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 […]
To be a modern broadcaster, CNN believes it has to distribute content everywhere and be a launch partner when platforms like Snapchat Discover, Apple News and Facebook Messenger roll out publisher products. In the past two years, CNN has added roughly 20 platforms to its distribution list and, in the past year, it spent $20 […]
In a blog post Wednesday, Facebook’s VP of global marketing solutions, Carolyn Everson, acknowledged that some marketers are “feeling uneasy” about viewability, online ad metrics and brand safety. She outlined updates meant to address that discomfort. First, Facebook intends to give advertisers more control over where their ads are running by tightening guidelines on the […]
AppNexus and Index Exchange have the broadest adoption of their adapters and wrappers, according to the first-ever Header Bidding Index – a report from ServerBid, an Adzerk spinoff that builds wrappers for the demand side. Seventy percent of the top 1,000 publishers running programmatic advertising use header bidding, according to the report, which ServerBid created […]
The accuracy of Facebook’s reporting is under the microscope again courtesy of Pivotal analyst Brian Wieser and an Australian trade pub called AdNews. In a note to investors on Tuesday, Wieser called attention to Facebook’s claims that it reaches more people than exist within certain age groups, based on US Census data. Wieser was tipped […]
Before Yieldbot CEO Jonathan Mendez laid off one-third of the company’s employees in mid-July, the company had suffered a series of setbacks. With $10 million in funding last year, Yieldbot bet on a header bidding wrapper that didn’t pay off. Instead, AppNexus won the header bidding wrapper wars with Prebid. Then it had a bad […]
The second-price auction is crumbling. All the major exchanges/SSPs – with the exception of Google AdX – are rolling out or are deep in experiments with first-price header bidding auctions. The tests vary in aggressiveness and scope from exchange to exchange, with AppNexus, Index Exchange and OpenX leading the charge, and with visions of much […]
Google’s latest anti-fraud measure aims to stamp out ad fraud by clawing back money from the exchanges where its DSP purchased fraudulent inventory. In Q4, DoubleClick Bid Manager will give advertisers the option to buy only from exchanges that will refund media spend for fraudulent inventory. Over the past month, Google’s DSP has issued advertisers […]
The MRC kicked off the second phase of its three-part Facebook audit at the beginning of August: an assessment of the quality of Facebook and Instagram viewability metrics as reported by viewability partners like Moat, Integral Ad Science, comScore and DoubleVerify. Specifically, the MRC is examining if Facebook’s API accurately transmits what’s happening on Facebook […]
Facebook is giving advertisers a bit more control over how they buy in-stream video ads within the news feed, through Audience Network and on Watch, its newly launched video tab. In the past, advertisers that wanted to purchase in-stream placements delivered into ad breaks were required to run them in the news feed. Starting Thursday, […]
Snap again came in below analysts’ expectations for its Q2 earnings announced on Thursday. Year-over-year, revenue grew 153% to $181.7 million in Q2 and 200% to $331 million for the half year. Quarter-over-quarter, revenue was up roughly 21%. Analysts expected Q2 revenue to clock in at $186 million. Daily active users (DAUs) grew 21% year-over-year […]
As its sell-side business takes off due to the success of its Prebid open source wrapper, AppNexus’ buy-side operation is treading water relative to rivals such as The Trade Desk. Now the company is considering downplaying it further. In recent months, AppNexus executives have pondered using parts of its buy-side business as a bargaining chip […]
Ever click on an ad by mistake? You and the rest of internet-connected humanity. On Tuesday, Facebook said it’s going to stop counting those errant clicks in its reporting for ads served through Audience Network and start barring publishers from including clickable white space in the background of their native ads. Beginning next week, if […]
Lorne Brown, former CEO of Operative and president of SintecMedia, will ascend to the CEO position at Sintec Media. Outgoing CEO Amotz Yarden will assume a seat on the board. As CEO, Brown plans to continue executing the vision he and Yarden laid out last November when SintecMedia acquired Operative for $200 million, about six […]
AT&T just hired an ad platform whiz kid to take charge of its new TV and video ad business – but that’s the easy part. On Friday, AT&T revealed that Brian Lesser, GroupM’s CEO of North America, will helm a new business unit so the telco can attempt to realize the potential of its vast deterministic […]
Rubicon Project has been steadily lowering its take rate over the past year to make its tech more appealing to publishers and buyers, who have pushed back against hidden fees. During its earnings call Tuesday, the company revealed that the declining take rates are one part of its strategy to offer the most value for […]
Twitter’s revenue and user growth story – especially US user growth – is grounded in a harsh reality. Overall revenue for the quarter came in at $574 million, down 5% year over year. Ad revenue was also down 8% on a YoY basis, clocking in at $489 million. This is the third quarter in a […]
Sovrn CEO Walter Knapp sat down in a conference room on June 27 and told 27 staffers it would be their last day. Knapp told AdExchanger the layoffs were proactive. Before the layoffs, the company had grown from 50 people to more than 250 staffers in two years. It raised $18 million in August 2015, […]
