As part of The Weather Company’s shift to a vertical-based sales organization, it has hired Sarah Ripmaster as VP of automotive sales. Ripmaster, who has a decade of experience working with auto manufacturers, will help advertisers use The Weather Company’s location data, weather data and the Watson Ad platform in their ad campaigns. Ripmaster worked […]
One of Piera Gelardi’s personal mottos: “Friction creates sparks.” As executive creative director and co-founder of Refinery29, Gelardi is constantly working to balance quality with quantity and achieve scale while staying true to Refinery29’s roots as a “mission-driven publisher for millennial women.” “There was a point when I was scared to grow because I thought […]
Data-driven editorial just added a new weapon to its arsenal: a Slackbot. Clique Media Group (CMG), which owns flagship style site WhoWhatWear as well as MyDomaine, Byrdie and Obsessee, created a Slackbot in November to alert editors when stories over-index the benchmarks set for each author. The editors receive a Slackbot notification with details about […]
As more money flows programmatically, Prisa Group and other publishers are changing their sales organizations and ad products to focus on serving data-driven buyers. Prisa Group owns or represents media brands in 22 Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. Its properties, including El País and the sports site AS, reach 25 million unique users. It also serves […]
Mitú, a digital media company for young Latinos, started out as a multichannel network on YouTube and has since expanded onto Facebook and OTT devices. On Tuesday, the four-year-old publisher will add Snapchat Discover to the mix. “Snapchat recognized a significant portion of their audience, based on demo, is Latino, and wanted to find the […]
Purch, which first implemented header bidding three years ago, has moved on. The portfolio of product review and tech sites turned off most of its header bidders last month and moved to server-to-server integrations with the same partners. Industrywide, server-to-server is considered a logical next step after header bidding. Amazon is moving server-to-server, and Google’s […]
Mindbodygreen is making a credible run at the content-and-commerce model. The health and wellness publisher, which sees around 10 million unique visitors a month, eschews traditional advertising in favor of a combination of content and commerce, “with community in the middle,” said CEO and founder Jason Wachob. Mindbodygreen has 5,000 contributors, some of whom are […]
Some publishers are raking in the traffic courtesy of Apple News, but not everyone on the buy side is impressed. “I want to be able to upload my own audience, match it to theirs and know what’s running where so I can customize the ad,” said Angelina Eng, VP of media platforms and operations at […]
Investing Media Solutions (IMS), exclusively represents the advertising for 375 long-tail and mid-tail publications that offer financial advice. As the financial network looks to the future, it’s adding first-party data and more compelling ad formats to maintain stride with its sophisticated financial advertisers. IMS helps financial advertisers like Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab, and brands like […]
The programmatic salesperson only came into existence about five years ago. What started out as an outsider position in the sales organization has become more mainstream as programmatic adoption increases. But the very people holding programmatic sales roles are already predicting its extinction, as the role gets absorbed into the entire sales process. “In three […]
CBS Interactive-owned CNET has long relied on data to make editorial decisions. But its branded content program, Studio 61, also applies editorial insights to branded content. When Motorola wanted branded content to support its Moto Z phone launch, CNET analyzed which content performed best against Motorola’s target segment: Verizon and Android users aged 18 to […]
Epicurious completely rebuilt its app for Thanksgiving, incorporating best practices for designing content and ads for mobile. The first version of Epicurious’ app, launched back in 2009, didn’t show ads. Later, they were tacked on. With the relaunch, Epicurious thought about how content and ads would work together from the start. “We wanted to created […]
The top trending post about ad tech on the Ad Ops subreddit page asks the pertinent question: “Is it safe to assume 95%-plus of ad tech companies are full of shit?” The responses aren’t pretty. “This is the sentiment that our industry has – this post got a 93% upvote,” Jayne Pimentel, Reddit’s revenue and ad […]
Singtel-owned Amobee is shuttering its supply-side platform and giving walking papers to a little less than 5% of its workforce. Headcount as of 2014 stood at roughly 600, according to CEO Mark Strecker in a previous interview with AdExchanger. The mobile ad firm reached out to its third-party demand-side partners this week – Amobee works with […]
There’s no point in being a me-too solution. That notion is what prompted ConvertMedia to evolve itself from a display network to a supply-side platform focused on outstream video about two years ago. It was also a main driver behind ConvertMedia’s decision to sell to content rec engine Taboola this summer. Once the ink was […]
For evidence that TV and digital media are continuing to converge, look no further than Discovery Communications. Discovery has invested $100 million in Group Nine Media, a newly formed media holding company that will include four brands: Thrillist, NowThis Media, The Dodo and Discovery’s Seeker. As part of the deal, Discovery Communications will start selling […]
InStyle fans tuning into Facebook Live earlier this year watched a La Mer expert conduct a skin consultation with an InStyle editor. The editorial video with brand integration became one of the first examples of Time Inc.’s Social Now ad product. “We are providing very authentic and transparent ways for advertisers to play [with Facebook […]
The New York Times’ new Flex Frame ads are among the first component-based ads deployed in the wild with the help of Google tech. The ads adjust their look and feel according to screen type and page environment. Expect other publishers to follow with their own versions over the next year. The Flex Frame ads […]
The experienced sales team at Rodale, the publisher behind Men’s Health, Prevention and Runner’s World, sells most of its print and digital ad inventory direct. “They fluctuate between 70% and 100% sell-through,” said Diego Sanchez, executive director of digital programmatic and strategic partnerships, who leads a team of five. Due to the high level of […]
Although The Washington Post partners with Facebook Instant Articles and Google AMP, which help speed mobile load times, it’s also striking out on its own. Over a two-month period, a team of Post engineers cobbled together a proprietary tech solution called Zeus that sped mobile page-load times by 75%. Viewability improved by 20% in current […]
Knorr is developing a taste for native. The Unilever-owned seasoning and sauce brand has been experimenting with interactive sponsored content and plans to make it a stock part of its media plan. That’s because it’s the kind of thing that engages millennials, an audience Knorr is particularly interested in courting. Awareness isn’t an issue for […]
When Vice needed to diversify its distribution beyond Facebook and YouTube, it didn’t look to other digital platforms. Instead, said CEO Shane Smith, Vice partnered with HBO and hatched plans for a TV network. “We realized we couldn’t be hostage to Facebook and YouTube. We had to go off-platform,” he told WPP head Martin Sorrell […]
Let’s be honest: A/B testing is boring, but what about A/B testing on steroids? Vox Media is juicing up its testing with “creative intelligence” released Thursday at the DMEXCO conference in Cologne, Germany. The feature lets it test thousands of ad variants against certain audiences. “It can tell you if a creative is working better […]
Fans are passionate about their fandoms – and Movie Pilot is capitalizing on that passion. “We’re a pop culture magazine for a mobile and digital age,” said Movie Pilot CEO and co-founder Tobi Bauckhage. Movie Pilot started in 2012 with a fairly traditional publishing model – reporters reporting and editors editing. Now the vast majority of its […]
When Jason Wagenheim joined Fusion in May as its head of revenue, the Univision-owned pub was regrouping after a tumultuous year. ABC had handled ad sales until the joint venture with Univision split in April. In addition to the partner’s exit, Fusion dealt last year with reports of dismal traffic numbers. But Fusion has steadily […]
About.com grew up during the big portal-publisher era that included Yahoo, MSN and AOL. Similar to those other Web 1.0 properties, About.com, too, was acquired – for nearly $300 million in 2012 by IAC – and forced to reinvent in the platform age of Facebook. After a complete site redesign two years ago, About.com is […]
When Thrillist’s branded video of a fake grandpa weightlifting on Muscle Beach tallied more than 50 million Facebook views in 48 hours, it seemed to validate the pub’s 2015 decision to expand its editorial and sponsored video operations. But Thrillist CoLab, the branded content arm of Thrillist, wanted to test if the viral hit actually […]
While many marketers prioritize reaching Hispanic audiences, they have trouble finding them online. That’s a problem Batanga hopes to address. The Hispanic-focused publisher of sites like iMujer, Vix and BolsaDeMulher attracts 1 million to 4 million US cross-platform uniques per month, according to comScore, and 14 million desktop uniques worldwide, mainly in Latin America. Batanga, […]
Local TV and print magazines don’t share much in common. But as local TV’s digital business grows, and as Meredith’s digital properties need more video expertise, the two disciplines are converging. Tom Harty, who became Meredith’s COO and president on Thursday, is identifying where the local and national media group can collaborate by “figuring out […]
The Street CEO David Callaway wants to transform the financial news and analysis publication into a “data-driven news business.” Callaway, who was hired in June, says he will use a data trove assembled through recent acquisitions like BoardEx (a LinkedIn for company board members) to publish exclusive, high-value content for The Street and thus revive […]
