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.
Former Right Media President Christine Hunsicker founded apparel company Gwynnie Bee in 2012 because she wanted to move to an industry that hadn’t yet been disrupted by data and technology. Gwynnie Bee, which lets women wearing sizes 10-32 rent and return apparel, required efficient data use to run a balanced marketplace with supply and demand […]
If programmatic advertising has reduced readers to commodities, then Topix wants to be the ultimate trader. The site focuses on slideshows, the best way to get readers to cycle through multiple page views and earn more revenue per user. Topix’s most successful slideshow in 2016 earned $400,000. But getting that $400,000 required buying about $200,000 […]
Bustle has raised $38.5 million in venture capital to create content that speaks to female millennials. And it’s beginning to see its efforts bear fruit. It earned $30 million in 2016, up from just $10 million the year before. But competition for this prized demographic is tough. The space is crowded with other digital startups, […]
Last year, the New York Daily News created a new advertising product to give clients a simple way to tap into the benefits of its data management platform (DMP). When clients opt in to the product, dubbed AdLift, the Daily News uses insights from the DMP to target and optimize their campaigns. Six months after […]
TripleLift is throwing its hat into the server-side header bidding ring. On Tuesday, it rolled out its wrapper, Apex, which lets publishers bring in demand for their in-feed native ad placements. TripleLift will run a first-price auction among all participating partners, a shift from the OpenRTB spec of a second-price auction that could result in […]
Television viewing data is sensitive. And because consumers don’t expect such data to be collected, smart-TV manufacturer Vizio was penalized for doing so without an opt-in. Vizio paid the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) $2.2 million to settle charges over its data collection practices on Monday. The settlement requires that Vizio delete its old data and […]
The New York Times saw its highest subscriber increase since 2011, the year the publication introduced digital subscriptions, following the November presidential election. It added 296,000 digital subscribers in the fourth quarter, up 19% from the previous quarter and a 45.9% increase year over year. CEO Mark Thompson said digital subscriptions had accelerated even prior […]
When Russell Wager joined Mazda North America four years ago as its vice president of marketing, one thing was immediately clear: Digital spend was way too low. The car marketing vet, who previously worked on the agency side, upped spend from 10% to 25%, then 30%. Digital now commands 40% of overall marketing spend. To […]
Year-old video news startup Cheddar is shaking up the current media model in two ways. On the content side, Cheddar wants to be the CNBC for millennials, quickly offering business news about the companies they care about. On the business side, Cheddar doesn’t see advertising as a main revenue driver. Instead, it’s struck deals with […]
The IAB creates standards for its industry but is running into a problem: The digital media ecosystem isn’t embracing those standards. Agencies and advertisers have set viewability definitions that are all over the map. Publishers must run slow, tag-ridden ads because buyers don’t follow the IAB’s LEAN spec. Platforms advocate for alternative standards that apply […]
P&G isn’t going to give digital a free pass anymore. Its agencies, ad tech partners and publishers must enable viewability and third-party measurement and root out fraud. Contracts must be transparent. And if they don’t? P&G will pull media spend. According to its 2016 financial report, P&G spent $7.2 billion on advertising last year. “We […]
Publishers contemplating a switch to server-side header bidding now have two more options. They can use AppNexus’ Prebid server-side wrapper, which will tap into Index Exchange’s demand. Or they can put Index Exchange’s wrapper on their page, which will make a server-side call out to AppNexus. “We are giving publishers choice, and a flexible, transparent solution,” […]
Advertisers will focus less on quantity and more on quality over the next five years. That shift in how they spend their marketing budgets will change the role programmatic – and media agencies – play in the marketing ecosystem. “The days of buying volume are going to reach a point of obsolescence,” said Forrester principal […]
Snapchat’s ads API works. And the ad platform is hitting product development milestones earlier than other social platforms, according to buyers participating in the API’s beta. It’s the benefit of last-mover advantage, said Noah Mallin of MEC Global. “They’ve seen all the pitfalls and all the successes.” The Ins And Outs Of Snapchat’s Programmatic Platform […]
Although selling ad inventory programmatically offers the promise of automation, the reality is often quite different. “There is still a lot of high-touch in programmatic,” said Reuters Solutions VP John Toth. While Toth wants the market to become more efficient and automated, Reuters realized that adding people, tech and service to programmatic spend yields the […]
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 […]
