AOL’s Q4 results had a number of positives, not least of which was a return to overall revenue growth for the first time in eight long years. And yet, Q4 saw the company’s display ad dollars slip further, with numbers in that segment flat globally and down 3% in the U.S. Read the release. For […]
When you look around the advertising ecosystem, the ad technology sector is packed with start-ups which are often heavily-backed by venture capitalists willing to make a bit that Company X will be the next Facebook or Google. Yet, over the past few years, some ad tech startups have crossed a threshold and created real businesses […]
Google executives have been banging the drum on “premium programmatic” for months now, calling out the false dichotomy between automated media buys and traditional direct selling. In a discussion with Steve Sullivan, the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s VP of Ad Technology, Scott Spencer, director of Product Management at Google, offered outlines for the company’s approach, including assurances […]
Is this the beginning of the end for Yahoo’s Right Media Exchange? According to All Things D’s Peter Kafka and confirmed by a Yahoo blog post, Google’s AdSense ad network will be among the monetization solutions embedded within Yahoo’s owned and operated properties. The global deal covers inventory on Yahoo’s owned and co-owned properties (think […]
Over the last year, video ad marketplace SpotXchange has increased real-time bidding to roughly one-third of its inventory, up from 5% in 2011. This year, SpotXchange CEO Mike Shehan says nearly half its inventory is expected to be traded programmatically. While Shehan won’t offer specific dollar amounts, the company says that its video RTB marketplace generated […]
Just days before AOL reports its heavily scrutinized Q4 earnings, the company has rebranded the unit housing its Advertising.com flagship as AOL Networks. The purpose is to streamline AOL’s message to agencies, advertisers, marketers, publishers and investors and convey that the company is a programmatic player, not a vestigial ad network with a farrago of […]
In an advisory to publishers and ad servers, video ad serving and verification firm Telemetry describes three purveyors of browser extensions that it says are engaged in “sub-optimal” practices that could impact publishers, advertisers, and consumers. The providers named in the January 28 white paper/advisory are AnchorFree, Yontoo Layers (also selling media as Sambreel, BuzzDock and […]
Terence Kawaja, founder and CEO at LUMA Partners, has surveyed the past few week’s notable deals — demand side platforms MediaMath’s acquisition of Akamai’s Advertising Decision Solutions (ADS) unit (which his firm helped broker); exchange platform AppNexus’ $75 million venture capital funding; and the shuttering of adBrite’s exchange business. And he sees the clear formation […]
Jon Leibowitz, the Federal Trade Commission Chairman who aggressively pushed for more checks on the digital ad sector, will step down this month. Leibowitz was assiduous in his pursuit of what he saw as overstepping by companies engaged in consumer data collection. His language could be inflammatory, as when he said in 2009 that “a […]
With a year under his belt at sharing data company ShareThis, CEO Kurt Abrahamson says the past year was one of strong growth in terms of all the usual metrics of revenue, staff and success of clients – though he declined to provide specifics. His optimism for 2013 starts with something ShareThis calls the “SQI” […]
Yesterday, MediaMath announced that it was the winner of the long-rumored Acerno auction as Akamai officially exited its experiment with the advertising business – also known as Akamai’s Advertising Decision Solutions (ADS). (Read the Akamai release.) Of course, as a content distribution network (CDN), Akamai remains a critical part of media. Terence Kawaja’s LUMA Partners led […]
Google yesterday brought together executives from Digitas and CBS Interactive to discuss how buyers and sellers are working together to evolve programmatic ad buying. Joel Aranson, VP and director at Digitas, and David Chiang, VP of monetization with CBS Interactive, made clear during the “Think with Google” hangout on Google+ that automated media trading has […]
Google’s advertising business was “firing on all cylanders” during Q4 2012, in the words of SVP/Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora, who pointed to healthy growth — even by the search giant’s standards and (some, if not all) analysts’ expectations — during the holiday shopping season. The company had just completed its shift from free product […]
As global managing director of digital consulting for Accenture Interactive, Glen Hartman sits at the intersection of technology and marketing. With a focus on helping CMOs navigate their changing agendas, Accenture Interactive works to create relevant digital marketing for consumers at scale for their clients, as more competition joins the fray in 2013. “Delivering relevant […]
Tel Aviv-based CPA network Matomy Media Group has purchased MediaWhiz, a U.S.-based direct response marketer that operates the second-ranked affiliate network. The acquisition brings together two big online direct marketing players, and expands Matomy’s U.S. footprint. Purchase price and other terms weren’t disclosed for the deal, which closed on December 31 For Matomy, the deal […]
Skinected is a young company, and small, with just five employees. But the pain point that spawned the business goes back some 15 years, and has plagued legions of media brokers and buyers. Co-founders Chip Meyers and Stefan Kosel began trying to integrate non-standard ad formats into movie websites in the late ’90s, beginning with […]
As AOL and Yahoo struggle to keep pace with display ad gains from Google, Facebook and Amazon, the portals have placed much of their hopes on lucrative brand campaign-friendly homepage ads. Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter has been charting the progress of the portals’ homepage ad quality and quantity, and it looks like Q4 was a […]
The word “repurposed” is often used disparagingly when discussing TV commercials being employed for digital video ads. After all, people accessing content on PCs, tablets, smartphones are in a different mindset from when they’re watching TV. Ads need to be “native” to their environments and merely cutting a 30-second spot into a 15-second one suitable […]
With print revenues falling faster and online ad dollars failing to fill the void, publishers have increasingly turned to paywalls. As a Guardian UK piece noted this week, 11 of the top 20 U.S. newspapers are either currently asking users for cash to access content, or are about to embark on it. Enliken, a company […]
What’s that, reader? You didn’t read each and every AdExchanger news story, deep dive Q&A, and column from 2012? And now you’re bereft over the loss of all that deep industry thinking? Take heart! Below we’ve compiled some greatest hits from the year that was. Kick back, throw a log on the fire, and relive […]
While advertising spending was depressed across Europe as a result of the ongoing debt crisis, the resilient German economy represented the best growth aspects for the ads space. And as the sense of doom and gloom ebbs a bit in Europe, there is a sense that real-time bidding, and its promise of efficiency, has received […]
Ken Allen, Managing Director, The Blackstone Group, commented on today’s acquisition of Eloqua by Oracle. “There is currently an arms race among Enterprise Software players seeking to build out integrated marketing stacks / clouds. We have seen increased M&A activity in the sector for some time now among CRM vendors such as Oracle and Salesforce.com, […]
Having acquired social marketing software-as-a-service company Vitrue in May, Oracle continued its acquisition of marketing tech companies today with B2B SaaS marketing provider Eloqua for roughly $810 million. Read more. From the release about the acquisition: “The combination of Oracle and Eloqua is expected to create a comprehensive Customer Experience Cloud offering to help companies […]
It’s been a little over a year since Anthony Katsur joined sell-side pricing and inventory manager Maxifier as COO from demand side platform MediaMath, and the former DoubleClick executive is moving up to the CEO seat. He replaces Jonathon Shaevitz, who steps down from the post just two years shy of taking it. The move […]
AdBrite morphed into an ad exchange platform four years ago after shifting gears from its ad network beginnings, but the company was never recognized for making the full leap. Back in May, its board decided it was time for a change and brought in former Yahoo/Right Media executive Hardeep Bindra to make the evolution complete. […]
The Dead Sea Scrolls. The Rosetta Stone. The Caves of Lascaux. Pantology. As archaeological finds go, AdExchanger’s recent investigation into the history of media buying has yielded a stunning discovery courtesy of a source from the ad ecosystem black market. First thought to be yet-another-version of Candyland, AdExchanger scientists believe this gaming device came from […]
Thus far, our “Define It” series has covered definitions for some of the essential drivers of programmatic media including real-time bidding and “Big Data.” But, running in, around and through all of these concepts is something called an algorithm. What’s that? AdExchanger reached out to a group of programmatic media “top guns” and asked for […]
In 2012 major publishers’ wariness of programmatic advertising began to thaw. As part of our 2013 predictions series, we asked Kristine Welker, Hearst Digital Media’s Chief Revenue Officer, what she expects from coming next year. In essence, she sees the promise of brand dollars emerging more visibly as publishers help push the boundaries of exchange-based […]
When Accordant Media was founded in 2010, co-founders Art Muldoon and Matt Greitzer admit that they thought programmatic media was complex. Two years later, the two executives say there’s even more complexity – but, there’s more opportunity, too. Positioning as an independent trading desk offering service and technology layers for marketers and their agencies, Greitzer […]
Since buying supply side platform Admeld last year, Google has rolled out tools and features designed to appeal to publishers who want to make programmatic work for them, without sacrificing their core direct sales offerings. The company’s pitch is that RTB buyers and sellers don’t have to give up the all-too-human process of negotiating on […]
