Commerce

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Power Exits Successful ad tech exits can start a virtuous cycle of entrepreneurship. As AdExchanger previously reported, New York City ad tech exits have fostered a strong network of angel investors who support colleagues in new startups. The same is true for success stories […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Illegitimate Interest? European regulators are circling real-time bidding companies, claiming the online ad framework violates GDPR by passing sensitive information through bid requests without explicit consent. Regulators in the United Kingdom and Ireland are investigating RTB, and Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain and Poland have […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Drinking Up Data AB InBev, the beer and beverage conglomerate, is making a big play for data and digital assets. ZX Ventures, AB’s investment vehicle for new markets and technology, just bought the UK-based subscription beer service BeerBods, FoodBev Media reports. And that came […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Ecom And Go Walmart’s big move into ecommerce, starting three years ago with its $3.3 billion deal for Jet.com, has been an overall success. It’s online sales grew by 40% last year, and an online grocery pick-up service is one of the fastest-growing elements […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Audit This  WPP has had enough of Accenture playing agency and media auditor at the same time. So, starting in 2020, it will no longer participate in pitches run by the consulting firm. WPP is concerned that Accenture can use the media and services […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Wondery-ful  A spree of acquisitions of podcasting and streaming audio ad tech startups by Spotify, Pandora and iHeartMedia has somewhat consolidated the category, but the independent market is still growing. Podcast production network Wondery raised $10 million last week at a valuation of more […]

Twitch streamers will sling products during two 12-hour streams on July 15 and July 16 to drive Amazon Prime Day sales. The Twitch Presents channel will be taken over by different streaming celebrities selling products ranging from electronics and gaming to kitchenware and kitsch. It’s QVC, but with gamers making the sale. The close alignment […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Snap, Mon Ami Snap is starting to tone down its too-cool-for-school vibe. The company has been known to operate with a certain level of hauteur in relation to advertisers, agencies and the press. But Snap is making a concerted effort to be less secretive […]

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Uber is suing five ad networks for squandering tens of millions of dollars on low-quality or fraudulent ads – and it’s naming names. The suit, filed in early June in a San Francisco court, calls out Hydrane SAS, BidMotion, Taptica, YouAppi and AdAction Interactive for purchasing “nonexistent, nonviewable or fraudulent advertising.” Users who did see the […]

Large marketers are constantly running scores of experiments on their media investments. That can make optimization tricky, said Sadie Daryan, eBay’s global head of display and app marketing. And so eBay has been playing around with a tool from marketing intelligence startup Admetrics, released Tuesday, that uses AI to automatically run thousands of concurrent tests […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Bull’s-Eye Targeting If you want to use Target’s first-party data, you don’t need to use Target’s DSP – just the SSP where it has its data loaded. Competitors (ahem, Amazon) force advertisers onto an owned DSP to activate segments such as “electronics purchasers,” for […]

Pinterest really wants people to shop on its platform. The newly public company revamped its marketing partner program on Monday and added a new partner category for third-party tech providers that facilitate shopping experiences. But the rebrand of Pinterest’s Marketing Developer Partners program to a global Pinterest Partners program is more than a cosmetic change. […]

Instagram has a lot going for it right now: Millions of active advertisers, an opportunity to capitalize on commerce, impression growth, a love affair with DTC brands, the continued breakneck growth of Stories … and the fact that a lot of people still don’t necessarily associate it with Facebook. The Facebook connection has been both […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The B2B CDP? Dun & Bradstreet has agreed to acquire Lattice Engines, a B2B marketing startup. D&B says it made the deal to add a customer data platform (CDP), a trendy category of tech companies that collect and manage consumer data. Lattice started as […]

One week after Amazon reached a “definitive agreement” to buy the Sizmek ad server and DCO tech, the French ad tech company Weborama is trying Friday to re-open the process with a press release and what it claims is a larger offer. FTI Consulting, the financial advisory overseeing Sizmek’s bankruptcy review, emphasized its agreement with […]

When Amazon acquired Sizmek’s ad server and dynamic content optimization (DCO) businesses last week, most of the attention fell on the server. And rightly so, since the server is the meat and potatoes of the deal. But don’t sleep on the DCO solution as a potentially valuable asset for the Amazon Advertising Platform (AAP). After […]

Amazon’s acquisition of Sizmek’s ad server and dynamic creative optimization (DCO) platform Friday puts it in a better position to compete with Google for advertiser budgets. Amazon will likely gain new clients from Sizmek who don’t want to deal with switching ad servers, as well as some advertisers who don’t like the idea of working […]

Updated at 11:50 EDT Amazon announced on Friday that it will buy Sizmek’s ad server business and dynamic content optimization (DCO) solution, following a two-month sales review since Sizmek declared bankruptcy in March. The deal would give Amazon the second-largest ad server footprint, trailing Google, and has important implications for Amazon’s advertising ambitions and the […]

Amazon is primed to splash some color on a new product category: paint. But rather than slap on its own private label, home improvement site The Spruce lent its name and home décor expertise, selecting and naming the 32 colors of paint. Paint manufacturer KILZ produced the line. KILZ and Amazon first approached the digital […]

Google released a slate of new shopping ad products on Tuesday, upping the ante in commerce marketing as Amazon, Facebook-agram and Adobe ramp up their shopper ad businesses. Google’s new shopping ad formats, unveiled at Google Marketing Live in San Francisco, tie formerly siloed properties within Google, such as YouTube and Maps, into a more […]

Adobe launched a cloud product suite for retail and ecommerce technology services on Monday. The Adobe Commerce Cloud is the fourth Adobe cloud offering, joining the Experience, Advertising and Analytics clouds. The core of the new commerce package is the Magento ecommerce platform Adobe acquired a year ago for $1.68 billion, that’s now been integrated […]

It’s been almost a year since Vista Equity Partners acquired a majority stake in ad verification company Integral Ad Science. In the wake of the acquisition, the company appointed a new CEO, Lisa Utzschneider, to lead the company. In this episode, Utzschneider discusses her 20 years in senior revenue roles at Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo, […]

Shopify powers digital marketing for many of the savviest direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands. In addition to its foundational ecommerce services, Shopify provides DTC marketers with a range of creative and media buying tools through an automated chatbot named Kit. It also connects merchants to major media platforms such as Instagram, Amazon, Google and Facebook through a […]

The in-housing trend is real, but agencies aren’t getting kicked to the curb. Their role is simply evolving. “Agencies have been around for years, and they’re not going away,” said Freddie Liversidge, HP’s director of digital activation, speaking at AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO show in San Francisco on Tuesday. HP recently completed a multiyear process to […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Agent Amazon Amazon is on a charm offensive to bring in more agencies and non-endemic brands, like financial services companies or auto manufacturers that don’t sell on its platform today. Amazon is doing a roadshow pitching its data and OTT chops to help create […]

Amazon reported slower than usual revenue growth in its earnings report, with overall sales of $59.7 billion in Q1 2019, a 17% increase compared to the year before. Amazon’s annual growth rate dropped, but it is more profitable and its business has a higher profit margin than ever. The company’s operating profit reached $4.4 billion […]

Walmart Media Group (WMG), the retailer’s data-driven advertising business, took another step forward with its in-house advertising program on Thursday with the acquisition of Polymorph Labs, a San Francisco-based ad tech startup. Walmart did not disclose terms of the deal or how many employees it will add with Polymorph. Polymorph, formerly AdsNative, raised a total […]

Dentsu Aegis Network launched Sellwin, an Amazon-focused consultancy, on Wednesday. The business is made up of six consultants, with access to another 130 specialists across Dentsu’s US agencies for things like ecommerce search, creating product page content and Amazon voice skills, said Sellwin President Travis Johnson. The consultancy model is new for Dentsu, Johnson said, […]

The US retail chain Albertsons, which also operates grocery brands like Safeway, Acme and Shaw’s, is accelerating investments in the data-driven advertising platform it launched last year for consumer brands carried in stores. The idea is to turn its retail loyalty card programs into an advertising and attribution engine, since those shoppers can be tracked […]