During a presentation at the AppNexus annual Summit last November, Microsoft’s Esco Strong made a promise to beef up its exchange inventory. As of Tuesday, Strong, director of programmatic managements, said that promise had been fulfilled in the form of new mobile inventory being made available in the Microsoft Advertising Exchange (MAX). Advertisers in the US, Australia, […]
Shopping titan eBay is betting its bottom dollar on mobile. The company, whose various shopping apps have been downloaded more than 260 million times, announced Thursday the upcoming launch of a new mobile advertising program slated to open for general business next quarter. eBay will now offer what Stephen Howard-Sarin, eBay’s head of North America […]
Considering Apple’s user-centric ethos, there’s a slim chance the watch’s tiny screen will ever be host to advertising in the traditional sense. It’s a move that would be “antithetical to the whole way that Apple works,” said Mark Yackanich, CEO of ad company Genesis Media. “The question to ask ourselves is not a media-specific question, […]
Apple’s first contribution to the wearables market may not be about advertising today or ever – but it could be a step on the way to closing the online/offline gap. The Apple Watch, which fans had previously been referring to as the iWatch, was unveiled to the world Tuesday at Apple’s product launch in Cupertino, […]
AOL added another premium ad format to its programmatic offerings on Monday. A full-page mobile ad, the Road Devil Interstitial for Mobile, is part of an effort to add more premium, brand-friendly units to its programmatic inventory. The unit offers brands the ability to display a store locator, bring in recent tweets or play a video […]
Berlin-based app attribution provider adjust is planning to use half of its new $7.6 million Series C infusion to expand into US, China and Asia. The round, led by Active Ventures, also included existing investors Target Partners, Iris Capital and Capnamic Ventures, who collectively sank $4.5 million into adjust during a previous funding event. Although […]
Who cares where a video runs? As long as an advertiser can accurately measure that video’s reach, the question itself becomes somewhat moot. And now that video demand-side platform (DSP) TubeMogul is, as of Friday, in the fold as a certified Nielsen mobile Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) partner, that question also becomes less relevant for […]
When the privacy app Disconnect, designed to let consumers control what information other apps can access, was kicked out of the Play store last week, Google charged it with unauthorized interference with other apps, a violation of Google’s developer agreement. From Google’s perspective, Disconnect damages the functionality and health of other apps in the Play […]
Full-service comms agency Hill Holliday has two types of clients – those who have embraced mobile and those who just aren’t really there yet. The split is about 50/50, said Crystal Snee, Hill Holliday’s platform media manager. But for the majority of those clients, regardless of their mobile acumen, cross-screen activations are just starting to bleep […]
CPG brands are starting to shell out more on mobile programmatic and the second quarter of 2014 seems to be the burgeoning proof. Mobile ad exchanges Smaato, Millennial Media and Nexage all saw noteworthy upticks in CPG mobile spend in Q2. A report released Tuesday based on global data gleaned from the Smaato exchange found […]
It’s a bit of a three-way Catch-22: SnapChat needs to monetize, advertisers need to see solid engagement metrics and ROI and SnapChat users need to feel like they’re not being blasted by irrelevant advertising. Therein lies the rub for several of the agencies AdExchanger spoke with following The Wall Street Journal’s report on a new […]
No one would disagree that smartphone users are spending a ton of time in apps, and here are some more numbers to prove it. A report released Thursday by comScore found that apps now account for more than 50% of all digital media time spent, though it’s interesting to note that mobile growth isn’t vampirically […]
Fitness app RunKeeper is trying to monetize for the first time via a partnership with mobile rewards ad network Kiip to embark on a subtle version of advertising – but don’t call it advertising. Kiip founder and CEO Brian Wong doesn’t really like the word, mainly because for many people mobile advertising is synonymous with […]
Movies have trailers, so why shouldn’t apps? That’s the thinking behind the playable ad unit from Voxel. But the app monetization startup, which works with King.com, Electronic Arts and GSN, takes it one step further. “It’s not just a trailer, it’s a completely interactive experience,” said Voxel CEO and co-founder David Zhao. “Whatever you can […]
While it would be wrong to say that advertisers aren’t spending on mobile — they are, to the tune of $7.1 billion in 2013, a 110% year-over-year increase, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau — it wouldn’t be wrong to say that they are spending at a rate not commensurate with mobile consumption. Mary Meeker and […]
Mobile ad revenue is on growth hormones. New estimates from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), IAB Europe and IHS Technology clocked global mobile advertising at $19.3 billion in 2013 — nearly doubling 2012’s $10.1 billion (the IAB’s previously reported 2012 figure was $8.9 billion, but IAB has since updated it to reflect actuals instead of estimates and different exchange […]
In what IgnitionOne claims to be more than just an acqui-hire, the search and display tech company has snapped up mobile demand-side and data-management platform Human Demand. The deal, which officially went down Wednesday, was completed for somewhere between high seven to low eight figures, according to an industry source close to the matter. IgnitionOne […]
When asked what the mobile exchange environment looks like in China right now, PapayaMobile co-founder and CEO Si Shen said, “I haven’t seen too many private exchanges. … Then again, I don’t see much in the way of open exchanges, either.” But that’s because RTB is still brand spanking new. PapayaMobile subsidiary AppFlood — whose top […]
App developers are on an increasingly complex journey to understand what the heck users are doing — and, ultimately, figure out how to get them to do it more…or less. Mobile exchange Nexage is hoping to help by making its premium monetization solution available to the app developer community, as of Wednesday. It’s a move […]
Tweak the phrase “water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink,” and you have the situation facing advertisers considering what to do with their mobile spend. Smartphone users are highly engaged but ad spend doesn’t match. Whether or not you agree with the scope of Mary Meeker’s now infamous report on the gap between […]
After a $25 million Series E injection, mobile ad exchange Smaato — a play on the word “smart” in Japanese — plans to focus on mobile acquisition and building out the self-service side of its automation platform. Smaato began rolling out its self-serve functionality about a year and a half ago. “Too many players are […]
This year started out a bit rocky for Tune (née HasOffers), but the app attribution company seems to be moving on with Monday’s acquisition of MobileDevHQ. The purchase is part of Tune’s bid to build out its user acquisition attribution capabilities. The move comes a little more than a month after the company’s rebrand from […]
Cookies are notoriously useless on mobile, but they’re the bread and butter of the Internet. If you go to diapers.com and then hit up Buy Buy Baby’s site, it’s likely you have a new baby in the house. If you use your phone in an airport in Miami and then check in to a restaurant […]
You’re browsing the web and you see a retargeted web banner from eBay for a pair of shoes. You were on the fence before, but…those shoes really are nice. OK. You decide to buy. You click on the banner with credit card in hand and it takes you to — the eBay homepage? That would […]
When it comes to audience, there can never be too much of a good thing. That’s the theory behind a self-serve tool from Medialets, dubbed Servo Total Attribution, released Wednesday. The tool is designed to help media buyers, agencies and exchanges measure mobile ad ROI in real time by tying mobile conversions to impressions served […]
“We sometimes make the joke that we’re the largest mobile ad company that no one’s ever heard of, and it’s kind of true,” quipped Scott Swanson, president of global advertising sales at Opera Mediaworks. The mobile ad platform is looking to change that with the hire of Ryan Griffin as SVP of strategic accounts. Griffin, […]
You don’t have to be good at math to know that if you only get $3 back on a $4 investment, then there’s something painfully wrong with whatever you’re doing. No one’s more aware of that than game app developers, some of whom spend thousands of dollars on user acquisition daily — though the truly […]
What does Yahoo’s deal to buy Flurry have to do with Twitter’s purchase of mobile exchange MoPub last year? Nothing and everything. But first, let’s define our terms. What is Flurry, exactly? Flurry has a grab bag of solutions under its umbrella: analytics, ad network capabilities and ad exchange functions. But at its core, Flurry […]
Just a week after Yahoo’s Q2 earnings call, in which CEO Marissa Mayer said she was looking to position Yahoo as a “mobile-first company,” the M&A bug has hit again: Yahoo is acquiring mobile analytics platform and ad marketplace Flurry. Publishers sell their ad inventory through Flurry’s platform or buy traffic from applications, which also provides analytics to […]
Following an injection of $15 million in Series B funding, app monetization platform and mobile SSP Supersonic has its eye on the East. The company, which changed its name from SupersonicAds last week, plans to use the cash to expand into Asia — China, Japan, and India specifically — which Supersonic CEO and cofounder Gil […]
