9 million in liabilities to 738 different ad tech companies and publishers. Most notably, RockYou owed $2.1 million to Facebook, where it likely paid to […]
Once upon a time, direct-to-consumer startup Parachute sold high-quality sheets online, touting efficiencies by cutting out middlemen. Five years later, Parachute sells sheets, towels, mattresses, bathrobes and baby blankets to consumers online and in five stores on each coast. “Bedding was a vehicle to gain customer trust, but it was never the end goal,” said […]
Marketers were slow to move their advertising dollars from desktop to mobile, but they are transitioning to connected TV more quickly, according to Roku CEO Anthony Wood. Advertisers’ quick adoption of connected TV contributed to its $151 million in Q4 platform revenue.Total revenue totaled $275.7 million. Next year, Roku expects more than $1 billion in […]
Verizon’s Visible, a low-cost, digital-only phone carrier, is using direct-to-consumer principles to attract millennials who are leaving a family plan for the first time in their lives. No stores exist. Consumers sign up for Visible by downloading an app. A new SIM card arrives in the mail for the $40-per-month service. Like direct-to-consumer brands, Visible […]
