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.
Spice manufacturer McCormick’s online ads draw in consumers with recipes that include unexpected but on-trend pairings, like a Greek yogurt taco dip. But creating many versions of online ads ran up costs with its creative agency. “We would get very targeted with our media campaigns, and we wanted our creative messaging to follow suit,” said […]
Ad tech talent is packing up and moving on. Longtime ad tech insiders – many who started before the dot-com boom – see their peers moving to other industries or fleeing for safety into the arms of the duopoly. When Ari Paparo, founder and CEO of Beeswax, tweeted, “The best people are leaving the business […]
A new IAB Tech Lab standard will help publishers and platforms make their header bidding container setups as efficient as possible. The lab will accept public comment on the standard through July 28. The lab decided to create a baseline standard because header bidding has started to mature. “We don’t create standards until something has […]
McAfee uses account-based marketing to reach its target list of 788 companies in the Americas it wants to buy its software. McAfee made the switch to a more targeted B2B marketing approach last year. Because many IT buyers conduct research online before contacting a sales rep toward the end of the research process, the marketing […]
Publishers need scale to survive. Fusion Media Group is an example of that strategy in action. The modern Fusion Media Group is about a year and a half in the making. Univision first expanded by buying The Root from The Washington Post, and then a stake in The Onion. In August, it bought Gawker Media […]
Advertisers buying on the open marketplace often sacrifice viewability, quality and transparency for cheaper prices and scale. But as more buyers decline to make that concession, the pendulum is swinging toward curated publisher lists. And many DSPs now offer to shoulder the burden of setting up private marketplace deals for their clients. Recently Centro, which […]
Google’s exchange bidding product entered open beta on Thursday. Publishers will be able to test how Google’s solution fares against their header bidding setups. But here’s a tip from publishers already using exchange bidding: Use both. Each connection has its own pros and cons, they told AdExchanger. For the time being, it’s better to test […]
Don’t call the latest venture from ad vet James Heckman, Maven, an ad network. It’s a tech platform for niche publishers that also handles monetization and subscriptions. “We’ve tested this model several times over the past 20 years and it’s never not succeeded,” Heckman said. Heckman’s history goes back to the dot-com boom and includes […]
As Chemistry Communications’ clients created more content and more ambitious distribution plans, manually distributing that content to dozens of native and social platforms became untenable. Chemistry turned to Story by PulsePoint to make content distribution more cost- and time-efficient. The agency serves clients not only in content marketing, but through media buys across digital, video […]
NBC News wanted to mix up its news coverage to include more “near news”: content someone reads after they get their fix of breaking news and politics – or as a relief from it. Two pop-up sites, future-oriented “Mach” and self-improvement site “Better,”officially launched May 31 with a fresh web design to test the content […]
When the Flashpocalypse comes in July, CNN aims to offer advertisers space in its fallout shelter. The video-heavy publisher moved early to transition its video platform from Flash to HTML5 during Q1 of this year. CNN averages over 464 million video starts a month, so it knew it needed to get in front of the […]
SheKnows built its own header bidding wrapper, which is now used by the 1,500 blogger sites it represents as well as its flagship property, SheKnows.com. Most publishers don’t build their own tech, instead using wrappers built and maintained by their ad tech partners. But Phil Bohn, VP of programmatic sales at SheKnows Media, said having […]
Forrester’s 2017 DSP Wave ranking placed six platforms as market “leaders”: MediaMath, DataXu, Trade Desk, Turn, Adobe and Rocket Fuel. Three others straddled the line between “leaders” and “strong performers”: Google, AppNexus and AOL. AdForm fell into the “strong performers” category. Time Inc.-owned Viant, including Adelphic, trailed the rest of the group with a placement […]
Not so long ago, Dose operated like a typical viral publisher, running tests to create the most clickable headlines and raking in revenue from banner ads. But last year, Dose cut off all of its programmatic ads and bet its future on branded content. Dose founder Emerson Spartz shifted strategy because he says the viral […]
With the dynamics of header bidding changing, Criteo created a new version of its header bidding product Direct Bidder with more controls and added transparency and flexibility. Direct Bidder, which Criteo first started developing in October, can be plugged directly into the ad server, or work within header bidding wrappers from Prebid or Index Exchange. […]
While header bidding can increase publisher CPMs and revenue, the growing complexity of the implementations makes it harder to differentiate vendor partners. Ancient History Encyclopedia, for instance, saw CPMs rise 75% after adding header bidding a year ago. The online encyclopedia operates as a nonprofit and relies on advertising for the majority of its revenue. […]
Even with the best audience targeting, it can be tough for advertisers to find adventurous consumers in need of bear spray for their next hike or specialized biking, hiking or skiing gear for weekend treks. Because it serves as an online watering hole for outdoor enthusiasts, Outside magazine enjoys steady growth in its digital business […]
Programmatic buyers on the open exchange who think they’re purchasing inventory from ESPN or The New York Times often end up buying from imposter sites instead. At times, the amount of misrepresented inventory in the marketplace can dwarf the legitimate inventory sold by brand-name publishers. The practice, domain spoofing, will become much harder to carry […]
Promoting reviews and content featuring Brooklinen’s bed sheets drives results for the direct-to-consumer brand. “We’ve struck a nerve with the consumer that does research,” said Justin Lapidus, general manager of Brooklinen. The company has grown by a factor of 10 during the past two years, and it raised $10 million in Series A financing in […]
Google wants to clean up where it places ads, but it also doesn’t want to hurt its publishers’ revenue. So instead of kicking out an entire site that violates a Google policy, Google will remove individual pages from a publisher’s site that violate Google policies. AdSense publishers will receive emails when content violates Google policies, […]
Demand-side platforms (DSPs) are putting pressure on supply-side platforms (SSPs) to improve inventory quality and cut out the games that pad the second-price auction. Ad tech insiders have told AdExchanger DSPs are being more aggressive in blocking supply sources until they clean up. The pressure could force the ecosystem to grow up. While DSPs aren’t […]
Time Inc. had a lousy Q1 as print revenue plunged 21% and the company struggled with a sales reorganization. Total advertising revenue declined 8% to $360 million. The stock declined 14% in the wake of the earnings, putting its share price well below the $18 a share three different buyers offered. The bright spot is […]
European broadcaster RTL Group is creating a unified auction where direct video deals must bid to compete with programmatic video buys. And to do so, it’s changing how it incentivizes the sales team to focus less on the size of the deals and more on the true value of the inventory. Because RTL Group puts […]
Retailers like Miles Kimball usually focus on two tried-and-true digital advertising tactics to drive purchases. Bottom-of-funnel retargeting is efficient, but requires a visitor to go to the brand’s website. Top-of-funnel user acquisition marketing brings in new customers, but often at a high cost. The home decor and gift catalog, one of a half-dozen catalogs owned […]
Rubicon Project posted another quarter of significant declines as new CEO Michael Barrett attempts to turn around the business. Revenue declined 34% YoY to $46 million in the first quarter. Advertising spend declined 23%, to $191.5 million. Though the revenue slightly beat expectations, the stock slid a few percentage points in after-hours trading. Take rates […]
Nearly five years ago, Quartz publisher Jay Lauf set out to create “the business news brand of our century.” Lauf sees Quartz well on its way to reaching that goal. At launch, the company aimed to provide readers with a mobile, social-focused alternative to current high-quality business news sites. Most, like The Economist, required a […]
As brands flee the open marketplace, publishers like The New York Times are positioned to scoop up their programmatic spend. The Times’ programmatic strategy has long catered to marketers who value its context. It views programmatic as a way to transact, not a way to secure inventory inexpensively. And more marketers want to use its […]
Header bidding has been great for nToggle. The startup uses machine learning to shape the bidstream for buying platforms. Instead of looking at every potential impression, nToggle filters out ones it thinks the DSP is unlikely to bid on, reducing the amount of queries by an average of 90%. Fewer queries to look at translates […]
Alphabet beat its earnings forecast in the first quarter, sending the stock up 5% in after-hours trading. Revenue increased 22% year over year to $24.75 billion. The positive earnings report, however, was overshadowed by investor questions about the YouTube brand safety crisis. Since January, brands and agencies have withdrawn spend, leading Google to improve controls […]
An advertiser looking to boost response rates for a mobile offer can employ a simple solution: Target commuters on crowded trains. And if there’s a delay or disruption, response rates rise further. The reason? The more crowded the subway car, the more consumers immerse themselves in their phones to avoid contact with the strangers next […]
