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.
Google identified 1.7 billion ads last year that violated its policies by deceiving users, containing malware or forcibly redirecting users to app stores. That amount is double the number it flagged in 2015. “Five years ago, we were a lot more analog in terms of how to capture bad traffic,” said John Brown, head of […]
Sourcepoint, whose technology lets publishers encourage ad-block users to whitelist their sites, revealed Wednesday it has raised $16 million in Series B funding led by early Spotify investor Northzone. Existing investors also contributed to the round. Sourcepoint, which has raised a total of $26 million, will use this round to accelerate product development as it […]
Rubicon Project’s foray into the buy side was brief: It’s shuttering Chango less than two years after the acquisition. IgnitionOne, which spun off from Dentsu in 2013, is picking up Chango’s 40 to 50 clients from Rubicon Project and a handful of employees – but nothing else. “The tech was not for sale,” IgnitionOne CEO […]
Rubicon Project is closing its intent marketing business, which it entered in 2015 through its $122 million acquisition of Chango, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). IgnitionOne will pick up Chango’s clients and some of its employees in return for a fee from Rubicon Project. Rubicon Project said the […]
Fake news flourishes with easy access to programmatic revenue. Real news doesn’t. The online pub Slate – in the real news category – has been diversifying its revenue stream through subscriptions since 2014. But the 2016 US presidential election dramatically accelerated its membership growth – up 50% from 18,000 in November to 27,000 now. This […]
If Rubicon Project officially goes on the selling block, what are its prospects? The company, which has hired Morgan Stanley to explore a sale, according to The Wall Street Journal, has suffered from tanking stock, layoffs and leadership changes over the past year, and it apparently isn’t the only company of its kind in play. […]
Rik van der Kooi, corporate VP of Microsoft advertising sales and marketing, will take the stage Jan. 19 to share Microsoft’s full vision for the future at Industry Preview in New York City. Microsoft is betting on “screenless advertising.” As voice-activated personal assistants like Cortana improve, consumers will use them not only for information, but to buy […]
Hokey, funny car dealer ads dominate local TV broadcasts for a reason: They work. But auto dealers like Rick Ricart are starting to expand into places like YouTube and Facebook. “TV is the new background noise, like radio,” said Ricart Automotive VP of Sales and Marketing Rick Ricart, referencing marketing knowledge from Vayner Media CEO […]
In 2016, Mashable got its programmatic house in order. When Chief Revenue Officer Ed Wise joined Mashable last spring, he immediately noticed that the tech publisher was missing out on a lot of programmatic revenue. Its viewability scores topped out below industry averages. Mashable sold inventory on the open exchanges blindly, hampering CPMs. And sales […]
Header bidding, make way: In the next year, more publishers will switch to server-side header bidding. The solution offers clear advantages – while introducing other disadvantages – with which the industry will grapple as publishers update their tech. Like with header bidding, publishers run a pre-auction before the ad server to create a level playing […]
Platforms, which are highly scalable and rely on others’ content, were supposed to have it easier than publishers. But on Wednesday, Medium laid off a third of its staff, a total of 50 people. CEO Ev Williams explained that the sponsored content model offered only “incremental improvements on the ad-driven publishing model,” in a blog post […]
When Bankrate decided to add header bidding late last year, it chose a server-side solution. “When we did our RFI [request for information], it became clear to me that server-to-server is a much better and more enhanced version of header bidding,” said Irene Kwak, VP of revenue operations for Bankrate. The financial publisher plans to […]
Joe Stanhope, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, will discuss the state of the marketing technology ecosystem – and what marketers need to do about it – at Industry Preview on January 18th, 2017, in New York City. Marketers face a complex ecosystem filled with thousands of vendors and redundancies. “There are way too many vendors doing […]
2016 was the year that header bidding crossed over and became a disruptive force in the ad industry. The wave of publisher adoption spurred tech companies to create header bidding solutions. Vendors that were slow to adopt, like Rubicon Project, saw their stock crash as their rivals scooped up market share in a world […]
Adam Chandler joined Kargo as its chief business officer this week. He will handle sales, account management and business development for the fast-growing mobile rich media company. Kargo added 92 employees in 2016, for a total of 250. From 2011 to 2015, it’s grown at a rate of 100% a year. Chandler joins from Rubicon […]
Who’s left at Rubicon Project? This year, a wave of senior executives left Rubicon Project, hollowing out the ranks. A company that prided itself on building a strong workplace culture in sunny Los Angeles now faces discontent with what some have described as product missteps and a lack of strategy at the top. Among the […]
When should an ad count? Traditionally, the IAB and Media Ratings Council (MRC) has recommended measuring desktop or mobile ads based on served impressions. So that means the ad only counted after the ad server responded. But now, the IAB and MRC, in conjunction with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), want to change these standards, […]
As part of The Weather Company’s shift to a vertical-based sales organization, it has hired Sarah Ripmaster as VP of automotive sales. Ripmaster, who has a decade of experience working with auto manufacturers, will help advertisers use The Weather Company’s location data, weather data and the Watson Ad platform in their ad campaigns. Ripmaster worked […]
Data-driven editorial just added a new weapon to its arsenal: a Slackbot. Clique Media Group (CMG), which owns flagship style site WhoWhatWear as well as MyDomaine, Byrdie and Obsessee, created a Slackbot in November to alert editors when stories over-index the benchmarks set for each author. The editors receive a Slackbot notification with details about […]
As more money flows programmatically, Prisa Group and other publishers are changing their sales organizations and ad products to focus on serving data-driven buyers. Prisa Group owns or represents media brands in 22 Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. Its properties, including El País and the sports site AS, reach 25 million unique users. It also serves […]
Swisscom is an example of how telcos like AT&T, Verizon or Singtel might evolve. In April, the Swiss telco combined its mobile phone and set-top box data with digital, print, radio and TV content from 85 media brands. The joint venture, called Admeira, reaches 95% of the Swiss market and lets advertisers precisely target their […]
In the summer leading up to the 2016 US presidential election, liberal political website ThinkProgress moved from WordPress to Medium. It abandoned its ad networks and programmatic banner ads and switched to Medium’s sponsored posts. ThinkProgress made the change because it saw revenue from banner ads flattening, and it didn’t want to compromise the user […]
Want some free tacos? Just go to a Los Angeles Lakers game and hope they win and the opposing team scores less than 100 points. Over the past decade, the Jack in the Box-sponsored promotion for LA Lakers ticketholders has become a fan favorite. During close games, fans chant “We want tacos!” This season, the […]
Mitú, a digital media company for young Latinos, started out as a multichannel network on YouTube and has since expanded onto Facebook and OTT devices. On Tuesday, the four-year-old publisher will add Snapchat Discover to the mix. “Snapchat recognized a significant portion of their audience, based on demo, is Latino, and wanted to find the […]
Two years ago, Media.net started helping publishers move their header bidding partners to a speedier server-to-server configuration, which has since attracted publishers like The Atlantic, Forbes, The New York Times and WebMD. Media.net had largely not marketed itself, said COO Namit Merchant. But following a $900 million acquisition this past summer by a Chinese consortium, […]
MeUndies discovered a new sales channel on Black Friday: Facebook Live. The underwear company ran a late-afternoon, two-hour event on Nov. 25 complete with a DJ and dance contests. As more people joined, MeUndies unlocked larger and larger discounts. The Live event attracted 13,300 viewers. Those users tallied 5,998 engagements. The Facebook Live audience opened […]
Purch, which first implemented header bidding three years ago, has moved on. The portfolio of product review and tech sites turned off most of its header bidders last month and moved to server-to-server integrations with the same partners. Industrywide, server-to-server is considered a logical next step after header bidding. Amazon is moving server-to-server, and Google’s […]
Amazon’s four-year-old header tag is going server-side, making it among the first header tag solutions to move to the faster, more sustainable setup. Sources briefed on the change described the details of this change to AdExchanger, which Ad Age first reported Thursday. As header bidding has taken off with publishers and more ad tech companies […]
AppNexus has filed confidentially for its IPO, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. AdExchanger reported in June that its IPO filing was imminent. The company is seeking a valuation in the $1.5 billion to $2 billion range, according to the Journal, which would put it in line with its 2015 round of […]
DoubleVerify will release a tool today designed to help advertisers avoid fake news sites. The company developed the capability to filter hundreds of fake news sites after brands asked for it over the past month, said CEO and President Wayne Gattinella. DoubleVerify also offers more than 75 brand safety filters so advertisers can avoid content […]
