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 […]
Reddit seems to be in the news a lot lately as users flock to the platform in search of communities related to events or interests of the day, such as a “subreddit” on politics – or President Obama’s “Ask Me Anything” appearance – or how about cute cat pictures? The community site has few ads […]
It was 17 years ago that he founded the pioneering Internet advertising company, DoubleClick – and over four years since he helped sell it. But, original DoubleClick founder Kevin O’Connor can’t get the entrepreneurial bug out of his system and has targeted “recommendations” with a 60-person firm he co-founded in 2009 called FindTheBest. Like the self-explanatory […]
Display ad retargeter TellApart continues to grow its footprint among ecommerce publishers. CEO Josh McFarland recently discussed his company’s momentum and industry trends. Though he demurred on the subject of revenues, McFarland offered an optimistic outlook on his company and the industry at large in a Q&A with AdExchanger. AdExchanger: Can you talk a bit […]
Media companies aren’t what they used to be as distinct technology companies and agencies may percolate within. Think Hearst/iCrossing, Gannett and its cadre of digital tools and services, The New York Times, Conde Nast – and Washington Post Company and SocialCode. As CEO Laura O’Shaughnessy tells it, SocialCode is “the biggest player in the paid […]
Having originally conceived the idea while at vertical ad network Adify (which he sold to Cox in 2008 for a healthy $300 million), CEO Russ Fradin has not lost any steam in his own personal startup engine – let alone his passion for his latest startup, Dynamic Signal. Fradin explains that brand clients want to […]
The steady collection of extreme tech skills over at real-time ad platform and app marketplace AppNexus is creating a growing opportunity around services. The company is actively recruiting for an AppNexus Global Services unit, according to a company website, including NYC and London “open positions” from its job board. Call it a high tech agency or […]
Michael Scissons is founder and CEO of Syncapse, a Toronto-based, social performance management platform. Last week, Scissons’ company acquired Clickable, a social and search ad platform based in New York City. According to the release, “Clickable’s social and search advertising management functionality will become a key addition to Syncapse’s suite, which includes social media publishing, […]
A couple of weeks ago, Google announced its new Doubleclick Digital Marketing platform which further integrates DoubleClick ad products and begins to offer the promise of efficient cross-channel buying across media channels such as display and search. Many in the industry, particularly privately, see an inevitability in Google corralling much of the data-driven, display ad […]
With its deal to buy Vitrue, database giant Oracle wants to be the first to help corporate clients integrate social across human touch points – both within and beyond the organization, as well as up and down the purchase funnel. “By combining Oracle’s assets with social marketing, social calling, social service, and social monitoring, we […]
Online video advertising platform Adap.tv has a distinct goal in mind for its new App Center: to bring buyers, sellers and vendors that serve each into a single video marketplace for brand advertisers that will eventually include TV ad inventory. The thinking, Teg Grenager, Adap.tv co-founder and VP, told AdExchanger, is that as TV buying […]
