Commerce

NBCUniversal’s Fandango snapped up Vudu from Walmart for an undisclosed price Tuesday, making it the latest independent streaming service to get gobbled up by a big media player. “We are moving into the consolidation phase of the streaming business,” said Forrester principal analyst Jim Nail, citing this deal and Fox’s acquisition of Tubi in March. […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Junior Streamers Children’s TV shows are losing out to new streaming options. Just look at Disney. Disney Plus passed 50 million subscribers last week while prime-time viewing on its cable network, Disney Channel, slumped 37% in mid April. The network is cutting back on […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Retail Slump The Commerce Department estimates that US retail sales dropped by 8.7% from February to March. That’s the worst month-to-month drop since the department started collecting data 30 years ago, more than twice the worst months of the 2008 recession. The definition for […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Peacock Takes Flight Peacock launched on Wednesday as a free add-on for Comcast Xfinity and X1 Flex subscribers. The NBCU-owned service will launch nationally on July 15 with an ad-supported option and a premium tier at $4.99 per month. NBCU stuck to its original […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Movie Night (On The Couch) TV networks hope nostalgia will win over home-bound viewers. NBCU launched a franchise last week called “Stay-In Theater,” simulcasting family movies across its family of networks. NBCU will cut national commercial time for the broadcast from 35 minutes to […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Kacie McKee, head of ecommerce at Wavemaker US. Marketers may have missed the new features Amazon added to their site around the end of 2019 to help boost brands more […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Lightening The Load NBC said it will reduce its ad load in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Ad sales chairman Linda Yaccarino wrote a blog post detailing a plan to reduce ads across categories, including news and late-night talk shows, to free more time […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Sub-Prime Amazon will delay Prime Day until at least August, Reuters reports. Amazon hasn’t confirmed the postponement, but it’s mentioned in a memo obtained by Vice News last week. The delay would mean $100 million to $300 million in losses on excess devices Amazon […]

Amazon has removed third-party vendors from its affiliate program. Starting at the beginning of this month, affiliate networks such as Skimlinks and Sovrn (which acquired VigLink) can no longer send traffic to Amazon and get a cut of transactions, according to sources at many affiliate networks and publishers. Removing third-party affiliate networks frees up significant […]

Ecommerce is all about planning. It’s a carefully choreographed dance between manufacturing, warehousing and selling. But what happens when Amazon – and the world in general – has gone off the rails? It’s the nature of ecommerce and Amazon that tactics constantly change, said Sarah LaVallee, VP of client success at the ecommerce agency Channel […]

Consumer buying habits are in flux. Need proof? Just look at the affiliate marketing category. Affiliate network Pepperjam is seeing “a dramatic shift” in how people shop,” said CEO Matt Gilbert. Between March 11 and March 16, just as the coronavirus crisis was really starting to crack wide open, Pepperjam’s sales volume, measured across about […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. True Story Snapchat is finally letting developers integrate its flagship Stories format outside the app. “The social media giant hopes that expanded access to its content and flagship features on other apps will increase its user base – and maybe its bottom line,” Axios […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Hold The Phone The smartphone industry took a beating this month, and Apple in particular has to rethink its plans for the long term. Thirty-eight percent fewer total smartphones were shipped last month, as consumer spending fell and manufacturing shuttered in China. Apple will […]

The ad tech industry is pressing Google, Facebook and Amazon to offer more flexible payment terms during the economic uncertainty caused by the coronavirus crisis. An industry petition on Change.org, whose author prefers to remain anonymous due to business conflicts, asks Facebook, Google and Amazon to offer more flexible payment terms during this crisis. The […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Games Must Not Go On It’s official: The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be postponed, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member told USA Today. It’s the first time that the Olympic games won’t be held since World War II, though brands and athletes may […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.  Today’s column is written by Alison Weissbrot, senior editor at AdExchanger. It’s part of a series of perspectives from AdExchanger’s editorial team. Facebook’s director of product management Rob Leathern tweeted Thursday that the social media […]

Related: Which coronavirus-related consumer behavior shifts are here to stay? It’s COVID-19’s world right now. Consumers – and marketers – are just living in it. The virus is having a palpable impact on how consumers shop and consume media and goods, and marketers need to figure out how to communicate with people in a new […]

How do all these changes affect marketers, and how should they adapt their messaging and media strategies to the COVID crisis? Click here to find out. Once the coronavirus-induced toilet paper panic buying dies down, consumers will probably chill on their TP sprees. But COVID-19 has the potential to create more permanent behavior changes in […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Not Very Sporting The sudden absence of live sports in television schedules has thrown broadcasters for a loop, with billions of dollars in rights fees and ad commitments on the line. But the most consequential effect may be a swing of users from linear-TV […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Disinfect Ads The coronavirus has led companies in certain categories to halt advertising, some (such as cruise providers) because demand has evaporated and others because supply has evaporated. “Clorox confirmed that as stores of its cleaning products dry up online, it has pulled back […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Hang On St. Christopher Google’s travel advertising business (along with the travel marketing vertical in general) could be severely disrupted by the impacts of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Spending on travel search ads may drop by $1 billion in Q1 […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Empire Strikes Back Amazon Prime smashed brick-and-mortar retail with a combination of price discounts, speedy shipping guarantees and a raft of other benefits, with the biggest being the Prime Video streaming service. Now Walmart plans to launch a paid membership service with a focus […]

Although Amazon, Walmart and Target know which brands are sending them fruitful traffic, the brands themselves are often in the dark. Some of the top-spending brands don’t have meaningful dot-com sales of their own, and even when they direct traffic to retailers with an affiliate link, people don’t always convert immediately or on the same […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Data Dwindles Facebook will no longer share device-level data with its partners for mobile campaign measurement. The company quietly updated the terms of its advanced mobile measurement program in January, which previously allowed advertisers to view and share raw data associated with unique […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Shelf Life Many CPG brands have become iconic through the twin marketing pillars of TV advertising and in-store shopper marketing. The latter includes shelf positioning, aisle displays and end-caps, among other strategies. But linear television is steadily eroding, and access to prime shelf space […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Writing On The Wal’ Walmart weathered a disappointing holiday sales season on the strength of its relatively new and fast-growing ecommerce business. “Ecom was ahead of plan and stores were behind plan,” Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon told investors Tuesday during the retailer’s […]

The brands buying search and display ads on Kroger’s sites could only tie that activity to online sales,  even though those ads influenced in-store purchases. So Kroger worked with recent Microsoft acquisition PromoteIQ to attribute offline sales to online ads, by connecting loyalty card data to its logged-in userbase. The unmeasured impact of the ads […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Hearts & Science & Mar Tech Hearts & Science is launching a mar tech division with more system integrator capabilities. “And in doing so the agency hopes to beat back increased competition from consulting firms offering similar services,” The Wall Street Journal reports. The […]

Your experience scrolling your social media feed will be very different from your friend’s. But when you go into a retail store, you’ll have the same experience as everyone else who steps in. So while digital-first companies like Amazon and eBay are built to create personalized experiences, brick-and-mortar retailers are not, said Liad Agmon, founder […]

Walmart Media Group (WMG), the retailer’s advertising business, is running a bake-off between Xandr and The Trade Desk to be its DSP partner for off-site advertising. Xandr and The Trade Desk each supported sponsored product campaigns for Walmart in Q4 last year, with the goal to drive site traffic at the lowest cost per click […]