Commerce

Answers.com, a knowledge resource site, has evolved from a basic wiki to a publisher and marketing tech provider. “We’ve made a lot of positive changes to the site,” said David Karandish, CEO of Answers.com, “have added support for Facebook, Google+ and Twitter for [gated] logins (Answers.com now has over 180 million registered users) and turned […]

It’s become generally accepted wisdom that brands aren’t dedicating dollars to mobile at a rate commensurate with consumer time spent. That said, certain big brands like Walmart and Heineken are embracing mobile as a key part of their advertising initiatives. “Going forward, we will always view campaigns as mobile-first,” said Ron Amram, senior media director […]

As more networks like HBO and WWE Network develop a la carte streaming services, competing streaming video or TV providers (and some e-commerce companies, for that matter) are pressed to develop good content that resonates with subscribers. Hulu, which pulled in about $1 billion in revenue in 2013 and has over 6 million Hulu Plus members, airs […]

You’ve come a long way, baby. Product listing ads (PLA), which some consider the crown jewel in Google’s commerce crown, didn’t cost a thing in 2012. Today the paid search product, now referred to as Google Shopping Ads, may be bringing in as much as $8 billion for Google, according to Evercore Partners estimates. Based […]

Amazon’s rumored development of an ad-supported video-streaming service was resurrected Friday when the New York Post reported the ecommerce company’s launch of a “Netflix killer” is, indeed, nigh. Although Amazon says it often experiments with new offers and experiences for customers, it has not announced plans for an ad-supported video-streaming service. According to The Post’s […]

Online sales during China’s annual discount event topped $9 billion this year, once again thrusting the country into the spotlight as a commerce powerhouse, and not by a little bit.  Singles Day, which was originally created in the late ’90s by a group of Chinese college students celebrating their singleton status, falls on Nov. 11 […]

MyBuys creates “recommended for you” modules on retail sites, but then it goes a step further: It buys display ads based on a user’s behavior or viewed products and sends triggered emails enticing customers to complete abandoned buys. MyBuys’ expansion into paid media—display advertising—is now its fastest-growing line of business. While it first got into managed […]

Considering two of the usual pure-play suspects in Forrester’s Cross-Channel Attribution Wave (Convertro and Adometry) were snapped up by AOL and Google on the very same day in May, its latest release Friday had all kinds of new implications – media neutrality and a platform mentality among them. The report, authored by Forrester analyst Tina […]

E-commerce giant Alibaba – often referred to as the Amazon of China – had a rosy third quarter, its first as a public company after a whopping $25 billion IPO (the one that put about $6 billion in stakeholder Yahoo’s pocket). (Earnings release.) Alibaba’s Q3 revenue growth was “mainly driven by the growth in online […]

Amazon remained tight-lipped about its developing ad network during the company’s Q3 earnings call, about which CFO Thomas Szkutak only said: “There’s not a lot I can say there.” Amazon’s “Supplemental Revenue” category, which includes advertising, Web services and co-branded credit cards, raked in $1.3 billion in Q3, up 40% YoY from $960 million. Amazon’s supplemental revenue […]

Walmart, one of the last bastions of big box retail, is investing for a digital future – one with considerably less square footage. Walmart recently revealed plans to invest between $1.2 to $1.5 billion in its ecommerce and digital operations for fiscal year 2016. Subsequently, its in-store investments are taking a temporary hit. In its […]

At the outset of Advertising Week in New York City, WPP chief Sir Martin Sorrell turned his attention to Amazon’s VP of global ad sales Lisa Utzschneider on the stage they shared with Live Nation, CBSi and ESPN. “Your job, I guess, is to demonstrate the value of Amazon’s data for off-platform advertising,” he quipped. “Your revenues […]

As a CPG newbie that launched last March, Hello Products competes with household brands like Crest and Colgate. In order to break into a $30 billion oral care market, the company first partnered with BMW Group’s agency DesignworksUSA to craft a visual identity around green living and innovative design. But as Hello ramps up, it […]

One of the best things about Deep Eddy Vodka is the taste. At least that’s what Brandon Cason, VP of marketing, has to say about the 4-year-old spirits brand that’s based in Austin, Texas. But prospects aren’t going to seek out a product they’ve never heard of. That’s one reason the brand, whose efforts are focused […]

Pinterest is one of those up-and-comers in the world of social advertising. The image-based social network doesn’t divulge audience numbers, but comScore pegs it at around 60 million monthly active users (MAUs). Of course, that’s not quite the volume of Twitter’s 271 million MAUs or Facebook’s 1.3 billion, but it’s still nothing to sneeze at, especially as […]

An emerging theme at the Digital Marketing Exposition & Conference (DMEXCO) in Cologne, Germany – where 30,000 digital marketers are convening – is building for future cross-channel experiences. Amazon is no stranger to the concept. Although the ecommerce giant has, of late, been reportedly developing an ad platform to rival Google’s, the company maintains a […]

As Asia-Pacific commerce powerhouses like Alibaba and Rakuten push West, it’s still unclear how they will grow large US-based audiences. One such method is through acquisition. Alibaba late last week priced its IPO at $60 to $66 per share and expects to raise $24 billion when the company begins trading on the New York Stock […]

Facebook and Twitter are keen to build more commerce functionality into the social stream. Earlier this summer Facebook began working with select commerce brands to support direct transactions on its platform, and Twitter has been expected to produce something similar after sharp-eyed users spotted a semi-functional “buy” button on the site in July. Well, now that other […]

Google and Amazon are going after each other. Google has ramped up commercial search and fulfillment, and Amazon is building a Google-like ecosystem around ads – a project involving an ad-buying platform to rival AdWords, according to The Wall Street Journal. And of course, both are investing heavily in video content and advertising. What is Amazon’s […]

CPG brands are starting to shell out more on mobile programmatic and the second quarter of 2014 seems to be the burgeoning proof. Mobile ad exchanges Smaato, Millennial Media and Nexage all saw noteworthy upticks in CPG mobile spend in Q2. A report released Tuesday based on global data gleaned from the Smaato exchange found […]

After committing $100 million to develop original video content this quarter, Amazon has invested a whole lot more in the medium, swooping in Monday with $970 million in cash to acquire the video gaming platform Google had been eyeing: Twitch Interactive. Read the release. Variety first reported news of Google’s interest in May, citing sources claiming it […]

ConAgra Foods, owner of brands like Healthy Choice and Orville Redenbacher, is blending offline shopper data with household addressability to deepen brand awareness. While consumer brand strategies have always leveraged purchase histories and loyalty-card intel, marketers have gotten increasingly sophisticated with cross-device targeting and re-targeting at the household level, said Bob Hall, VP of platform […]

Facebook wants to be the answer to your cross-device measurement problem and it’s in a pretty good position to do it. Enter cross-device reporting for ads, courtesy of Facebook. The new measurement solution, unleashed Wednesday, is available within Facebook’s campaign back end and is designed to allow advertisers to track customers as they move across […]

Comparison shopping site Shopzilla has a lot of data. About 20 years’ worth, to be exact. Shopzilla’s been around since 1996 and unbeknownst to some, still drives 50 million monthly unique visitors across its owned-and-operated network that includes consumer insights and merchant ratings site Bizrate. But the company will soon become primarily a marketing services […]

The Hispanic community is the fastest growing cohort of consumers in the United States and are prominent purchasers of CPGs. Yet many companies view this community as a single demographic when it can be segmented into multiple smaller groups, each with distinct characteristics. But brands like the family-run Goya Foods knew this wasn’t good enough. […]

Popular audio-recognition app Shazam, which has amassed 475 million users to date, set its sights on TV Tuesday with the release of a network sales platform called Resonate. Initial launch partners include: A&E, AMC, FUSE and dick clark productions. Kevin McGurn, the company’s chief revenue officer and former SVP of sales for Hulu, said television […]

Scout Media is pulling together an A-team of digital talent in the wake of founder James Heckman’s repurchase of the business from Fox/News Corp. The new leadership, including Ross Levinsohn as executive chairman and Ramsey McGrory as EVP of programmatic and media partnerships, will help build Scout into a larger content and commerce play with programmatic […]

Amazon’s enterprise self-serve ads platform, designed for agencies and brands, is intended as a programmatic complement rather than a replacement for direct-sold inventory. Publicis agency VivaKi is the first and only agency Amazon Media Group is working with at present for the self-serve platform rollout. Over the last three years, Amazon has spoken with agency […]

What’s the hottest new digital toy? If you’re Facebook and Twitter, it’s the buy button. To recap: Facebook published a blog post explaining its experimentation with a buy button – currently with select small and medium-sized businesses – with which users can purchase goods directly through the Facebook platform. This announcement followed Twitter’s own dalliance with […]

Ecommerce giant Amazon on Thursday reported Q2 revenue of $19.3 billion, up 24% from $15.7 billion last year. Amazon buckets ad revenues in an “other” category ($1.2 billion for Q2, a YoY 38% increase from $844 million), which includes Amazon Web Services (AWS) and branded credit cards. One of the biggest focuses for Amazon in […]