Last week X+1 secured a new $17 million debt facility with Ares Capital, a cash reservoir the demand-side platform plans to tap for two acquisitions this quarter (one social, one mobile). A global expansion will follow in the second half of the year, including a possible outpost in Brazil, according to CEO John Nardone. By […]
“Workflow” is not the sexiest of topics, even in the realm of digital advertising. But as the process of buying, planning and tracking digital ad buys gets more complex, both agencies and software companies are taking a more serious look at what can and should be automated. Several months ago, Mediaocean, which was the product […]
Before taking the reins at DoubleVerify six months ago, Wayne Gattinella spent ten years at the helm of WebMD. When he signed up for that job, the consumer health publisher was three years old and had collapsed to some extent, like most web content providers in that era. Since then it has largely reversed course. Revenues for […]
The number of display ad tech companies “of size” has risen sharply in recent years as mammoths like Google and Adobe are joined by hulking no-longer-startups such as BlueKai, Rocket Fuel, Collective, and AOL’s Ad.com, among others. Demand-side platform Turn should certainly be included on this list. The profitable company employs 250 and works with […]
Even though it is widely used, customers would be hard-pressed to find vendors who agree with the label “marketing automation,” according to Jon Miller, VP of marketing content and strategy at marketing automation software provider Marketo. Marketing automation is “one of those terms that nobody really seems to love but at the same time it’s […]
Digital ad management provider DG is pouring the disparate technologies and products it has bought and built over the last few years into a single receptacle called “VideoFusion.” While having a clearer marketing message is the over-arching reason for the “brand unification,” the company also wants to emphasize its proposition to be the connective tissue […]
Cox Digital Solutions, which houses the white label vertical ad network and ad serving business formerly known as Adify, will no longer offer platform services to outside media companies, the company has told clients. In a letter sent last month to customers, obtained by AdExchanger, Andy Levi director, Publisher Operations at CDS, as part of […]
Facebook has confirmed its agreement to buy Atlas from Microsoft, paving the way for a more robust demand-side offering from the company. In an interview with AdExchanger, Ads Product Director Gokul Rajaram said the primary aim is to help advertisers compare their Facebook ads with all online, and eventually offline, placements. An ad network is not […]
What do you do if you have real-time bidding software that’s non-core to your business, but could still be an asset to young ad companies faced with building their own bidders from scratch? You take it open source. That’s what Montreal-based Datacratic has done with the release of a new RTBkit framework, available at RTBkit.org. […]
Google, AppNexus, and PubMatic are all talking up the convergence of guaranteed and non-guaranteed media. The first solutions designed to address this convergence were private exchanges, embraced by many sellers but fewer on the buy side. Now the companies are moving forward on the next wave of features. Among the favored approaches is so-called “holistic […]
DataXu has raised a $27 million round, a hefty chunk though somewhat less than other recent investments in similarly mature display ad tech companies. (AppNexus secured $75 million last month, Rocket Fuel took $50 million in June). Thomvest Venture Capital led the round and gains a board seat, while current investors Atlas Venture, Flybridge Capital […]
AdBrite has shut down its exchange, and says it is close to selling off its other assets: namely, its B2B Marketplace directory and the intellectual property and engineering operations that power the core exchange product. In essence, this means that adBrite as it has been known — since evolving from an ad network — will […]
No AppNexus insiders will take money off the table as the RTB pure play soaks up a new $75 million investment led by Technology Crossover Ventures. Instead, funds from the series D round will be pumped into the company in the form of new features, marketplace quality improvements, and employee development. CEO Brian O’Kelley wrote […]
The debate around multi-channel attribution is perhaps the essential marketing problem of this decade. Can you really optimize ad spend on a cross-channel basis, and at the impression level? Not yet. Will you be able to? A lot of smart money says yes, but it’s going to be a long and bumpy ride. The most […]
Less than six months since Google decided to merge its paid Product Listing Ads and its “free” shopping-related results into a single paid image-ad format, about 35% of commercial searches now show PLAs in the results, up from 29% in Oct, says Jefferies & Co.’s analyst Brian Pitz. As Google Shopping now essentially requires retailers […]
In 2013, expect to see more ad tech companies provide some automation of guaranteed sales. Among the entities working on that idea is Legolas Media, which just hired digital sell-side veteran Jonathon Shaevitz as its new CEO. Shaevitz joins Legolas from sell-side pricing and inventory manager Maxifier, where as CEO over the past two years, […]
It’s been nearly a year since ad sales workflow systems provider Mediaocean was given the regulatory green light to form the merger of Mediabank and Donovan Data Systems. While Mediaocean picked up the mantle of both entities’ attempts to bring online media buying methods to traditional TV, Mediaocean CEO Bill Wise tells AdExchanger that the […]
AppNexus is an object of some fascination in digital marketing circles, and why not? Led by former rivals from Right Media and DoubleClick Ad Exchange, the privately held company has grown up to become perhaps the only scaled “pure” technology company in the real-time bidding landscape. It provides no managed services, accepts no insertion orders, […]
Demand side platform MediaMath has scooped up Tap.Me and its roughly 11 employees for an undisclosed sum. The deal brings MediaMath a far more robust mobile and video ad serving capability than it had previously, according to CEO Joe Zawadzki. Tap.Me was previously focused on in-game ads (AdExchanger 2011 Q&A). But as sometimes happens in […]
AudienceScience has shuttered its publisher network business to focus completely on marketing technology. The move is yet another sign of weak demand for traditional ad networks, as buyers steadily migrate budgets to exchange-traded media bought through DSPs. President Mike Peralta tells AdExchanger, “The transition has been in the works for 12 to 18 months. Across […]
Triggit, a demand side platform that has lately repositioned itself as a Facebook Exchange specialist, has raised a $7.4 million Series B round from existing investors. Spark Capital and Foundry Group participated, as did the company’s recently added CRO Chris Zaharias. CEO Zach Coelius tells AdExchanger, “We’ve focused every bit of our development and resources […]
Chris Golec is CEO of Demandbase, which positions itself as a real-time targeting and personalization platform for B2B marketing. Golec recently spoke to AdExchanger about his company’s new ad platform, known as “Demandbase Company Targeted Advertising.” Read the release. AdExchanger: How did you get to the advertising “moment” at Demandbase? CHRIS GOLEC: For most B2B […]
Ian Lowe is CEO of AdSlot, formerly Webfirm Group Limited, based in Australia. Recently, his company launched the AdSlot platform in North America and Europe. According to the release, AdSlot was created by the founders of Hitwise, Andrew Barlow and Adrian Giles, and Adslot Publisher is “a direct sales platform” that currently includes several properties […]
With $8 million in new venture funding in his company’s pocket, one might think that the next step for publisher ad tech and marketplace firm isocket is to hire legions of sales and marketing folks. Not so, says isocket CEO John Ramey. It’s more about the technology challenge as he told AdExchanger: “We’re trying to […]
Having built one of the early ad servers at Matchlogic, TruEffect CEO Ron Hill and his core team have deep experience in ad tech. Among the fruits of those ad serving days were patents that Hill says have become the backbone of his company’s first-party advertising technology today. To be clear, TruEffect isn’t a young […]
The fearsome and punishing effects from Hurricane Sandy along the east coast the past few days has contributed to a series of record-breaking events across The Weather Company’s cable and digital properties. In particular, The Weather Channel’s parent company tells AdExchanger that on Friday, the amount of ad dollars coming in from programmatic channels exceeded […]
Back in 2008, Perfect Audience‘s Brad Flora started a Chicago-specific social news website called Windy Citizen. Though the audience grew, the ad revenue lagged which led to an investigation by Flora into the world of dynamic creative optimization (DCO). Soon, with a little help from tech incubator Y Combinator among others, his growing startup created […]
For the past couple of years, Jonathan Mendez, founder and CEO of Yieldbot, has been focusing his company’s efforts on unlocking the value in publisher data – specifically “intent.” Last week, Mendez discussed with AdExchanger the evolution of his company’s analytics product and its move towards media. AdExchanger: Since I last spoke with you on […]
Looking to provide an alternative to the ever-popular cookie targeting used in online display advertising today, Keith Pieper has decided it’s time to “pivot” his 10-person startup – was Pretarget (AdExchanger March 2011), now Sequential Media – and pursue the cookieless future. Pulling from Pretarget learnings, “Crowd Targeting” is Sequential’s core, patented technology that Pieper […]
Even before ex-Googler Marissa Mayer became Yahoo’s latest CEO two months ago, rumors were circulating that the company had been planning on selling off its Right Media Exchange. And as much of the attention around Yahoo’s programmatic ad platform strategy swirled around its “big data” offering Genome, the idea of jettisoning Right Media, the ad […]
