Social commerce sounds good on paper, but turning likes into purchases has proven difficult in practice. Project September, a social shopping app from the founders of Gilt, aims to change that. Named for the start of the fashion year, the Project September app, which launched in April, has “tens of thousands of users” so far, […]
For the buy side, the only fair way to measure mobile ad impressions is when they’ve actually rendered on a device. Otherwise, advertisers might be getting taken for a ride by publishers using different methods of counting, said Richy Glassberg, CEO of Medialets, a mobile ad platform and mobile ad server that’s been under WPP […]
The current state of the advertising value exchange often leaves a little something to be desired, which sometimes leads to ad blocking and sometimes leads to total disengagement with advertising. “Most people block ads because they don’t feel like they’re getting value out of them,” said Matt Berriman, CEO and co-founder of Unlockd, an Australian […]
Programmatic wasn’t to Apple’s taste, but advertising isn’t so bad if you’re the one driving the bus. After killing off iAd in January, Apple on Wednesday shared its plans, notably in advance of its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference, to completely change the way its App Store operates – namely with the introduction of paid search […]
Another day, another acquisition of a mobile company by a Chinese conglomerate. Publisher-focused mobile ad exchange Smaato will be snapped up by (this is a mouthful) Spearhead Integrated Marketing Communications Group, a Beijing-based offline marketing service provider. Spearhead will shell out $148 million on the deal, pending the usual approvals. Getting acquired by a Chinese […]
With additional reporting by Sarah Sluis. Mobile app marketing platform Fiksu was quietly acquired last Wednesday by an obscure holding company for an undisclosed sum. But it’s a fate that could have been avoided. Fiksu’s cautionary tale has multiple chapters. It’s the story of what happens when a company pegs its future to the dynamics […]
Boasting about double- or triple-digit mobile growth is a staple of every ad platform earnings report. But peer deeper and actual mobile revenues for advertising companies differ widely, ranging from 20% to nearly 90% of total revenue. But mobile revenue – and revenue growth – doesn’t neatly correlate to success. Sometimes mobile revenue growth reflects […]
There would be far less of an ad-blocking brouhaha if publishers took a page out of the print playbook, said Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard, one of the earliest entrants on the mobile newsreader app scene. “There’s a big opportunity rooted in the timeless principles of print, where people, generally speaking, actually enjoy the advertising,” […]
The web gets surfed and apps get downloaded. That’s the way it generally works. But Android Instant Apps – the ability to stream apps without having to install them – changes the math on that equation. Google trotted out its new app regime at its I/O developers conference on Wednesday amongst other flashier fare – everything from […]
Cardlytics, which helps advertisers like Starbucks activate audience data from bank partners like Bank of America, Citibank and PNC, is working with Drawbridge to assess how cross-device exposures affect online and in-store purchases. Drawbridge is the first cross-device platform to access Cardlytics Measurement, a tool that gauges metrics like average basket size and the view […]
One way to monetize free-to-play games is to make reward videos feel like they’re part of the game. Since its founding in 2013, Helsinki-based mobile game developer Next Games has raised $18 million, released two games, expanded to 70 employees and emphasized creative ways to implement incentivized ads. In its game “Compass Point: West,” a […]
Exploding smartphone growth makes Brazil more than just a mobile market to watch – which is why German mobile performance marketing firm glispa is putting down local roots. On Tuesday, glispa announced the acquisition of Mobils, a 10-person mobile-focused digital agency based in Sao Paulo. Glispa declined to share how much it spent on the […]
Eliza Nevers, Christian Calderon and Michael Oiknine will participate in a panel discussion on mobile fraud at the May 24 CLEAN ADS I/O conference in New York. AdExchanger: What’s the single biggest thing marketers contending with mobile ad fraud should be focused on? MICHAEL OIKNINE, CEO of Apsalar: Fraud has become such a problem in large part […]
There’s a perception that large brands move too slowly to keep pace with consumers, especially as time spent on mobile continues its climb. But that’s not the case at Johnson & Johnson and it doesn’t have to be the case at other brands either, said Gail Horwood, J&J’s VP of worldwide digital strategy, speaking Tuesday […]
Mobext, the mobile arm of Havas Media Group, is hoping to get away from using pain-in-the-neck manual whitelists and blacklists to manage brand safety and contextual placements. Consequently, it’s been testing the fruits of an integration – revealed Wednesday – between Peer39, the brand safety and online semantic platform Sizmek bought in 2012, and StrikeAd, […]
After two years as director of mobile for North America at Essence, Jeremy Sigel is pleased that his position has become obsolete – and he has advice for mobile chiefs at other agencies. “Don’t hold onto mobile,” said Sigel, who stepped down as head of mobile on Tuesday and stepped up as global director of […]
Mobile marketing automation platform Appboy is on a quest to steal some market share from the CRM incumbents with $20 million in Series C financing led by Battery Ventures. The round, announced Wednesday, brings the New York City-based company’s total funding to $45.5 million since 2011. Appboy plans to use the cash to keep on […]
Pinterest’s rumored acqui-hire of deep-linking startup URX is a go. On Tuesday, Pinterest announced that it’s bringing the San Francisco-based URX team into the fold, but not its technology. URX, which started as a deep linking provider before becoming a mobile retargeting platform, will work with its customers to sunset its advertising product. As of […]
Like most app developers, SGN – whose games have been downloaded more than 700 million times – is looking for long-term love. But in the casual gaming space, retention rates usually leave something to be desired. Only about one-third of users relaunch an app within 24 hours of the original install, according to Appsflyer. After […]
As a matter of course, tech talent flows between companies in Silicon Valley – there are former eBay employees at Facebook, ex-Yahoo execs at Uber, prior Google people at Snapchat – but Twitter seems to be particularly susceptible to departures. “The Twitter diaspora has been very sad for the company,” said Mike Ng, who left his […]
A new game from Rovio Entertainment serves as the foundation for a sweeping augmented reality rollout to promote the upcoming “Angry Birds” movie, due out in May. Rovio launched its campaign and the game, called “Angry Birds Action,” on Thursday. It’s more than a one-off effort, though, said Alex Lambeek, chief commercial officer and EVP […]
Turner-owned Bleacher Report is going all-in on social platforms because the chance to set roots in social broadcasting before ESPN does, whether or not reliable platform monetization is a mirage, is too tempting to ignore. Bleacher Report’s future success will “key off our ability to leverage the social graph,” said Rich Calacci, Bleacher Report’s CRO […]
Cheetah Mobile is looking to lap up some brand dollars. On Tuesday, the Beijing-based mobile app publisher announced a hook-up that will integrate Kiip’s rewards platform into its suite of apps, including a number of its most popular offerings: antivirus apps Clean Master and CM Security, battery life extender Battery Doctor and mobile game Piano Tiles 2. […]
New York City has more than 8,000 public pay phones, most of which are in various stages of decline and decay – but Sidewalk Labs, a company under Google’s Alphabet umbrella, is helping put a plan in motion to revive those aging kiosks. Through a project called LinkNYC, the city’s neglected phone boxes are in […]
Almost every game developer uses rewarded video to monetize because it’s lucrative – but there’s also a lot not to like about it. “A 30-second video ad just isn’t that engaging, and there’s no reason for users not to put their phone down when the video’s playing and just wait for it to end,” said Tayber […]
Ten years ago Axel Springer was a classic print publisher. About 1% of its revenue came from digital. These days, digital revenue tops 70%. It’s been part of what Axel Springer US president Jens Müffelmann calls “a radical transformation” for the German publisher and it was triggered by an unlikely source – circular advertising, long the […]
Apple and Google own the app economy – and that makes distribution and discovery pretty tricky for the average app developer. “These companies … are monopolizing this ecosystem,” said Chris Cunningham, newly minted CRO of beacon and proximity data aggregation company Unacast, speaking at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Mobile Marketplace event on Monday in New York […]
Mobile game publisher I Got Games (IGG) – which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on paid acquisition – was noticing its user retention tank. The culprit? App-install fraud. IGG has 18 million monthly active users evenly distributed across the world, with roughly 40% coming from the Americas, 30% from Europe and 30% from Asia […]
When YP Canada quietly acquired programmatic mobile ad platform JUICE Mobile for $35 million on March 17, its main concern was to assuage any potential investor concerns that the directory and listings behemoth wouldn’t be able to make its debt payments. YP Canada was $1.7 billion in debt and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy […]
The promise of location data is one thing. The undeniable issues around scale and inaccuracy that come along with it are another. “No one disputes that the accuracy and quality of physical data is way below average,” said mobile tech vet Chris Cunningham, who on Wednesday took the reins as CRO of beacon and proximity […]
