M&A activity in the media and marketing sectors jumped 52 percent in the first half of the year, led by “smaller, complimentary acquisitions.” So says investment banker Jordan Edmiston Group Inc., which tracks deal activity in the space. Among the high-profile acquisitions were those of social CRM platforms Vitrue and Buddy Media, by Oracle and […]
Rik van der Kooi is Microsoft’s corporate VP, advertiser and publisher solutions. In an interview with AdExchanger last week at the Cannes Lions ad fest, he opens up on a range of topics, including Microsoft’s relationship with Facebook, its display strategy, and the industry blow-up over its controversial stance on Do-Not-Track. How is Cannes treating […]
The first thing Media6Degrees’ CEO Tom Phillips wants you to understand about his company is this: the “prospect targeting” provider initially started off four years ago using data gleaned from users’ social media activity to create a consumer profile that was intended to serve as a better alternative to using demographics to connect marketers with […]
This week a key meeting of the Tracking Protection Working Group convenes under the umbrella of the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) standard-making body. Among the TPWG’s tasks is to agree on how browsers will offer users “choice” around tracking and how those choices will be expressed to websites. If you’re vaguely aware that this session […]
Video ad network Videology has acquired mobile data management platform Collider Media, it’s first acquisition, as it works to expand its services to include more direct business from publishers. In an exclusive interview with AdExchanger, Videology CEO Scott Ferber said that deal was done to reflect the advertisers’ demand for targeting consumers — using the […]
Over the past several years, TiVo has looked to find ad tech alliances to put its extensive data to use in attracting marketers looking to access its deep information on households via the set-top box. The latest partnership (see release) represents an extension of its work with Simulmedia, one of the earlier companies to make […]
John Peebles began his presentation at this week’s Advertising Research Foundation Audience 7.0 conference with what sounded like a bit of apostasy: the Avis Budget Group VP of Marketing Strategy & Innovation, started with an admission: he has little use for research. In a conversation with AdExchanger that followed, he also took aim at what […]
Online audience measurement provider comScore is primarily known for counting websites’ unique users. And while Gian Fulgoni, the analytics company’s executive chairman and co-founder, is a big defender of the use of the metrics that underlie those counts – i.e., the gross ratings point – he’s also looking beyond that data point to try to […]
Members of a key online standards body are hashing out what to do about Microsoft’s controversial decision to ship Internet Explorer 10 with the Do-Not-Track setting turned “on” by default. On a conference call yesterday, representatives of three member companies in the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) “tracking protection” working group argued forcefully that Microsoft’s […]
Microsoft’s decision to ship Internet Explorer 10 with Do Not Track “on” by default has created palpable upset in digital ad circles. Evidon, the Association of National Advertisers, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau quickly lambasted the decision, which may renege on a non-publicized agreement among members of the Digital Advertising Alliance that DNT should be a […]
Matt Seeley is President of Experian Marketing Services. Seeley recently discussed his company’s acquisition of Conversen with AdExchanger. Conversen develops “interaction management technologies that enable marketers to create fully integrated, cross-channel conversations through mobile, Web, social, email and traditional channels,” according to the Experian press release announcing the purchase. Read it. AdExchanger: For the the […]
The $270 million purchase of data management platform interclick last November was considered one of Yahoo’s sharpest moves during the period between the ouster of Carol Bartz as CEO and the replacement with Scott Thompson, whose reign was ended after less than six months this weekend. Given the turmoil that has surrounded Yahoo’s executive ranks […]
Yesterday TV and online ad platform DG announced the acquisition of semantic technology firm, Peer39. Read it. AdExchanger asked Ken Allen, who is Director, Head of Digital Media and Internet Advisory with Blackstone Advisory Partners, LP, his reaction to the deal and the opportunity with digital ad, targeting data. AdExchanger: What’s your take on DG’s […]
Ad Age’s Jason Del Rey covers the acquisition of semantic technology provider Peer39 today for $15.5 million by DG. Read it. And, read the DG release. According to Crunchbase, Peer39 had raised $27.4 million to-date. Ouch. In that a part of the acquisition is a stock-based earn-out, Peer39 could get some of that original investment […]
Little Rock, Ark.-based Acxiom is the original data management platform. The 42-year-old company has arguably done more than anyone to blend online and offline data sources – for instance by helping automakers compile leads from their own branded sites, car research sites, dealer walk-ins, and other sources. Customers in financial services, media, CPG, and tech, […]
Earlier this month, Experian Marketing Service’s Hitwise measurement group announced its foray into audience data management with AudienceView. The company claimed in a press release that with AudienceView, “retailers can track and trend the online behavior of existing and potential consumers to better optimize online media planning and target their messages to reach and retain […]
In the continuing arguments over the best way to measure ad effectiveness is to look at how many people have seen an ad or whether its more important to determine how impactful a placement is among those who have seen it, comScore’s relatively new its Validated Campaign Essentials, or vCE, product is meant to provide […]
Gordon Meyer is CEO and David Dowhan is President of TruSignal, an online advertising targeting company. TruSignal is a sister company to eBureau, from which it was spun out in January. Read the release. AdExchanger: When was it that you recognized that eBureau needed to add something that focused on digital media? GORDON MEYER: It […]
The IAB has partnered with Winterberry Group to author a new study on the practices “in data aggregation, management and deployment” called “From Information to Audiences: The Emerging Marketing Data Use Cases.” According to a press release, four different use cases are used as a baseline for discovering how ad targeting data is being implemented […]
Eric Stein is Executive Vice President, Online Solutions, of Epsilon, a database marketing company. AdExchanger.com: Can you give a quick background on the latest with Epsilon? ES: We have a platform, assets and client relationships with which we’re building an online business. Online Audience Central and other things that we’ve done over the past two […]
On Wednesday, Hearst digital marketing agency, iCrossing, said that it had acquired data management platform, Red Aril. In the release, iCrossing identified the DMP as a key part of the deal as well as “a trading desk application, which leverages insights from the data management platform to execute and inform media campaigns across networks and […]
On Tuesday, sharing data company Clearspring announced the acquisition of Xgraph, a “data science company focused on modeling and monetizing the web-wide social graph.” Read the release. Clearspring CEO Ramsey McGrory discussed the acquisition and its implications. AdExchanger.com: Why was this be the right time to buy XGraph? What was going on at Clearspring that […]
Lisa Hook is CEO of Neustar, a telecommunications company. Last Tuesday, Neustar acquired caller ID infrastructure and data company TARGUSinfo for $650 million. Read the release. Hook discussed the TARGUSinfo acquisition and the strategy ahead – especially as it relates to advertising. AdExchanger.com: What’s Neustar’s worldview on the opportunity in advertising and marketing? LH: We […]
Former Yahoo! and Right Media Exchange executive Ramsey McGrory has re-emerged since his departure only a couple of weeks ago to become the new CEO of Clearspring, a web content sharing tools and ad targeting data provider. Read the release. The company’s former CEO and founder, Hooman Radfar, will become Executive Chairman at the company. […]
The world of data-driven display media is not just about non-guaranteed, remnant media. It’s about guaranteed, too. Lowell Simpson, Chief Data Solutions Officer at GroupM media agency Mediacom, teamed with Yoav Arnstein of Legolas and discussed the world of data and online media – especially as it relates to brands – at last Thursday’s session […]
Yesterday, media measurement firm comScore acquired ad verification firm AdXpose (formerly mPire) for $22 million. Read more. Anne Hunter, VP, Ad Effectiveness at comScore, discussed the acquisition and its implications. AdExchanger.com: This is a relatively small acquisition in terms of dollars. Why not build out versus buy AdXpose? AH: The products available via comScore AdEffx […]
On Wednesday, ShareThis announced that former Google AdSense exec Kurt Abrahamson (and most recently CEO of SocialMedia.com which was sold to LivingSocial) would be taking over as CEO and former CEO Tim Schigel would become chairman of ShareThis’ board. Read more on the ShareThis blog. Abrahamson discussed his new role and the opportunity ahead for […]
Ed Busby is Partner at Boston Consulting Group. He is finishing up a study on data strategy in the digital media space and presented some his findings at the BlueKai Summit in New York City. AdExchanger.com: How do you break the data ecosystem down -and in layman’s terms? EB: We think about the various services […]
With the demand-side platform (DSP) model continuing to propagate, data sellers and data management providers are seeing up-close how the DSP is applying data to the targeting of users in display, mobile and video ad inventory today. From their data-centric point-of-view, AdExchanger.com wanted to know… how is the DSP model doing? In particular, we asked […]
Auren Hoffman is CEO of Rapleaf, a data company. AdExchanger.com: It’s been an interesting past year for Rapleaf, to say the least, regarding the company’s strategy and online privacy. What have you learned? AH: We definitely had our time in the spotlight and the publicity has been a factor in our fast growth in 2011. […]
