During a speech Tuesday at think tank R Street Institute, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai justified his plan to scrap net neutrality (“We’re shifting from one-size-fits-all preemptive regulation to targeted enforcement.”) and took a shot at edge providers like Twitter, Google and Facebook. “Let’s not kid ourselves: When it comes to a free and […]
The question-and-answer site Quora considers itself a unique hybrid of search and social. Since neither of those platforms open themselves up to programmatic demand, Quora decided it wouldn’t go that route either. Quora’s ads platform officially went live in May with 300 advertisers on board, who could only purchase ads through Quora’s Facebook-like self-serve ad […]
Programmatic platform Choozle picked up $6 million in Series B funding Tuesday, and it’s got growth on the brain. “We’re buying time to become a bigger player in the mid-market,” said Choozle CEO and co-founder Andrew Fischer, who sees recent ad tech consolidation and the lack of investment in early-stage companies as an opportunity. Choozle, […]
Yieldbot founder and CEO Jonathan Mendez has vacated that role. “Jonathan and the board came to a mutual understanding,” a company spokesperson confirmed to AdExchanger on Friday. The change was effective in early October, but Mendez is keeping his board seat. Yieldbot has had a tough year. It laid off a third of its staff […]
When Snap reported disappointing earnings on Tuesday, it said revenue was constrained by its shift from a direct sales model to a programmatic, auction-based model. Snap’s excuse mimics one that publishers used in the early days of programmatic to explain their revenue shortfalls, and it doesn’t fully take into account immaturities and nuances in Snap’s […]
AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley has been waiting 10 years for ad tech to become transparent. Less than a week after Rubicon Project slashed its take rate in half, to 10% to 12%, by doing away with buy-side fees, AppNexus said its fees are even lower. The company revealed it charges an 8.5% average to the […]
AI-driven marketing automation platform Artsai came out of a two-year-long stealth period on Thursday with plans to help brands cut down on marketing vendor fragmentation hell. Client Pandora has been using Artsai to help its ad partners with dynamic creative optimization and to gather and apply campaign performance data and insights across touch points. Pandora […]
The push for ad tech fee transparency is in full swing. Last week, Rubicon Project got rid of its buy-side fees, which will cut its take rate in half. While removing buy-side fees will help Rubicon’s reputation with publishers (The Guardian sued Rubicon over the fees) and buyers, the real drive for transparency comes from […]
Snap said during its Q3 earnings call Tuesday that pricing pressure caused its CPMs to sink 60% year-over-year and 20% sequentially, as more advertisers switched from direct buys to using its self-serve programmatic platform. “The auction transition continued to impact Snap ad pricing during the quarter,” said chief financial officer Drew Vollero. “Most of [the […]
Salesforce is partnering with Google for an integration that will enable sales, marketing and advertising data to flow between the Analytics 360 Suite and Salesforce’s Marketing and Sales clouds. Read the Google blog post. The integration of 360 and Salesforce’s Marketing and Sales clouds will be available in the first half of 2018 at no […]
Rubicon Project eliminated its buy-side fees Wednesday. “This ties directly to the commitment I made when I joined the company earlier this year to normalize our pricing and bring a higher level of transparency to everything we do,” CEO Michael Barrett said in a blog post released just prior to Rubicon’s Q3 earnings Thursday. Removing […]
A stark juxtaposition: At the same time Facebook’s general counsel was getting grilled by members of Congress in Washington, DC, on Wednesday about how the platform was abused by Russian election meddlers, Facebook beat revenue expectations for the third quarter. Ad revenue was up 49% YoY, from $6.8 billion to just over $10 billion. Mobile […]
The tech titans have testified about Russian election meddling. And after two days and multiple hours of questioning by members of Congress aimed at top lawyers from Facebook, Twitter and Google on Tuesday and Wednesday, it’s clear that Russian operatives continue to spread propaganda and sow social discontent using social media platforms and that said […]
Facebook and Twitter both took steps last week to provide more transparent paid political advertising on their platforms. But although political ads will be clearly labeled and users will be able to access more information on who purchased the ads and how much the buyer is spending on electioneering, it’s primarily up to the advertisers […]
After a string of lackluster quarters, Twitter seems poised for a rebound and potential profitability, with early plans to launch RTB buying capabilities on its platform – but it’s still slow going. Although the company beat revenue expectations for the third quarter Thursday with $590 million, that number was down 4% year over year from […]
Dynamic creative optimization has thus far largely overpromised and underdelivered. Now Facebook is tossing its hat in the ring. Can it succeed where others have floundered? On Wednesday, Facebook introduced two tools to help advertisers tailor creative assets on the fly: one that automatically throws together multiple ad variants based on the basic components of […]
If lawmakers have anything to do with it, political ads on Facebook, Google, Twitter and other online platforms may soon be subject to the same disclosure requirements as traditional political advertising. Senators introduced a bipartisan bill on Thursday to do just that, prompted by revelations of Russian meddling before and during the 2016 US presidential […]
Google is the latest walled garden to be sucked down the Russian rabbit hole. The Washington Post reported Monday that Google has uncovered evidence of ads linked to Russia that were used to spread propaganda via YouTube, Gmail, Google Search and its DoubleClick ad network. Google’s revelations follow similar disclosures by Facebook and Twitter, which […]
The changes that Facebook is making in response to its ongoing Russia-linked ads predicament will impact every advertiser on the platform, not just political advertisers. For one, Facebook’s effort to introduce more transparency into political advertising could start bubbling up information that brands can use as competitive intel to track trends and make suppositions about […]
Around this time last year, the chatter around artificial intelligence (AI) was escalating as Salesforce and IBM unveiled splashy programs to help advertisers make sense of massive and complex reams of data, in order to enable more personalized marketing. Oracle, too, announced the creation of Adaptive Intelligence Apps at the time, and at its annual […]
Facebook said Monday it will add 1,000 employees to its global ads review teams over the next year to put the kibosh on foreign state-sponsored ads. The company will examine not just the content of the ad, but also the context in which it was bought and the targeting parameters used. Facebook’s ads review system […]
Pinterest wants to own the moment when consumers have an idea of what they want, but haven’t committed to a specific product or brand. “People use Pinterest to plan their lives, from the everyday, like what am I going to cook tonight or wear to a party on Saturday, to milestones like weddings, kids’ birthday […]
Tencent doesn’t like it when WeChat is called a walled garden, even though it has all the markings. “This is a form of walled garden in the same way you have Facebook or Google,” said Jon Mansell, VP of marketplace innovation at Magna Global, during a panel hosted by Tencent at Advertising Week on Monday. […]
Google is opening up more intent data for targeting on YouTube and expanding its Custom Affinity Audiences offering. Beyond reaching people based on their searches on YouTube, advertisers will now be able to create segments and target video ads using data derived from Google Maps and apps. “The ultimate goal is to reach any person […]
OpenX acquired two publisher tools, Mezzobit and PubNation, on Monday. By bringing these point solutions in-house, the SSP plans to strengthen its overall offering for publishers. The tools don’t boost yield for publishers, which is how publishers typically grade SSPs, but rather help them track down slow or suspicious advertiser tags and monitor overall ad […]
Under mounting pressure over its use by Russian meddlers in the US election, Facebook is imposing new transparency on ad buyers to make it harder to obscure who paid for an ad, and who saw it. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the changes in a Facebook Live video posted Thursday afternoon. “When someone buys political ads […]
ViralGains, a video advertising platform, raised $13.5 million in a Series B funding round, the company said Thursday. The funding includes $10 million in equity investment from First Analysis and Origin Ventures and $3.5 million in debt funding from Square 1 Bank. ViralGains, which serves sequential video ads to consumers, will invest the funds into […]
Facebook updated its targeting policies on Wednesday in the wake of the racist and anti-Semitic ad targeting scandal, first reported by ProPublica. COO Sheryl Sandberg clarified Facebook’s position in a post and laid out its three-pronged approach to running a tighter ship. Following the exposé and attendant public backlash, Facebook disabled the self-reported targeting fields […]
The latest fire at Facebook has been lit by Russia, which allegedly bought ads to destabilize the US, and the fallout might force Facebook to change the way it does business. “If Facebook really wants to respond to the public outcry, it’s going to have to leave money on the table,” said David Carroll, a […]
Facebook’s decision to disable segments around self-reported user information, including employers, won’t significantly change the amount of spend the platform gets from B2B marketers, according to numerous agency sources. Facebook disabled targeting around self-reported segments after ProPublica revealed Thursday that advertisers can target users with anti-Semitic and derogatory terms. The ban includes employer and education […]
