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.
Local TV and print magazines don’t share much in common. But as local TV’s digital business grows, and as Meredith’s digital properties need more video expertise, the two disciplines are converging. Tom Harty, who became Meredith’s COO and president on Thursday, is identifying where the local and national media group can collaborate by “figuring out […]
ComScore replaced its CEO and rearranged its leadership team Wednesday amid an internal investigation of its accounting practices that started shortly after comScore and Rentrak completed their merger in February. Because of the ongoing investigation, which is being conducted with the help of independent counsel, comScore hasn’t reported Q1 or Q2 revenue. Co-founder Gian Fulgoni […]
The Street CEO David Callaway wants to transform the financial news and analysis publication into a “data-driven news business.” Callaway, who was hired in June, says he will use a data trove assembled through recent acquisitions like BoardEx (a LinkedIn for company board members) to publish exclusive, high-value content for The Street and thus revive […]
In under two years, CarGurus transformed its display revenue strategy from one built on ad networks to one focused on high-value programmatic deals. The auto shopping site, which attracts 12.4 million uniques a month, according to comScore, used to sell search listings and upfront sponsorships with auto manufacturers and dealers. CarGurus farmed out its display […]
Header bidding is changing the industry and creating a new set of winners and losers. After a dismal earnings call, Rubicon Project’s stock fell 32% and lost $200 million in value Wednesday. Rubicon CEO Frank Addante said the company failed to respond quickly to the header bidding trend, sending its desktop revenue into decline. […]
For most of Imgur’s history, the bootstrapped company sold ads programmatically. And with 150 million unique visitors and 6 billion page views globally, the media company had enough scale to do well, even if CPMs skewed lower than direct. But that approach left money on the table. Imgur’s millennial male, geek culture-focused community is highly […]
Mike Finnegan will speak at AdExchanger’s Omni.Digital conference in Chicago on September 8. Live Nation is coining a new term to describe how it’s enabling data-driven marketing for festival advertisers: festech. Festivalgoers register their RFID [radio frequency identification] wristbands via email or Facebook and use them for entry and payment. They can also tap their bands at advertisers’ […]
Rubicon Project CEO Frank Addante told investors on Tuesday that the company was slow to recognize the importance of header bidding to its publisher customers. As a result, desktop managed revenue declined 2% in Q2. That unexpected drop led Rubicon to lower its revenue guidance for the year. Rubicon’s FastLane header bidding product did not enter the […]
Youth smoking stands at a record low of 7%. The rate was more than triple that number when Truth Initiative, the nonprofit aimed at stopping teens from taking up smoking, was founded in 2000 with money from the US’s settlement with tobacco companies. The nonprofit was among the first to use data in the way that […]
Behind every piece of PopSugar viral content, there’s data. The lifestyle pub’s recipe and video for Fruity Pebbles No-Bake Cheesecake has attracted 9.4 million video views and 238,000 shares on Facebook since it went live in June. Landing on the winning recipe required sifting through audience insights and constant tweaking so it would resonate with […]
Many teens on Kik love J-14’s celebrity-focused trivia games, returning every week to take its interactive, emoji-filled quizzes with questions like, “Which family member does Justin Bieber have a rocky relationship with?” This has pushed J-14 Celeb Quizzes to first place for weekly active users in Kik’s bot shop, which launched this spring. The shop […]
Facebook’s top-line revenue surged dramatically in Q2, growing 63% year over year to $6.2 billion. Mobile ads continue to be the star of Facebook’s show, comprising 84% of total advertising revenue, up from 76% at the same time last year. The company’s costs grew much more modestly, allowing it to increase operating margin from 31% to 46%. […]
Yahoo and AOL sell the same stuff to the same advertisers and, once their sales organizations combine – likely after the deal closes around Q1 2017 – there will be plenty of layoffs. Yahoo CEO Marisa Mayer said as much in Monday’s call to investors as the acquisition progressed. She said the company already has its lowest headcount since […]
When Google vet Brit Morin created Brit + Co to focus on the millennial DIY set, she didn’t want to rely on the web’s surest, most turnkey form of monetization: banner ads. She thinks banner ads will become extinct. She also believes programmatic will fall by the wayside as advertisers choose branded content, video and […]
Home decor ecommerce site Wayfair is turning to its digital ad buying partner AppNexus to expand its media business. AppNexus will sell advertising across Wayfair’s ecommerce sites, which include Wayfair.com as well as Joss & Main, AllModern and DwellStudio. Using the same platform will make it easier to share data segments across Wayfair’s retail and […]
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) turned on video header bidding with Index Exchange. The broadcaster and publisher requested that Index Exchange develop the feature because it wanted “to make more data-rich inventory available to [private exchange buyers],” said Jeff MacPherson, director of monetization platforms and services at CBC. The move will also boost yield for […]
To get millennials talking about their money issues, the well-financed fintech company SoFi sponsored this week’s launch of Mic’s MoneyMic section. “It’s the last big taboo,” said Meg Ciarallo, SoFi’s VP of brand marketing. “Trojan made it OK to talk about sex, Tampax made it OK to talk about periods. But people are uncomfortable talking […]
Three years ago, The Daily Beast had no sponsored content business. Now sponsored content accounts for 90% of its revenue. Plus, overall revenue is up 90% year over year. Buoyed by the success of its sponsored content business, the news analysis and opinion site is expanding into two new lifestyle verticals: style and food & […]
Deterministic data from set-top boxes is changing how linear TV is bought and valued. Like the Nielsen ratings panel, set-top box data connects to a physical address and household. But unlike Nielsen’s 40,000 families – which provide a “truth set” for TV viewership – set-top boxes reach millions of households, allowing marketers to overlay […]
Google wants to improve the mobile ad experience, which is too slow and reliant on desktop ad formats. Its solution? AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) ads and the expansion of programmatic native, both of which Google VP Paul Muret introduced Tuesday at the company’s DoubleClick Leadership Summit. “Winning starts with creating an amazing user experience that […]
Former Turn head Bill Demas took the reins of Shopkick in June to “blitz scale” the company’s growth. More than 20 million consumers have downloaded the 7-year-old app, which rewards them for walking into stores, scanning items and buying products. Marketers use Shopkick to incentivize store visits and purchases. “In the commerce world, we were […]
Reynolds Consumer Products signed a 2-year deal with Meredith, under which the food- and home-focused publisher will develop upper-funnel and lower-funnel content for Reynolds’ brands, including Reynolds Wrap and Hefty. Upper-funnel content will feature tips for entertaining or cooking designed to inspire or drive awareness, said Meredith SVP Marc Rothschild. The publisher’s 2015 acquisition of […]
Once, E.W. Scripps was a newspaper company. Now it’s a digital media, broadcast TV, over-the-top (OTT) and podcasting company. Along the way, it shed its newspapers, which are now part of Journal Communications, and its cable channels, spun off in 2008 into Scripps Networks Interactive. It also has been acquisitive. E.W. Scripps expanded into podcasting […]
In spite of the upheaval from Brexit, Time Inc. acquired Collective’s UK ad network business for an undisclosed sum on Tuesday. Unlike Collective’s US ad network business, the UK business’ bottom and top lines are growing, said CEO Joe Apprendi. Focused on brand advertisers, the UK business provides creative services and ad formats that differentiated […]
When building a content-commerce brand, content comes first. More readers will lead to more shoppers, according to home decor brand Domino. The company has appointed Nathan Coyle, an EVP at Refinery29, as its CEO to supercharge Domino’s online audience growth. “The belief amongst the board was that among our three channels – the print publication, […]
Hearst doesn’t view itself a media company, but rather as a technology company. “We have been making a concerted effort to transform from a media company that used great technology to a technology company,” said Allen Duan, Hearst’s head of corporate technology. Hearst’s technology team builds tech for a world where content is distributed on […]
Facebook’s recent courtship of publishers – like its attempt to move them onto Instant Articles, paying them to produce Facebook Live videos and allowing the posting of sponsored posts on their feeds – hasn’t insulated publishers from Facebook’s algorithm adjustments. On Wednesday, Facebook said it will change its algorithm to focus its news feed on […]
In the land of VC-backed media brands, Thought Catalog wants to be the indie media brand that could. Founded in 2010, The Thought & Expression Co., which includes sites Thought Catalog and Quote Catalog, hasn’t taken on any investment. Just 35 people work out of its Williamsburg, Brooklyn, office, including Alex Magnin, the chief revenue […]
If publishers allow programmatic to compete with direct-sold impressions within their ad server, they needn’t bother with header bidding. French ecommerce site Rue du Commerce saw a sizable boost in yield when it did just that. It belongs to a family of ecommerce sites, Régie E-Commerce (REC), which together attract 14 million uniques a month. […]
Since some people will never tune into their local 5 o’clock news broadcast, many local news stations are setting aside competitive concerns to partner with NewsOn. The app brings 141 local news broadcasts to OTT and mobile audiences. “While these companies compete fiercely with each other in local markets, they see the value of NewsOn,” […]
