Facebook’s making it harder for fly-by-night publishers to monetize low-value websites. On Wednesday, Facebook said it’s starting to use artificial intelligence to lay down the law on links that shunt users to websites with too many ads, as well as ads of a “disruptive, malicious and shocking” nature. Frowned-upon ad types include excessively disruptive units […]
Rubicon Project posted another quarter of significant declines as new CEO Michael Barrett attempts to turn around the business. Revenue declined 34% YoY to $46 million in the first quarter. Advertising spend declined 23%, to $191.5 million. Though the revenue slightly beat expectations, the stock slid a few percentage points in after-hours trading. Take rates […]
Facebook is still growing. The company reported on Wednesday that monthly active users are now 1.9 billion, up 17% year-over year – roughly one-fourth of the world’s population – while daily active usage saw an 18% YoY uptick to 1.3 billion. Mobile revenue, as always, is the majority of overall revenue at 85%, up from […]
When a public company is having performance issues, it needs an excuse. For Twitter, TellApart is shaping up to be that boogeyman. After barely a mention of TellApart on its earnings calls for several quarters, last week Twitter CFO and COO Anthony Noto implied that the remarketing platform will hurt revenue through the rest of […]
Twitter’s first-ever NewFronts pitch to advertisers: We’re like TV for millennials. But do people really want to tune in to Twitter to watch long-form live-streaming content? Bloomberg, which announced an expanded live-streaming deal with Twitter on Monday, is betting on the fact that consumers are ready. “When we see millions of people go to Twitter […]
Header bidding has been great for nToggle. The startup uses machine learning to shape the bidstream for buying platforms. Instead of looking at every potential impression, nToggle filters out ones it thinks the DSP is unlikely to bid on, reducing the amount of queries by an average of 90%. Fewer queries to look at translates […]
Alphabet beat its earnings forecast in the first quarter, sending the stock up 5% in after-hours trading. Revenue increased 22% year over year to $24.75 billion. The positive earnings report, however, was overshadowed by investor questions about the YouTube brand safety crisis. Since January, brands and agencies have withdrawn spend, leading Google to improve controls […]
Looks like TellApart was a very expensive mistake. On Wednesday, Twitter CFO and COO Anthony Noto called the desktop retargeting platform “a headwind” in which it no longer plans to invest. “We continue to face increasingly negative impacts from products we have discontinued or lowered investment in,” Noto told investors during Twitter’s first-quarter earnings call. […]
As header bidding grows, ad exchanges are sending more ad impressions per second and DSPs must evaluate more impressions than ever. The massive uptick in volume, which far outpaces programmatic revenue growth, is straining ad tech infrastructure. With more queries to sift through, it costs more to buy the same ads. And as a result, […]
Tom Edwards is different from most of the other people flowing through the halls of the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose at Facebook’s F8 developers conference this week. Because Edwards isn’t a developer. He’s the chief digital officer at marketing services firm Epsilon. “There aren’t a lot of agency folks here,” Edwards said. “I’m […]
Sorry Snapchat, Facebook isn’t going to quit. At Facebook’s F8 developer conference in San Jose on Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg declared that Facebook is all-in on augmented reality. In fact, AR is a cornerstone of Facebook’s 10-year road map. But for AR to really go mainstream, it needs to evolve beyond selfie masks and rainbow vomit […]
When it comes to third-party verification, the big digital platforms like Facebook and Google have reason to rush. They’re working on deadline. Marc Pritchard, P&G’s chief brand officer, has made it clear platforms need to implement Media Ratings Council-accredited third-party viewability measurement by the end of the year or risk losing the CPG giant’s business. […]
Nielsen Marketing Cloud has built a new brain. The measurement company unveiled Nielsen Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Tuesday, meant to help advertiser and publisher clients build custom audience segments in real time. Nielsen AI is baked into the Nielsen Marketing Cloud platform and designed to process multiple external circumstances concurrently, which it can then use to […]
The “last-look” advantage Google’s ad server gave to Google’s ad exchange so bothered publishers and exchanges that it gave rise to header bidding. As of this week, that advantage is no more, AdExchanger has learned. Google just reworked its auction so it no longer favors itself in the allocation of bids. A support document this […]
Centro has updated its platform so media planners can manage direct-sold campaigns and programmatic ones in one place. The company combined its DSP SiteScout, acquired in 2013, with its workflow automation software for I/O-based buys. It was part of a three-year, $25 million platform update that began after the SiteScout purchase. “When we reset our […]
By now, Google’s brand safety issue has been covered across a broad spectrum of media outlets, ranging from The Washington Post to Recode to (naturally) AdExchanger. Below we bring you the latest in the fast-moving story. Back Story. In February and March, The Times of London described how advertisers found their brands placed next to […]
Twitter has its work cut out. Stalling user growth and a rocky Q4 for ad revenue, which was down slightly year over year, present a particular sort of pickle: the need to buckle down on its key value prop. “People come to Twitter to see what’s happening in the world,” said Jean-Philippe Maheu, VP of […]
NewsCred on Wednesday laid off 10% of its staff as it changes its product offering and adds advisory services to its content marketing software. As part of the reorg, NewsCred hired a president and COO, Charles Hough. “We’ve been selling [brands] content marketing platforms, but they need expert services, and someone to hold their hand […]
Demand-side platforms are getting snapped up left and right. But DataXu, one of the remaining indies, is planning to stay that way. And it’s hitching its wagon to the in-housing trend. “There’s a lot of interest in having greater transparency and control over programmatic technology,” said Mike Baker, CEO and co-founder of DataXu, which released […]
Google updated its brand safety controls on Tuesday after a slew of companies pulled advertising spend from YouTube and Google Ad Exchange. In response to the withdrawals, Google promised to develop tools to better police and remove ads from content that attacks people based on their race, gender, religion or “similar categories.” To do so, […]
Concerns over ads appearing next to extremist YouTube content has led Havas UK, The Guardian, L’Oréal and the UK government to pull advertising spend from YouTube and Google Display Network. The UK government’s interest in stamping out extremist videos has been brewing for some time. According to a February article in The Times, the UK […]
Rubicon Project founder Frank Addante has stepped down as CEO. Former AdMeld and Millennial Media chief Michael Barrett is Rubicon’s new CEO, effective immediately. Addante will switch to a strategic and advisory role as chairman of Rubicon’s board. Barrett has a history of turning companies around and getting them sold. As CEO of Millennial Media, he took a company […]
If publishers and platforms often hold contentious relationships with each other, NBCUniversal shows signs of wanting to change that frenemy dynamic. Leading up to last week’s Snapchat IPO, NBCUniversal invested $500 million in the video messaging and content app, CNBC reported Friday. That investment would give the media company an approximately a 2% stake, according to […]
Think of IBM and you’re likely imagining heavy technologies managed by an expensive services division. But IBM Chief Digital Officer Bob Lord emphasizes that’s the old company. He’s here to help IBM reinvent itself and, most importantly, its way of doing business. “What I’ve loved doing throughout my career is helping a company pivot,” Lord […]
What works better for publishers: Snapchat or Instagram Stories? Both platforms are quickly gaining ground as ways for publishers to distribute their content to wider audiences. Snapchat made its public offering Thursday, and Instagram Stories launched last year with a competitive, video-focused offering. While each platform claims more than 150 million daily users, Snapchat and […]
Snap Inc. is expected to go public on Thursday, leaving many to wonder how the most anticipated tech IPO since Facebook will be treated by investors on Wall Street. While Snap described itself as a camera company during its roadshow, investors know that its success hinges on its ability to monetize successfully as an ad […]
Snapchat is settling into ad tech, and so are its partners. Video production and editing startup VidMob, one of five Creative API partners that Snapchat announced in late January, launched a self-serve platform on Thursday that lets advertisers and publishers create, manage and buy Snap Ads within a single interface. The platform combines Snapchat’s recently released […]
Facebook will be audited by the Media Rating Council. (Pause for dramatic effect.) The company said Friday in a blog post that it plans to commit to an independent audit by the MRC in order to verify the accuracy of the measurement it delivers to its ad partners. Facebook had reportedly started talking to the […]
Ad revenue was down year over year for Donald Trump’s favorite communication channel. Twitter’s ad revenue for Q4 slumped to $638 million from $641 million in 2015, although ad revenue was up from $616 million in the third quarter. A year-on-year ad revenue loss is a major problem, considering mobile advertising revenue comprises 89% of […]
As mobile eats the world, Facebook is making a meal out of mobile advertising. The company reported Wednesday that roughly 84% of its full year 2016 revenue of more than $26 billion was thanks to mobile ads. Facebook also saw strong gains this quarter in average revenue per user in the US and Canada, which […]
