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.
Brands need first-party data, and they’re solving for that need through a mix of creativity, personalized products and the power of good old-fashioned celebrity endorsements. Which is why everyone in ad tech and digital media should take note of these initiatives, which span everything from personalized Oreos (dubbed the Oreo ID) to celebrity endorsements designed […]
The direct-to-consumer cookware company Made In noticed its social media dashboards went a bit screwy after Apple tightened its privacy controls this year. Luckily, Made In uses all of its own dashboards – which didn’t go haywire – and tracks identity changes closely, CEO Chip Malt shares as special guest on this week’s The Big […]
The business practices of both Facebook and Google came to light in unflattering ways over the past week. Last Friday, a judge unsealed the 173-page antitrust complaint against Google – and there was a lot of interesting info underneath those black squares. Many of the details allege that Google manipulated the auction to ensure market share […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. After this exclusive first look for subscribers, the story by AdExchanger’s Sarah Sluis will be published in full on AdExchanger.com tomorrow. SurvivorNet’s first touch with its readers is usually at the beginning of a life-or-death experience – a cancer diagnosis. Which […]
Mobile advertising companies are being snapped up at eye-popping valuations. But wait … isn’t Apple torpedoing the ability to target and measure app advertising with its AppTrackingTransparency framework, SKAdNetwork and other privacy-focused policies? We untangle that contradiction on this week’s episode of The Big Story, where the editorial team is joined by special guest John […]
Attribution on Facebook ain’t what it used to be. The Facebook that enabled hundreds of creative versions, targeting variations and near-instantaneous optimization – all fed by data – is changing. Apple took a big bite out of Facebook’s attribution capabilities when its AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) required apps to collect a user opt-in to track their account […]
First-price auctions are coming to Google AdSense. The change will go into effect later this year, Google shared in a blog post on Thursday. Google Ad Manager and AdMob have already switched to a first-price auction. Though not nearly as momentous as when Google flipped the switch for Ad Manager, the AdSense change signals that […]
Facebook weathered two storms this week: a whistleblower and a sweeping outage across multiple platforms. First, the Facebook whistleblower revealed herself as Frances Haugen, who spoke with 60 Minutes about how platform changes like a 2018 decision to prioritize posts that “spark conversation” amped up divisiveness on the platform. Then, on Monday, Facebook, Instagram and […]
Sustainable digital media business models exist – just look at Dotdash. Dotdash acquired Meredith at a $2.7 billion valuation Wednesday to form a new media business to be called Dotdash Meredith. At first glance, the two entities coming together feels like a marriage of opposites: a century-old magazine media company and a digital native. But […]
The technology of marketing is always evolving, and that lifecycle is especially evident on this week’s episode of The Big Story. The use of customer data platforms (CDPs) – the trendy software category taking over where DMPs left off and building on CRMs and marketing automation – is on the rise. Special guest Stuart Schneiderman, SVP […]
From Instacart to Uber, a wide variety of digital businesses are realizing that they can spin up advertising businesses. Their inspiration? Amazon’s “other” revenue category. Composed mostly of advertising revenue, it’s proven to a slew of digital companies that they can gain profitability by pursuing the sky-high margins in advertising. On this week’s Big Story, […]
The $3.1 billion deal on AdExchanger’s radar this week? TransUnion’s acquisition of Neustar. The deal brings together an identity resolution company with a credit reporting agency. But why is identity being tied together through these two companies? And should this raise privacy red flags? To answer those questions, we bring on former Neustar executive Steven […]
As connected TV takes off, Amazon is making a bold move: It’s making its own TVs. Amazon – which already sells the Fire TV Stick and operates a CTV app store and an AVOD and SVOD service – is branching out into TV manufacturing, according to a report by Insider. What’s in it for the […]
China’s new privacy law, the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), is no GDPR – but it’s close. PIPL requires an opt-in and aims to help Chinese citizens get better control over their personal data. But the law exists alongside other more surveillance-focused policies, such as China’s recent requirement that video game companies collect the real […]
The ad management space is consolidating. Freestar acquired Sortable Wednesday in a deal that expands Freestar’s inventory by 30% and increases its staff from 90 to 130 people. Freestar, which is profitable, self-funded the acquisition. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is “completely additive” on multiple fronts, Freestar CEO Kurt Donnell said. […]
The field of public ad tech and digital media companies is growing large – both in number of companies and their market value. To help us untangle all of the M&A, IPOs and SPACs, Progress Partners Chief Operating Officer Domenic Venuto explains how investors approach the digital media and advertising sector. One important tell for […]
Wall Street can’t get enough of ad tech – creating a hot market for stocks and making quarterly earnings a who’s who of ad tech companies. Not so long ago, the ad tech bellwethers were The Trade Desk and Magnite, but earnings season now features a parade of companies young and old: PubMatic, DoubleVerify, Viant, […]
Getting online shoppers to click and add a product to their cart – and then have that product ship cost-effectively to a customer – is the latest challenge for CPG companies. During earnings calls over the past week, leaders of CPG companies had to answer to investors about their ecommerce strategies, which have accelerated thanks […]
Connected TV has arrived – a bit earlier than programmers may have expected. The pandemic-related boom in streaming, along with record TV upfronts, means there’s going to be a “wild Q4” ahead as programmatic buyers scramble for access to streaming inventory. One key issue is that CTV measurement capabilities aren’t developed enough yet, noted Kelly […]
Will Xandr find a home with InMobi? As InMobi prepares for an IPO, we talk about the Axios report that the company is in talks to acquire Xandr. AT&T has been shopping the company formerly known as AppNexus around for months – so when will a buyer materialize? Ad tech’s stratospheric public market valuations should […]
What your colleagues and competitors think of digital advertising’s cookieless future was revealed in AdExchanger’s latest research report on identity. On this week’s episode, we delve into the juiciest bits and key insights from the report, which is available in full to our paid members. For example: Even as the industry pins its hopes on […]
AdExchanger’s 2021 Identity Special Report takes the pulse of leading digital marketing executives on identity, privacy and the end of third-party cookies. Here’s a snippet: The digital marketing industry is experiencing a period of transformational change. Third-party cookies, already blocked by default on Safari and Firefox, are being phased out by Chrome, the world’s most […]
When Google delayed the end of third-party cookies, ad tech’s first reaction was “stunned silence,” said Matt Barash, SVP of global publishing and platform partnerships at Zeotap and a self-described “ad tech socialite.” For this week’s episode, we talk through the fallout of Google’s decision to delay the phaseout of the third-party cookie by nearly […]
The teacher just gave the class an extension on a hard, confusing assignment. Third-party cookies won’t go away in Google Chrome until the end of 2023, a delay of nearly two years. Google said the decision would allow its Privacy Sandbox proposals to move further along. Currently, only three of more than 30 are in […]
We’re entering the end-game for third-party cookies, but an unlikely group could intervene to keep them alive: regulators. Last Friday, Google agreed to let UK watchdog group Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) approve its decision to remove third-party cookies. The move is unusual, reports senior editor Allison Schiff, because it’s an example of regulators guiding […]
IP address is a tell for several things, namely a user’s location – and it can be used to triangulate identity via fingerprinting. But soon that will no longer be the case, at least not in Apple’s ecosystem. Apple raised the privacy bar at its Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, and IP address was in […]
The architect of Methbot was found guilty in a New York court last week. The verdict came nearly five years after the ad fraud scheme was first publicized back in December 2016. We dive into the most intriguing details of the case – from the likely political motivations behind the prosecution to the sophistication of […]
Epic has accused Apple of running a monopoly, and this week the trial concluded. Why should we care over in advertising land? While there have been antitrust cases in Europe for some time, now they’re happening on big tech’s home turf. The District of Colombia filed a case against Amazon this week, and of course […]
The advertising industry is awash in proposals for third-party cookie alternatives. But Google says it’s sitting out most of them because it doesn’t think they have a future. “We just don’t see some of the solutions being proposed as durable for the long term,” Google Ads VP and GM Jerry Dischler told AdExchanger before the […]
The upfronts kicked off this week with news of a megamerger between WarnerMedia and Discovery Communications. But Xandr isn’t coming along for the ride. AT&T’s ad tech acquisition remains with the telco. We can only speculate why, but one reason might be that AT&T is planning a second spinoff in light of the currently frothy […]
