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.
Condé Nast will execute its turnaround with a new leader. Its longtime CEO Bob Sauerberg is departing after 18 years with the company, including eight in the top spot. He’s leaving just months after he announced a turnaround plan for the publisher of Vogue, Wired and The New Yorker that would see it diversify away […]
One year ago, Rubicon Project removed buyer fees from its platform, halving its take rate to 12.8%. The gutsy move occurred during a battle over take rates: Competitor AppNexus said its take rate stood at 8.5%, and its CEO called for a price war. Drastically cutting take rates forced Rubicon to use cash reserves to […]
In-market auto is one of the most prized data segments – and it’s notorious for being inaccurate with artificially large scale, which makes it emblematic of the problems with third-party data. First-party in-market auto data, however, is another story. VerticalScope, which operates over 600 niche automobile sites about various car makes and models, knows what […]
Aside from dedicated fans, most people who show up to a concert never hear from the band again. That fleeting relationship poses a challenge for musicians. How can they get people to come to their next concert? Or buy merch? Hurdl is solving that problem with connected LED wristbands, which live event attendees activate using […]
Google Ad Manager is the dominant SSP, according to Advertiser Perceptions’ 2018 Programmatic Intelligence Report. But, the 154 publishers surveyed also valued platforms in areas like proactively shared insights and reporting – categories where Google didn’t perform as well as its competitors. “Google is the clear leader,” said Kevin Mannion, chief strategy officer at Advertiser […]
As anyone who’s ever consulted “Dr. Google” for a medical condition knows, the Internet can be an incredibly helpful place to find health information. But once people find their answer on WebMD, where can they go next? People with long-term medical issues want support from others dealing with their conditions, not just definitions. The Mighty […]
A dozen local news publishers participating in Facebook’s Local News Subscription Accelerator, including The Denver Post and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, flew to New York, Austin and San Francisco this spring for a 12-week program to learn the intricacies of running a digital subscription business. Facebook has had strained relationships with publishers, which hit a […]
What’s it like to integrate a $2.8 billion acquisition? After closing its purchase of Time Inc. almost nine months ago, Meredith National Media President Jon Werther is in good spirits about how the deal has deepened and broadened its coverage for female audiences. “When it comes to women and understanding their intent – what they’re […]
Although Alphabet’s revenue grew 21% to $33.7 billion in Q3, that fell short of its target, sending its stock sliding 4.5% in after-hours trading Thursday. “We feel good about the underlying strength in the ads business,” said Google CFO Ruth Porat, noting that Google is investing in machine learning to further improve its ads business […]
Cheddar bought Rate My Professors from Viacom on Thursday, and Cheddar CEO Jon Steinberg isn’t just thinking about access to the college-aged audience. He liked that Rate My Professors helps students navigate college course selection. “We need to be in the direct-to-consumer business, where users are doing something other than consuming media. I wanted us […]
Putting together a sponsored content program is a time-consuming headache for buyers and publishers. BrandVerge, a marketplace where buyers can browse publishers’ sponsored content options, aims to make it faster and easier to create sponsored content deals. The platform claims to shorten the deal-making process by an average of 67%. Smaller agencies and direct-to-consumer brands […]
What kind of stories do people in market for a luxury SUV read? Forbes is answering that question using data, not a gut feeling, so brands can buy sponsorships and branded content based on what resonates with an audience. That question was once impossible to answer. Publishers would know, for instance, if readers indexed highly […]
Sovrn closed a $25 million Series E round Thursday to help it acquire companies outside of ad tech. Sovrn’s original investors, led by Foundry Group, all participated in the round. “Our business is 100% focused on tools and technologies that help publishers – of which advertising is an important one,” said Sovrn CEO Walter Knapp. […]
Six top ad exchanges are asking the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) to referee auction dynamics. The CEOs of OpenX, PubMatic, Rubicon Project, Sovrn, SpotX and Telaria collectively signed a letter to advertisers and publishers outlining principles of transparency, efficiency and fair-market practices. They want to clearly state what’s acceptable and what’s not to restore trust […]
Name a trend in digital media, and Bloomberg’s tried it in the past year: digital subscriptions, live events, agency-like strategic advisory services, podcasts, social media-distributed video and, of course, OTT. “The single most important thing for us is finding the right balance of revenue streams for our organization and thinking about maximizing and future-proofing where […]
The switch to first-price auctions last year is causing programmatic buyers to pay more, according to research from media agency Hearts & Science. In one test, a first-price auction drove CPMs up by more than 50%. The Omnicom agency wants programmatic to create “clean” second-price auctions to remove the premium that buyers pay. It doesn’t […]
One year after first launching programmatic ads, BuzzFeed is doubling down with BuzzFeed Exchange, a formal expansion of its programmatic product offerings. BuzzFeed’s inventory has grown to 3 billion impressions a month, up from the 1 billion impressions a month it offered when it debuted programmatic ads a year ago. The BuzzFeed Exchange aims to […]
With its impeccable food styling, Food52 has always been a natural fit for Instagram. When the online food publisher started posting on Instagram, it viewed the platform as a place for community building and brand awareness, said Kaitlin Bray, Food52’s director of social media director. But as Instagram cooks up more shopping-driven features, Food52 finds […]
Neal Richter will present on the state of Ads.cert at AdExchanger’s upcoming Programmatic IO New York conference on Oct. 15-16. Programmatic auctions are growing up and cleaning up. Improvements to programmatic technology are a critical part of that transformation. Ads.txt, rolled out last year, allows buyers to verify that they’re buying the inventory they think they are […]
Brian O’Kelley’s departure as CEO of AppNexus surprised few in the industry who know him. His sharp opinions and independent mindset made him an ad tech provocateur and a fearless leader. But that same personality seemed incompatible with taking a subservient role to Xandr CEO Brian Lesser within the AT&T mega-corporation. After all, this is […]
MediaMath will stop buying from supply partners that play auction games, preferring to create an economic incentive for fair, transparent programmatic auctions and put an end to auction manipulation. The DSP sent an open letter Wednesday morning to its 50 directly integrated suppliers. The full letter is reproduced at the end of this article. “Auction […]
RockYou specializes in acquiring down-and-out digital properties and managing them through their decline. The San Francisco-based company adopted that business model because it nearly went out of business itself in 2009, when Facebook decided it was done with social gaming apps on its platform. At the time, RockYou was a top social gaming app developer […]
Six exchanges and a handful of top publishers who work with Index Exchange’s wrapper say they consistently notice anomalies indicating the exchange prioritizes itself. At least two of those exchanges are composing a letter to Index Exchange CEO Andrew Casale threatening to withdraw from its wrapper unless it takes steps to ensure neutrality, AdExchanger has […]
California’s consumer privacy law, passed in late June, has spurred demand for federal regulations to avoid a patchwork of state-by-state rules. To discuss what federal privacy laws might look like, representatives from AT&T, Amazon, Google, Twitter, Apple and Charter Communications met with the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on Wednesday in Washington, DC. […]
Google added more ways for advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their ad campaigns Wednesday, and it got the MRC’s approval in categories such as viewability and impression measurement on YouTube and its buying platform, Google Display & Video 360. “Advertisers need to trust the metrics and be able to compare across the different media […]
SiriusXM said Monday it has offered to acquire Pandora for $3.5 billion, a 13.8% premium on the current stock price. Read the release. If the deal goes through, SiriusXM would be able to distribute its content beyond vehicles and gain both a subscription radio business and an ad-supported streaming business. It would have the opportunity […]
Consumers’ mistrust of data-driven advertising has reached a crisis point, and they must be reminded of the value they’re getting in exchange, said Google SVP of ads and commerce Sridhar Ramaswamy at the Data Summit in Dublin Wednesday evening. “It’s up to all of us to confront the crisis in front of us,” Ramaswamy told […]
Ecommerce startup Material sells kitchen tools – including a chef’s knife, a wood spoon and one-handed kitchen tongs – meant to appeal to home chefs and people who like well-made, thoughtfully designed products. But the direct-to-consumer brand’s challenge has been connecting with consumers using customer insights, not just site analytics and sales data. “We take […]
A year and a half ago, Gary Vaynerchuk bought PureWow, bringing together an agency and publisher under one parent company called VaynerX. “We thought we were fast before the acquisition, but we are faster than ever before,” said Ryan Harwood, CEO of Gallery Media Group, which houses both PureWow and ONE37pm, a just-launched men’s lifestyle […]
When the founder of Diapers.com launched a media startup led by parenting brands Scary Mommy and The Dad, he brought his customer-focused metrics with him: customer acquisition cost (CAC) and lifetime value (LTV). When translated to media, Some Spider Studios CEO Vinit Bharara analyzes what content draws readers most efficiently (the media version of CAC) […]
