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.
Meredith will offload its 60% equity interest in ad platform business Viant, the company confirmed on its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call on Friday. It expects the sale to be finalized early in its coming fiscal year. Time Inc. bought Viant in 2016 for $87 million, and the purchase gave an inorganic boost to the publisher’s […]
Tech and publishing are coming together. Uzabase completed its acquisition of Quartz on July 31 and will pay between $75 million and $110 million, depending on this year’s performance. But what does it mean for a Bloomberg-like intelligence platform to join forces with a global business publisher? The two companies concede that they’re still figuring […]
It’s not how many people you know. It’s how many you know well. Meredith prioritizes depth over breadth: The company posits that a limited number of deep relationships with core readers matter more than a larger number of shallow relationships. While advertisers prize scale, content that draws readers back again and again opens the door […]
Millennial females in search of a humor fix gravitate toward Betches. A trio of college friends started a blog in 2011 and have since grown Betches into a revenue-diversified media brand fueled by branded content, a thriving ecommerce site, a cable TV deal and three books. And it focused on multiple revenue streams long before […]
Future PLC has agreed to buy the consumer division of Purch for $132 million. The July acquisition brings together Purch properties Tom’s Guide, Tom’s Hardware and Top Ten Reviews with Future PLC’s tech vertical titles, including PC Gamer and TechRadar. Future PLC’s 100-plus brands also serve non-tech niches like music and photography. The two companies […]
Rubicon Project beat its Q2 revenue expectations, sending the stock up 15% in after-hours trading Wednesday. Rubicon Project is still in the middle of steering a huge ship out of danger: It’s burning cash faster than it can increase ad spend on its platform, the result of cutting buyer fees from the platform in November. […]
After years of sitting on the programmatic-video sidelines, ESPN is tagging in. The sports network started selling video programmatically for the first time this year. Travis Howe, SVP of platform ad sales strategy, is running the playbook. “When I looked at the media landscape, there were very few companies that were not only sitting at […]
Verizon revealed Tuesday that it is taking a $658 million writedown for “product realignment” that is “mainly related” to Go90, which it shut down in late July. Verizon also had $339 million in severance charges and $120 million in charges related to its Oath integration, the company said during an earnings call. Taken together, the […]
The revised OpenRTB 3.0 spec released Tuesday makes major changes to the programmatic standard to stamp out bad ads and fraud. The IAB Tech Lab’s new spec is now open for public comment for 60 days. The eight-year-old OpenRTB standard governs how demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs) communicate with each other to buy […]
Boost Mobile’s recent campaign on Snapchat’s hit series “Phone Swap” went three levels deep to make its ads as seamless and relevant as possible – all the more important because they were among the app’s first unskippable ads. The ads ran on mobile phones while viewers watched the dating show where a potential couple trades […]
Ad tech is a buyer’s market right now, and MediaMath just got $180 million in cash to fund acquisitions. Could one of those targets be Rubicon Project? “That’s an interesting idea,” MediaMath CEO Joe Zawadzki told AdExchanger Thursday. “No, we are not buying them at this time.” The idea of a top-tier DSP and SSP […]
Trusted Media Brands is continuing its turnaround and building a revenue team to take advantage of its digital audience growth. Over the past year, the company, formerly known as the Reader’s Digest Association, grew readership on RD.com 76% to 8.3 million unique visitors. Taste of Home’s audience grew 39% to 12.7 million unique visitors. Overall […]
MediaMath is flush with cash and ready to ignite consolidation in ad tech. Thanks to a $225 million investment by private equity firm Searchlight on Tuesday, MediaMath will end up with a $180 million cash infusion to spend on acquisitions and building new products. MediaMath, whose flagship product is a DSP/DMP, used $45 million of […]
Inserting fresh ads into podcasts is challenging and time-consuming. An online article loads fresh ads every time a page loads. But in the podcasting world, readers download content and ads together, which means the two must be stitched together beforehand. Because of this challenge, many older podcasts run with no ads or stale ones, even […]
Fox News’ focus on breaking news is dramatically driving search traffic. Search engine traffic went from a single-digit percentage of total traffic to more than 20%, said Fox News Channel SVP of digital John Fiedler. “Search used to be about evergreen content,” Fiedler said. “But Google has been shifting toward supporting breaking news feeds and […]
Starting with Detroit in mid-June, Chase for Business will send a branded “BizMobile” van across the country to give advice to small businesses. Chase for Business CMO Brent Reinhard said this “hybrid campaign” marries an in-person experience with digital and social media elements that will expand reach to millions. The in-person experience will connect with […]
Toddler-age publication Fatherly was designed for the future of digital media. Fatherly CEO Michael Rothman, a veteran of Thrillist, envisioned a branded content-focused publication, with maybe a sideline of commerce via product licensing (not the JackThreads variety). Programmatic was out as an option. “We are at a place where audience doesn’t grow at a pace […]
Google is kicking many of its product names and acronyms to the curb – including the 22-year-old DoubleClick brand. Google is rebranding its products into three groups: Google Marketing Platform for enterprises, Google Ads for small and medium-sized businesses and Google Ad Manager for large publishers. The transition will begin in mid-July. This transition will […]
AT&T acquired AppNexus. So what’s it going to do with it? Both the buy side and the supply side will remain intact. AT&T will build out each part of AppNexus’ business, Brian Lesser, CEO of AT&T advertising and analytics, told AdExchanger. AT&T data will become a “very meaningful” carrot for buyers using AppNexus’ DSP, he […]
While many advertisers are shying away from news content due to brand safety concerns, News UK is making the case that buying ads alongside emotionally charged content drives stronger results. The publisher of The Sun and The Times loaded its version of News Corp.’s News IQ platform with data about readers’ opinions, emotions and preferences. […]
CafeMedia is selling its entire publishing portfolio to RockYou, choosing to place its bets on AdThrive, the ad management firm it acquired two years ago. The AdThrive business is profitable but the sites being sold by CafeMedia – CafeMom, MamasLatinas, Revelist and Baby Name Wizard – were “break-even,” according to CafeMedia CEO Michael Sanchez. “It’s […]
Waldorf Astoria is using social media to connect with the young, affluent millennial women it sees as its next guests. The goal is make sure that the ritzy Hilton-owned brand, whose roots go back to the late 1800s, has a marketing strategy that hits “the sweet spot with the newer entrants to the luxury demographic,” […]
At Turner, Jesse Redniss is the data oracle. As newly appointed EVP of data strategy and product innovation, Redniss leads a team armed with 35 data scientists. Their job is to collect the increasing amount of data generated by viewers of Turner content and to translate it into insights as the broadcaster works to navigate […]
Ad servers’ primary goal is to deliver direct-sold campaigns in full, so a publisher earns all revenue promised by the advertiser. But ad servers are dumb. They can deliver direct-sold campaigns too quickly, leaving an advertiser without active ads toward the end of the month. Or to ensure that direct campaigns deliver in full, they […]
AT&T defended its acquisition of Time Warner in court by saying it needed to compete against digital giants like Facebook and Google. By creating a scaled addressable TV platform to secure brand advertising dollars as well as performance spend, the merged companies could help AT&T stave off Google and Facebook. The two digital giants largely […]
Livingly Media runs a profitable business focused on programmatic advertising. And to stay profitable, it’s steered clear of the next hot thing. The publisher tried direct sales but realized it couldn’t compete with competitors offering 360-degree custom packages with content, social, first-of-their-kind ideas and offline events. Nor has Livingly dived into video or embraced platform […]
USA Today Sports Media Group acquired Golfweek 20 months ago because of its great content and readership of obsessive golf fans. After working with Golfweek on advertising and content partnerships, the Gannett-owned group saw how much more it could do with Golfweek if it owned the property. “We thought we could run it much more […]
Headphone and ear protector company Flare Audio is one of the many direct-to-consumer businesses racking up sales using digital media. The UK-based company generated nearly $9 million (5.9 million pounds) in sales last year after launching in 2016 with Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdfunding campaigns. “Our company wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for digital marketing,” […]
Ken Auletta’s new book, “Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else),” examines an ad industry in the midst of profound change. He followed pillars of the ad industry, including former WPP CEO Martin Sorrell, former GroupM Chairman Irwin Gottlieb, Facebook’s Carolyn Everson, CBS’ Les Moonves and MediaLink’s Michael Kassan. The group […]
As many brands move to six-second spots to promote their brands, Grey Goose has gone in the other direction with “Off Script,” a nine-episode series featuring 10-minute segments of Jamie Foxx interviewing celebrities. Participants include Melissa McCarthy, Gabrielle Union, Vince Vaughn and Sarah Silverman. “We wanted to change the model from interrupting with branded content […]
