Out Of the Box
DoubleVerify has agreed to acquire Rockerbox in a deal valued at more than $85 million, Axios reports.
The deal marks another step in DV’s development from an impartial brand safety, anti-fraud and ad verification provider into something that more decisively targets and attributes campaigns.
Rockerbox is one of the last standing of the one-time independent multi-touch attribution providers. It’s also delved into social measurement and other new forms of probabilistic attribution.
Axios reports that the Rockerbox will also be synced with Scibids, a custom algorithm ad-buying startup DV acquired in 2023. DV was careful to note that Scibids wasn’t a DSP, although it bids on media, selects impressions to target and charges a percent of media.
In the release, DV calls the deal a pivotal step in its “evolution from offering media quality protection and performance measurement to powering definitive ad KPI achievement.”
DV hasn’t quite crossed the Rubicon. But at some point, it might be called a self-attributing ad-buying platform. That’s anathema for an ad tech product built on impartiality, but also where all the ad budgets seem to go.
One Weird Trick For Performance Advertisers
Taboola is breaking out of the chumbox.
By selling more types of ads, Taboola wants to peel off performance-oriented brands shut out of Google and Meta due to stiff competition. It’s also courting advertisers who have hit diminishing returns on how many conversions they can wring from those platforms. “Search and social are maxed out,” says Taboola CEO Adam Singolda.
Taboola touts its connections to more than 9,000 publishers – and the audience data it’s gleaned from placing code on those pages – as a differentiator for its new end-to-end performance marketing solution called Realize, Business Insider reports.
But Taboola selling performance ads in prominent placements on publisher pages – outside its traditional chumbox – could risk turning off brands that buy those pubs directly, says Sparrow Advisors’ Ana Milicevic.
Taboola’s platform won’t be catering solely to publishers, though. It sees itself competing with demand-side platforms like The Trade Desk in addition to SSPs.
Singolda envisions Taboola targeting $55 billion in performance budgets en route to becoming the de facto platform for lower-funnel campaigns. To put some perspective on that, the company reported $1.8 billion in annual revenue last year.
Play Ball
The number of sports-focused streaming services is exploding. DirecTV just launched its MySports skinny bundle. In the aftermath of the Venu Sports lawsuit, which Disney settled by buying a majority stake in Fubo, Disney is combining Hulu + Live TV with Fubo. And it’s launching ESPN+ as a standalone app this year.
Confusing, right? Well, too bad, because the cyclical nature of sports rights deals makes sports TV even more fragmented.
This week, ESPN’s contract with Major League Baseball expired, ending a 35-year-old relationship, Adweek reports. After the 2025 baseball season, baseball fans may have to look beyond ESPN to catch their favorite teams.
Turns out, it’s harder to be a one-stop shop for sports than programmers may have thought. “MLB has become more about local broadcasting,” says Ross Benes, senior analyst at eMarketer. Other sports leagues like football and the NFL attract a wider audience – and more national advertisers. Which explains why the biggest TV networks have already eaten up most of the national sports airing rights.
Meanwhile, expect even more streaming platforms to crop up catering to local and niche sports.
But Wait! There’s More
Jeff Bezos announces The Washington Post’s opinion section will now focus on defense of “personal liberties and free markets,” prompting opinion editor David Shipley to resign. [Deadline]
How podcasters are tackling the challenge of subscriber churn. [Digiday]
Amazon will launch Alexa+, which includes generative AI, next month. [WSJ]
Nielsen rival VideoAmp unveils a media planner with data from Disney, Fox and Paramount. [Variety]
You’re Hired
Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher is stepping down, and will be replaced by the company’s CFO Fernando Fernandez. [WSJ]
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