AUTHOR ARCHIVE FOR:

Zach Rodgers

Zach Rodgers

Executive Editor

Zach runs AdExchanger’s editorial operations and supports programming strategy for AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO and Industry Preview events. Under his leadership the publication was recognized with a Jesse H. Neal Award in the category of “Best Media Brand” in 2016 and two regional Azbee Awards for “Best Technical Article” in 2017. He was previously Managing Editor at ClickZ, and his work has been published in The Guardian, Mashable and elsewhere.​ He is the host of AdExchanger Talks, a podcast featuring key leaders in the media, marketing and advertising technology arena. He frequently moderates at industry events. ​

Articles By Zach

  • Agencies

    WPP Sticks With Tech Ownership Strategy As Xaxis Buys Crystal Semantics

    BY //

    WPP Group’s 24/7 Media – which will soon be absorbed into Xaxis – has acquired 12-year-old semantic ad-tech company Crystal Semantics and its 15 employees from previous owner Ad Pepper Media. London-based Crystal’s technology can be applied a few ways, said Rob Schneider, 24/7 Media’s SVP of corporate strategy and platform development. First, it offers straightforward […]

  • Agencies

    WPP Group's Xaxis Imbibes 24/7 Media, Gaining A Sell-Side Edge

    BY //

    In 2007, that WPP Group made big waves with its acquisition of display media technology firm 24/7 Media, worth $649 million. By bringing a publisher-facing ad server and network in-house, the holding company had staked out a tech ownership strategy that continues today. Today that premise lives on at WPP, but the 24/7 Media brand does […]

  • Agencies

    A New School Of Consultants Swims Upstream

    BY //

    Consulting businesses are popping from the foliage like so many munchkins in Oz, eager to guide bewildered marketers – lost, perhaps dealing with head trauma – through a fragmented and hallucinatory media landscape to the yellow-brick…well, you get it. Last month, Starcom MediaVest Group took the wraps off a new advisory business called Zero Dot. The […]

  • Platforms

    Mozilla Hires Digital Ad Star Darren Herman To Lead New Content Unit

    BY //

    Mozilla wants to build content personalization into future generations of its products, and has recruited MDC Partners’ Darren Herman to lead that charge as VP for content services. Herman – a digital agency exec and startup entrepreneur – will head up a brand new Content Services division focused on building out a content experience within the […]

  • Platforms

    Datalogix Nabs A CMO To Build The Brand And Court Agencies Globally

    BY //

    Datalogix has hired a seasoned agency alum to spearhead brand marketing globally, and to strengthen ties to the agency world. Steven Wolfe Pereira, previously the EVP of Publicis-owned MediaVest and managing director of MediaVest Multicultural, comes to Datalogix at a time of great acceleration for the company. The data services provider, which matches its clients’ […]

  • Investment

    Turn Raising New Round At $650M-$700M Valuation

    BY //

    Turn Inc. is seeking new funding at a valuation up to $700 million, ahead of a probable IPO in 2014. Sources say the demand-side (DSP) and data management platform (DMP) company has been calling on investors in recent months seeking a new strategic round. These investors have gotten a peek under the hood at Turn’s […]

  • Agencies

    Darren Herman, Agency VC And Trading Desk Co-Inventor, Exits MDC Partners

    BY //

    A progenitor of the agency trading desk concept and key advocate for programmatic buying within the agency world is leaving his multifaceted role at MDC Partners. For the past six years, Darren Herman’s business cards have carried titles including chief digital media officer at MDC media agency The Media Kitchen; CDMO at Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal […]

  • Social Media

    Merkle: Facebook CRM Matching Beats All

    BY //

    According to Merkle, Facebook’s Custom Audiences program and its related lookalike modeling tools lead the pack when it comes to customer prospecting. Merkle bills itself as a CRM agency, so the company knows a thing or two about database matching online. Paul Steketee, head of paid social and emerging media, said match rates on Facebook […]

  • Online Advertising

    Facebook Grows Its Bench In The Auto Vertical

    BY //

    After General Motors yanked all its paid media spend from Facebook in mid-2012, GM’s chief marketing officer at the time, Joel Ewanick, suggested in a Wall Street Journal interview that Facebook is simply not a great place to advertise cars. But GM eventually returned and Facebook has since doubled down on the auto category. In […]

  • Social Media

    Facebook PMD Ampush's 2013 Media Revenues Will Top $70M

    BY //

    There’s still money to be made in Facebook’s vendor ecosystem. Ampush, a preferred marketing developer that supports data-driven advertising focused on Facebook’s News Feed, says its 2013 media revenue will grow to $70 million, up from $15 million last year. Headcount has more than doubled since December 2012, to 90. Ampush is an example of […]

  • Online Advertising

    Google To Pay $17M For 2011 Safari Cookie-Block Override

    BY //

    Google has agreed to pay $17 million to settle charges it dropped cookies on Safari Web browsers in defiance of the browser’s privacy settings. According to the settlement, from mid-2011 to early 2012, Google rejiggered DoubleClick coding to get around Apple’s default blocking of third-party cookies in Safari. When the charges were first publicized last […]

  • Data

    Omnicom Standardizes DMP Tech With Neustar's Aggregate Knowledge

    BY //

    Omnicom is going “all in” with a singular Data Management Platform offering that will support audience segmentation and ad optimization across its two key media agencies, OMD and PHD. Driving the platform consolidation is a deal with Aggregate Knowledge, a DMP recently acquired by Neustar for $119 million. Like many agencies, Omnicom already supported DMP functionality, but […]

  • Ad Networks

    Rocket Fuel's Q3: Margins Edge Toward 60%

    BY //

    Rocket Fuel is sitting pretty in its first quarterly earnings report since going public in September. The company saw Q3 top-line revenue growth of 132%. Its customer base reached 938, up from 406 in the third quarter of 2012, and headcount grew to 552 – about on par with AppNexus. Press release. Impressive as those stats […]

  • Platforms

    AppNexus Abides As Mobile And Direct Deals Take Over

    BY //

    If you made it to AppNexus’ New York Summit on Wednesday, you might have come away feeling that the programmatic frontier has been largely colonized — at least as pertains to traditional display — and the remaining work to be done is along the lines of tree clearing and swamp draining. VC investment has slowed […]

  • Ad Networks

    ValueClick Will Sell O&O Sites, Roll Out DSP

    BY //

    ValueClick will sell a bunch of websites as it pours all efforts into upgrading its wheezing display ad infrastructure. The company is also building a DSP, despite earlier claims that clients “wouldn’t move to a DSP; there’s not enough richness and personalization.” On the block are Investopedia, PriceRunner, Smarter.com, SymptomFind and CouponMountain.com. No word yet on the timeline […]

  • Online Advertising

    Adchemy Sells Performance Network To Focus On Search Ad Tools

    BY //

    Adchemy has sold its lead-generation and performance-marketing business, Actions, to erstwhile partner XL Marketing. With the divestiture, Adchemy will focus exclusively on its software geared to the search marketing needs of large retail and ecommerce marketers. With the sale, all employees working on the Actions business – which specializes in the financial and education verticals […]

  • Social Media

    Twitter IPO Update: Market Cap Rises, IBM Brings Patent Suit Relating To Ads

    BY //

    It’s good news/bad news for the Twitter IPO today. The company has raised its price range to $23-$25 per share, suggesting strong demand. It also faces an intellectual property infringement claim from IBM — relating in part to ad technology. To address the upside first: At the upper end of its new range Twitter would […]

  • Data

    Neustar Acquires DMP Aggregate Knowledge For $119M

    BY //

    In its first digital marketing acquisition since buying TargusInfo in 2011, Neustar has acquired data management platform Aggregate Knowledge for $119 million cash. (press release) AK’s total funding to date is $63.7 million. As a communications infrastructure provider in the US and Canadian telco space, Neustar has access to a large dataset of telephone numbers […]

  • Investment

    Criteo Goes Public, And Stock Jumps 30%

    BY //

    French retargeter Criteo has officially gone public, and would seem to be riding the same wave of algorithmic enthusiasm that buoyed Rocket Fuel’s IPO last month. Within an hour of beginning trading on NASDAQ at $31 per share, CRTO jumped 33% to $41. The price puts its market cap is $2.26 billion — about on […]

  • Investment

    Criteo Bumps Share Price Again, Will Raise $230M In Halloween IPO

    BY //

    Updated: Criteo went public Wednesday morning at $31, and is now trading at $41. On Monday we noted that Criteo’s underwriters had increased the target price for its upcoming IPO to $27-$29, exactly the range where Rocket Fuel debuted last month. Now comes word that the price has gone up again, this time to $31 […]

  • Investment

    Criteo Accelerates IPO, Could Price Tonight And Begin Trading Tomorrow

    BY //

    The second big “ad-tech IPO” in as many months is upon us. French retargeting firm Criteo is now expected to price its public offering tonight, a couple of days earlier than previously planned. And the deal’s underwriters have bumped the target price from $23-$26 to $27-$29, suggesting strong demand in the wake of senior management’s […]

  • Social Media

    Forrester Gloomy On Facebook's Shift From Social To 'Traditional' Ads

    BY //

    Most Facebook observers would be hard-pressed to find “negatives” in the evolution of the company’s ad products over the past year. Performance continues to improve, as detailed in a new report from Adobe. Mobile monetization is proceeding apace. And it has executed on programmatic selling, through its Facebook Exchange, Custom Audiences database match program and Partner […]

  • Digital TV and Video

    Twitter Leads In TV-Synced Social Ads, But Facebook Has A Play

    BY //

    TV is still the king of media, but the social “back channel” is now an indispensable part of its ambience. No surprise then that advertisers are hungry for media vehicles that bridge the two. A number of companies are positioned to feed that appetite, but Twitter is the frontrunner. Its Amplify program lets broadcasters sell […]

  • Agencies

    Applying Data at RAPP: How Omnicom Shop Bridges CRM And Paid Media

    BY //

    On Omnicom Group’s Q3 earnings call last week, CEO John Wren waxed poetic for a few minutes about the holding company’s investment in data, calling out a new director of applied data position at agency RAPP. Loren Grossman, the guy filling out that role, is charged with “deriving actions” from data platforms including DMPs, CRM systems […]

  • Platforms

    After The Wall: Impact Of Google's Debut On FBX

    BY //

    Facebook’s barricade against Google held up a long time, but the wall had to fall: Google wanted the audience, marketers wanted the interoperability and Facebook wanted the demand. As we reported Friday, after giving Google the cold shoulder for more than a year, Facebook has decided to let DoubleClick Bid Manager bring its buying clout […]

  • Digital TV and Video

    Jeff Lanctot Named CEO Of Video Ad Firm Mixpo

    BY //

    Jeff Lanctot, who stepped down as global chief media officer at Razorfish in August, has a new gig. The seasoned digital-agency (and briefly, Microsoft) exec will take the reins at Mixpo. A longtime board member at the Seattle-based video ad server, Lanctot was immediately sought as a candidate to run Mixpo when CEO Anupam Gupta […]

  • Social Media

    Brand Networks Buys Optimal For $35 Million

    BY //

    Brand Networks, a social marketing firm focused on large retail clients, has acquired rival Optimal Inc. for $35 million. The deal brings together two early movers in Facebook’s Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD) program, each adept in its own way at seizing the social opportunity. In Brand Networks’ case, the strategy has been to focus on […]

  • Agencies

    Did We Mention Annalect? Omnicom CEO Wren Offers Publicis Merger Update

    BY //

    The lawyers may be scurrying and the deal fees mounting, but Omnicom and Publicis are still on track to complete their $35 billion megamerger by early 2014. The companies are making slow but steady progress on achieving regulatory approval for the deal, Omnicom CEO John Wren told investors on the company’s Q3 earnings call this morning. […]

  • Ad Exchange News

    AppNexus Founder, CTO Mike Nolet Steps Down

    BY //

    Mike Nolet has stepped down from AppNexus, where he has served as CTO since the company’s founding six years ago. He will remain an advisor but vacate his board seat, which will be filled by President Michael Rubenstein. Nolet is a foundational character in the programmatic story, having helped build the world’s first ad exchange […]

  • Advertiser

    Dunkin Runs On Measurement

    BY //

    Each day at 6:30am, Dunkin Brands President of Global Marketing and Innovation John Costello gets a report showing the previous day’s sales by item at every US location. The company, which owns Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robins, launched 43 new products this year, Costello told marketers at the Association of National Advertisers’ annual Masters of […]

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