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.
As the value of publisher data surges, Adam Harris, VP of data products at Hearst Magazines Digital Media, is tasked with maximizing its opportunities. When Harris joined in May, he looked at how Hearst data can be used to create experiences that drive sales, which performance-focused advertisers demand from their digital media. The work builds […]
Conde Nast wants to quickly build up its data science practice, so it acquired Lighthouse Datalab on Monday. In so doing, it added three people to its data science team who will enhance the machine-learning and AI capabilities of Spire, its data platform. Lighthouse Datalab founder Sriram Subramanian will serve as head of data science […]
Adobe and AppNexus plan to give marketers supply-chain transparency from the DSP to the SSP by partnering on a pilot program. Adobe Advertising Cloud will reveal all fees taken by the DSP, including the platform fee and any add-ons, as well as AppNexus’ bill to the publisher, which will help marketers track media dollars through […]
Building a successful media company today means creating a diverse portfolio of brands and revenue streams, according to Group Nine CEO Ben Lerer. Lerer embarked on this strategy more than a year ago when he created Group Nine Media. The holding company is composed of Thrillist, The Dodo, NowThis Media and Discovery’s Seeker, with $100 million […]
Demand-side platforms (DSPs) make money by taking a percentage of the media buys that flow through their technology – and from lots of other hidden extras they charge for. Interviews with more than a dozen sources reveal that even as marketers make progress in understanding what they’re paying for, nontransparent fees abound in the DSP […]
Condé Nast has long distinguished itself for having the right context to buy ads against. But these days, it’s also focusing on helping advertisers reach new audiences when they buy ads alongside its content with its Spire platform. Condé Nast allows advertisers to use its own data signals to build lookalike audiences and reach more […]
Most digital publishers are set up to make money through advertising, not by selling content. CollegeHumor operates with a different setup, which enabled it to quickly launch a hit Facebook Watch show. Since its Facebook Watch show, “I Want My Phone Back,” launched four months ago, it has accumulated more than 370,000 followers. In the […]
In 2017, five industry developments caused the ad tech industry to rethink how auction dynamics and quality controls should work in programmatic. These factors, detailed below, stem partly from header bidding, which made it harder for exchanges to win auctions and created a huge burden on DSPs to listen to more impressions. Supply chain issues […]
In India, the media company behind its biggest news websites – Times of India, The Economic Times and the Mumbai Mirror – also offers apps and sites where users can make restaurant reservations, study for a test, stream music, buy stocks or track cricket scores. By building its own ad tech stack and developing mobile-heavy […]
In 2017, many online publications realized that data and revenue diversification could drive success. And not being diversified enough could hurt their business. While many publishers tout their branded content businesses, programmatic provides a reliable, easily scalable revenue stream. Publishers that were programmatic holdouts, avoiding the main way advertisers do data-driven buying, course-corrected this year […]
Luma Partners’ Brian Andersen will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference on Jan. 17 – 18, 2018 at the Grand Hyatt New York. 2018 will see the same amount of deal activity as 2017 as the field of potential buyers expands, predicts Luma Partners’ Brian Andersen. The ad tech acquirers are much different from when Andersen joined […]
The New York Times acquired Wirecutter last year because its Consumer Reports-like product coverage mirrored the Times’ aspirations to expand into service journalism. “The Wirecutter was doing what the Times would have done if we were to start from scratch,” said David Perpich, Wirecutter’s president and general manager. Buying Wirecutter helped the Times diversify its […]
Campbell’s Soup wants to help solve the daily “dinner dilemma” – that period between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. when people figure out what’s for dinner. And who better qualified to brainstorm novel dinner recipes than IBM Watson? Last winter, Campbell’s Soup tested Watson Ads to dynamically recommend recipes in its ads, using the Chef […]
Rubicon’s CEO Michael Barrett will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference on January 17 – 18, 2018 at the Grand Hyatt New York. Rubicon Project is in the midst of a risky move – one that CEO Michael Barrett thought he could avoid when he joined nine months ago. Because of customer outcry, the company stopped charging […]
Many digital publishers have had nothing but bad news to share this Q4 – from golden child BuzzFeed laying off staff to Mashable being sold for a bargain-basement price. But The New York Times is telling an upbeat story about its business with a new storyteller at the helm: Sebastian Tomich. Tomich, the company’s former […]
CPG advertisers running on Conde Nast properties will be able to target, optimize and measure campaigns using purchase data from Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) beginning in Q1 next year. The publisher wants to marry its expertise in creative development and sponsored content with an attention to attribution and the bottom line. “If you are not […]
Publishers are getting ensnared in the filters used by many advertisers to combat the YouTube brand safety crisis. Earlier this year, many brands found their ads running next to offensive content on the video platform, prompting marketers and their agencies to enlist third-party monitoring. Now publishers as a whole are feeling the effects. The filters […]
If understanding a customer’s long-term value were easy, every marketer would do it. But measuring LTV (long-term or lifetime value, referred to in some circles as customer lifetime value or CLV) is extremely tough. Brands must be able to identify and track customers over time, and they must work for companies that care about retaining […]
What if your media agency made your creative agency obsolete? Spark Foundry, which formed this year when Publicis Media retired the Mediavest Spark brand, is blurring the line between media and creative to give its clients a better chance of success. With the rise of sponsored content and social media, it makes sense for media and […]
BuzzFeed laid off 8% of its domestic workforce, or 100 people, Wednesday as the company diversifies beyond native advertising. Recode first reported the cuts. With 25% of revenue in 2017 coming from programmatic, affiliate links, commerce and non-native ads, many staffers working on the branded content side are being let go. Despite building a nine-figure revenue […]
When Al Jazeera pulled its cable channel from the American market a few years ago, it saw one bright spot: social media. While the cable channel failed, Al Jazeera saw promise in AJ+, its social media arm focused on Facebook and YouTube distribution. The brand operates with a more youthful vibe, taking a personal tone that appeals to millennials. The English-language […]
Sometimes it’s a good thing to put your customers in a box. Boxed, a four-year-old ecommerce startup focused on bulk buying, wanted to make its customer acquisition efforts smarter. Boxed customers buy in bulk for very different reasons. Some are busy working parents, while others are urban millennials without a car. Boxed’s new CMO, Jackson […]
The question-and-answer site Quora considers itself a unique hybrid of search and social. Since neither of those platforms open themselves up to programmatic demand, Quora decided it wouldn’t go that route either. Quora’s ads platform officially went live in May with 300 advertisers on board, who could only purchase ads through Quora’s Facebook-like self-serve ad […]
New York Life is in the insurance business – but the brand also has to protect itself. Marketers today have several metrics to juggle in their digital buys: Fraud, viewability and context top the list. But it’s not enough to monitor these metrics; brands need to take action. Natan Cohen, New York Life’s corporate VP of […]
There’s no point in targeting people with app-install ads if they’ve already downloaded the app. But that’s exactly what SeatGeek found itself doing. In the mobile app world, audience suppression often requires extensive manual work. Although Facebook – a huge beneficiary of mobile media dollars – makes audience suppression easy, newer platforms like Snapchat don’t […]
The rise of digital advertising has been tough on local news. Not only have legacy operations, like local newspapers, struggled to survive in the era of Craigslist, Google and Facebook, digital ones haven’t found it easy to gain a perch. Most recently, the owner of Gothamist and DNAinfo shut down the sites in early November […]
If an agency spends $100 programmatically for its client, how much money actually ends up with the publisher? Agencies and marketers want to know – especially GroupM. As awareness of hidden fees continues to rise, GroupM is doing more than just tracking where media spend ends up. It’s pulling and rerouting spend to take advantage […]
Unlike the Hilton or DoubleTree brands, Hilton’s Curio Collection features independent hotels – like the historic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego – that don’t carry the Hilton name prominently. To reach people who like to stay in these hotels, Hilton knew it needed to connect not with a demographic, but with travelers who sought […]
Yieldbot founder and CEO Jonathan Mendez has vacated that role. “Jonathan and the board came to a mutual understanding,” a company spokesperson confirmed to AdExchanger on Friday. The change was effective in early October, but Mendez is keeping his board seat. Yieldbot has had a tough year. It laid off a third of its staff […]
AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley has been waiting 10 years for ad tech to become transparent. Less than a week after Rubicon Project slashed its take rate in half, to 10% to 12%, by doing away with buy-side fees, AppNexus said its fees are even lower. The company revealed it charges an 8.5% average to the […]
