MillerCoors doesn’t have the opportunity to collect much first-party data: Most of its sales come through independently-owned convenience and liquor stores or bars and restaurants. “It’s very difficult to identify or measure audiences because of the nature of how these businesses are run,” said Brad Feinberg, VP of media and consumer engagement at MillerCoors. “They’re […]
In less than two years, The Meet Group managed to diversify its revenue from a near total dependence on programmatic advertising to a healthy mix of ads, in-app purchases and subscriptions. “I’d say 90% of our revenue was ad-driven before we started to shift,” said Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group, which owns a […]
Former AppLift CEO Tim Koschella is launching a company called Kayzen to help app marketers bring their programmatic ad buying in-house. Kayzen, which came out of stealth Tuesday after several months in beta, is powered by a bidder that Koschella purchased from AppLift through a management buyout last year. It positions itself as a self-serve […]
Some ad tech companies are getting out of the managed media business – and others are jumping in with both feet. On Monday, mobile analytics company UberMedia sold its managed media business to location data platform Gimbal, marking the latter’s second acquisition of a media services unit in less than a year. Gimbal acquired Drawbridge’s managed […]
What does a 13-year-old have in common with a retired woman and a middle-aged man? They all play mobile games. “There’s a misconception that the gaming audience is just kids,” said Brian Ames, president of Activision Blizzard Media (ABM), an advertising division housed within game publishing giant King. “The reality is, though, that gamers are […]
AppOnboard is onboarding VC cash hand over fist. On Wednesday, the mobile app demo and analytics startup with a platform allows users to try an application before downloading it, announced its second funding round – $15 million – in less than eight months. AppOnboard’s Series A round in April totaled $15 million. That’s $30 million for the […]
Mobile performance marketers who work with multiple ad partners spend less to acquire users. A growth marketer who works with five or fewer media sources pays an average of $3.58 per install, according to a report released Wednesday by mobile marketing analytics company Singular. But upping the number of media sources from five to six […]
After a protracted, year-long alpha period, the IAB Tech Lab has released the specs in beta for the app version of its Ads.txt initiative to reduce counterfeit ad inventory. The App-ads.txt hold-up was caused by app stores dragging their heels on providing support for the Tech Lab’s preferred solution of using metadata tags – essentially […]
The waterfall wasn’t working out for WeatherBug. “We had what I call ‘too-many-SDKs syndrome,’” said Olivier Vincent, president and general manager at the GroundTruth-owned weather app, which has 20 million monthly active users. If you had peeked inside WeatherBug’s ad stack last year, you’d have found the code for as many as eight different ad […]
Stories. It seems like everybody’s got ‘em, from Snap and LinkedIn to Instagram and Facebook – and now Google. But while AMP Stories might look like a knockoff of the other guys, it’s actually quite a different animal. What’s the story? The main difference: AMP Stories are specifically designed for publishers to create full-screen experiences for […]
Snapchat saw promising gains for its advertising platform in earnings reported Thursday. The company reported a record-high $298 million in revenue, with 43% year-over-year growth, and quarterly jumps in average revenue per user (ARPU) from $2.21 to $2.62 in North America and $0.66 to $0.85 in Europe. But Snapchat is still bleeding daily active users […]
Verizon’s Oath content and advertising subsidiary brought in $1.8 billion in the past quarter, down 6.9% from the same period last year, Verizon said in its earnings report Tuesday. Verizon attributed the downturn to declining desktop and search advertising. CEO Hans Vestberg said the Oath business should remain flat for the short term and that […]
When Shpock, a European shopping app, started using search behavior to inform its ad targeting this year rather than just relying on demo data, it began to realize what its users were actually interested in. “For many years, demographic targeting was one of the main options used by brands and agencies alike,” said Jon Hatfield, […]
Mobile ad network InMobi will acquire Pinsight Media, Sprint’s mobile advertising and insights unit, the companies said on Wednesday. A team of roughly 100 people will join InMobi from Pinsight and remain based in Kansas City, Mo., where Sprint has its headquarters. The all-stock deal isn’t a typical acquisition. The idea is for InMobi to […]
Without a way to calculate ad revenue per user, optimization is just an educated guessing game. “I wouldn’t call it a complete blind spot, but the process is definitely not as efficient as it could be,” said Jeff Gurian, VP of marketing and ad monetization at Kongregate, a mobile and PC game publisher acquired from […]
Snapchat introduced ecommerce advertising capabilities on Thursday, including a product catalog ad format called Collection Ads, a performance marketing agency partner program and more than 40 shopping partners, including eBay and Wish. “This is the first time we’re addressing the needs of a specific vertical, as opposed to previously building general products for advertisers,” said […]
Organic use of Facebook Stories is on the rise, and now Facebook is making the case to advertisers. On Wednesday, Facebook announced that Stories has 300 million DAUs across its core app and Messenger combined. Facebook Stories ads, which appear between organic Stories as either six seconds of photos or 15 seconds of video, are […]
Virtual reality still has much runway to travel before it lands a permanent spot on the media plan. It’s niche. But for brands like Cathay Pacific, VR content is just the ticket to engage consumers in a new and unexpected way, said Robecta Ma, VP of marketing for the Americas at the Hong Kong–based airline. […]
AdColony laid off roughly 10% of its US workforce late last week amid struggles to gain a foothold in the app-install space. Headcount now stands somewhere around 350. The cuts were across sales, IT, finance and product, including the chief product officer position. AdColony confirmed the layoffs, but not the exact number. The beleaguered mobile […]
Oath COO Guru Gowrappan will take the reins of Verizon’s media and advertising subsidiary following the departure of Tim Armstrong, the former AOL CEO who has overseen the telco’s consolidation of AOL and Yahoo into a single platform, at the end of the year. Verizon hired Gowrappan earlier this year from Alibaba, where he had […]
For the last four years, mobile measurement company TUNE has been “fighting with one hand tied behind its back,” said Alex Austin, CEO and co-founder of California-based deep-linking outfit Branch. In 2014, TUNE lost its Facebook marketing partner badge for allegedly retaining user data for too long. “But we’re giving TUNE both its arms back […]
The robots are taking over user acquisition on Facebook and Google, and that’s (mostly) a good thing. Whenever one of the large platforms automates an aspect of UA, it means more time for focusing on strategy and creative rather than drudgery, said Jess Hasenplaugh, head of UA at Berlin-based mobile game studio Wooga. “I’m happy […]
The in-app header bidding space is gathering momentum – but not fast enough for AppLovin. The mobile ad network has acquired MAX, a startup that came out of beta just over four months ago with a solution that helps app publishers get a fair shake on the open exchange, the company announced Wednesday. “There are […]
When DoorDash partnered with The Cheesecake Factory in December to give away 10,000 free slices of cheesecake, the food delivery app set up a cross-functional war room to deal with the logistical complexity. Free food is always a strong customer acquisition tool, but if marketing pushes an offer and product isn’t in the loop, users […]
App demo and analytics platform AppOnboard is angling to help users avoid downloader’s remorse. On Thursday, the company released a product called app store demos that lets people try an app directly within the Google Play store without having to install it first. Apple doesn’t enable equivalent functionality within the App Store, at least for […]
Generating loyalty in the casual dining space is about more than just serving up tasty food. Competition is fierce, and without a rewarding experience both online and offline, customers will just tuck in elsewhere, said Steve Flanagan, CMO at TGI Friday’s in the UK, where the brand operates 84 restaurants with three new locations in […]
Scruff has a love/hate relationship with programmatic advertising. When the gay dating app, which now has more than 12 million users, first came on the scene in 2010, its monetization strategy could pretty much be summed up in one word: AdMob. But in January, the Grindr competitor decided to remove all its banner ad slots […]
Uber, Postmates, Yelp, SmartNews and other nongaming apps are scooping up growth marketing talent from the mobile gaming world – and the reasons make perfect sense. App publishers are spending more on performance marketing, and those running user acquisition at gaming companies are some of the most data-driven mobile marketers in the biz. “Gaming professionals have […]
Tapping into international markets, particularly the US, is lucrative but far from easy for a mid-size game developer from Indonesia, especially one trying to replicate a viral hit. Jakarta-based game studio Alegrium saw immediate success with a series of trivia apps that have collectively racked up tens of millions of downloads since the first title, […]
Trying to convince brands to advertise in games used to feel like talking into the wind. But sentiment is starting to change in favor of games, said Alexandre Tan, VP of advertising and brand partnerships at French mobile game studio Gameloft, where he runs a division that functions like a media agency. Gameloft Advertising Solutions […]
