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.
A singular issue is electrifying the publishers and tech companies attending the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Desert, Calif. IAB CEO Randy Rothenberg came out swinging at ad-blocking firms during his opening speech to members Monday, describing them as an “unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes.” Afterward he continued that discussion with AdExchanger. His […]
OpenX unveiled a new product Tuesday, real-time guaranteed (RTG), with features that fall between private marketplaces and automated guaranteed. The aim is to solve drawbacks to each current buying method. One of the biggest complaints about private marketplaces is that they don’t deliver the scale both sides want. And one of the biggest complaints about […]
SheKnows Media now has $22 million extra to play with, as the result of an expanded credit facility, or loan, it closed with Ally Technology Finance on Monday. The company wants more funds to invest in its technology platform Momentum and to use for shopping. CEO Philippe Guelton said SheKnows Media is “getting ready for […]
Revcontent is angling to usurp Taboola and Outbrain in the content recommendation space. The fast-growing network on Monday signed Newsweek to be its exclusive provider of content recommendations. The news follows the Jan. 8 announcement that it had acquired ContentClick, a European native advertising network, to gain a foothold in that continent. In tests, Revcontent […]
As programmatic commands a greater share of marketing budgets, trading desk knowledge will expand throughout organizations. Accuen expects its trading desk to decentralize when programmatic reaches 70% to 80% of media budgets industrywide, according to Megan Pagliuca, who became the CEO of Accuen after leaving Merkle late last year. That will happen in the next […]
When Condé Nast created its Food Innovation Group 14 months ago by combining Bon Appétit and Epicurious, the move gave it enough scale to take on AllRecipes and the Food Network. The group recently sensed an opportunity in the market to focus on short food videos designed for mobile and social audiences. It quickly pounced, […]
Health and wellness publisher Greatist raised $4.5 million in Series A funding Tuesday. The five-year-old publisher turned a profit last year for the first time, and it’s seeking more funds to create custom, high-touch programs with Kind, FitBit and other advertisers. CEO Derek Flanzraich wants Greatist to become a top player in the health and […]
Publishers thinking about how to deal with the growing rates of ad-blocking users can start by doing something simple: Just ask them to unblock. Requests to turn off ad blocking resulted in 30-40% of users whitelisting the publisher, according to data shared by GQ (30%), IDG Communications (37% for B2B and 38% for B2C) and […]
If Apple is indeed shifting its iAd platform to focus on direct deals, as BuzzFeed reported Wednesday, it means its experiment accepting programmatic demand has come to an end after little more than a year. Perhaps it was inevitable. While Rubicon Project, Accordant Media and MediaMath were among iAd’s programmatic partners, not much happened after […]
MSN.com has gone through a lot of changes recently, switching to a syndication-only content model a year and a half ago and having its ad sales move to AOL. To personalize MSN.com’s content and ad experience, Microsoft revealed Tuesday it had signed on with Taboola to bring native ads and personalization to the MSN site […]
Since its launch in 2014, Facebook’s ad network has limited itself to mobile app placements, choosing to avoid working with mobile web properties. Now that’s changing. AdExchanger has learned Facebook Audience Network is one month into a test involving about 10 publishers that would see the ad network’s placements run on mobile web pages. The […]
What if user-generated content platforms paid their creators? That’s the premise behind Slant News, which is attracting millennial writers by giving them 70% of the advertising revenue they generate. “Slant’s vision is to crowdsource the news,” CEO and publisher Aviram Elad said. “Today, people usually do it on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, […]
Upworthy lives in a “post-page view and post-impression era,” according to founder and chief executive Eli Pariser. While many digital publishers try to rack up enough unique visitors to warrant a spot on a media plan, and advertisers pay on impressions, Upworthy is trying to look not just at reach but also engagement. Since 2014, […]
Zynga has made 100% of its direct-sold inventory available for purchase programmatically, courtesy of Rubicon Project’s guaranteed orders capability. Buyers can access all of the premium Zynga ad formats, including “sponsored play” and “gamified units,” exclusively through Rubicon Project, a process that took months to set up. The deal offers important upsides for both Zynga […]
Eighteen months after rethinking its business, Paper Magazine’s traffic has increased 900%. Digital revenue is up 400% over the year before, and for the past six months, inventory has been sold out. The publisher unleashed these changes by prioritizing a platform-agnostic approach over print. It began publishing more frequently, paying closer attention to what readers […]
With a tight marketing budget and a brand on the turnaround, Volvo is open to experimentation. Which is one reason why it’s a launch partner for Time Inc.’s Real Time ad product, which places the Volvo brand next to Time Inc.’s trending content on social media. The advertising product adds Volvo’s logo to Time Inc.’s […]
When RTB knocks on a publisher’s doorstep, not everyone answers with the same greeting. While some publishers give it a warm embrace, prioritizing that demand or selling exclusively through programmatic channels, others are more cautious or turning it away. Here’s how publishers are tackling the upsides and blocking the downsides of programmatic. 1. Bring in […]
With attention shifting to online, investors have realized that dollars are moving there too, making 2015 a hot year for digital publishers looking for investments or to be acquired. The deals ranged from NBCUniversal’s $200 million investment each in BuzzFeed and Vox, to smaller ones like the $2.5 million PureWow picked up. “The value of […]
2015 is the year that publishers realized the power of platforms to distribute their content. Facebook had been sending traffic their way for some time, but this year, it invited publishers to monetize on the platform through Facebook Instant Articles. Meanwhile, Snapchat launched Discover, with custom-created articles for Snapchatters and the ability to sell on […]
Advertisers, ad tech companies and publishers pay heed: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released an enforcement policy Tuesday that outlines which forms of native advertising it deems acceptable and which it deems deceptive. A key thread in the guidelines is that the user needs to know if content is an ad before she clicks and/or consumes content. […]
Helm Boots sells $500 boots online and at its retail store in Austin, Texas. The six-year-old company’s attention to construction and design have made regular customers out of celebrities and local influencers, including an architect in Seattle and eye doctor in Oklahoma. After receiving an investment in the business, Helm Boots founder and CEO Joshua […]
Following two dozen acquisitions in the ad tech world over the past couple years, RBC Capital Markets analyst Rohit Kulkarni predicts ad tech consolidation to continue the pace in 2016. But the portion of the advertising market most of these companies are fighting over represents just 20-25% of the total market. “There is an overarching […]
Ad-tech companies shed hundreds of employees from their payrolls in recent weeks. Turn, PubMatic, Collective and Centro all laid off workers, adding to the toll of Rocket Fuel’s large job cuts earlier this year. The cited reasons vary but often boil down to simple survival as ad tech companies position themselves for profitability in a tough market. […]
The Atlantic is in a good spot right now. The publisher had record traffic from September through November and it closed out the month with 31.5 million uniques and 75 million page views, according to its Adobe Analytics data. The growth spurt came from a few key changes. A redesign in the spring made mobile […]
Bauer Xcel Media is a digital latecomer and only began devoting attention to its websites three years ago, but the publisher of J-14, Life & Style and InTouch is operating like a young digital pure-play. Completely separate from its parent organization, which houses the print operation, Bauer Xcel sells 100% programmatically and has quickly embraced platforms, […]
Header bidding is coming to mobile apps, via a solution Rubicon Project is beta testing with 20 publishers. Early results for the product, FastLane, saw CPM increases of up to 300%. Rubicon will release the product more widely to publishers in Q1 of next year. Unlike the mobile web or desktop, mobile apps bring in […]
Great content isn’t enough anymore. Publishers need sophisticated technology to distribute that content, optimize the mobile experience and monetize their audience. But building technology from scratch like Vox, Business Insider and BuzzFeed have done is expensive and time-consuming. To that end, companies like RebelMouse, DWNLD and now Quintype are cropping up to meet that need. […]
Tribune Media will sink $25 million into Dose Media, a content company founded by 28-year-old media entrepreneur Emerson Spartz, who founded legendary Harry Potter fan site MuggleNet when he was 12 years old. Dose Media, which publishes Dose.com and OMGFacts.com, will use funds from the Series B round to start its sales outreach to brands […]
Sell-side platform PubMatic has dismissed more than 100 employees, AdExchanger has confirmed. The layoffs, affecting 20% of the company’s global staff, follow an 8% reduction in October. The combined cuts have reduced PubMatic’s workforce from 600 to about 450. Additionally the company lost two key leaders on the publisher and demand side: Evan Adlman, VP of publisher […]
When it comes to driving traffic for publishers, Facebook is king. Publishers receive 90% of their traffic from the social network, according to social analytics firm SimpleReach. But what about Pinterest? While the site crossed 100 million monthly active users (MAUs) this year, that’s a fraction of Facebook’s 1.5 billion MAUs, and trails behind Instagram’s […]
