Data Privacy

Data-management platform (DMP) Lotame rolled out Wednesday its Mobile DMP suite to help businesses collect and manage audience data from mobile devices. The product, which can be added to Lotame’s current DMP offering or used as a standalone product, includes several features designed to help companies monetize their mobile inventory and engage with consumers on mobile […]

“Marketer’s Note” is a weekly column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. It is written by Joanna O’Connell, Director of Research, AdExchanger Research.   I read this recent article on what I call the “privacy versus relevancy” conversation with some interest – it’s a topic that’s been on my radar, as it […]

BrightTag’s name reflects its origins as a provider of tag-management technology, a tool that allows businesses to collect information within a Web browser. The issue today, of course, is that the flow of data transcends browsers, flooding across mobile handsets, tablets and increasingly connected devices like gaming consoles and smart TVs. This puts standalone tag-management […]

Since 1976, SAS has developed analytics software to extract intelligence from spectacularly large datasets. Much of its dealings occur in financial services, where decisions around fraud, compliance and risk require trillions of computations. But the comparatively recent proliferation of online channels has created a need for rich analytics among marketers. And as the marketing and […]

A Wednesday hearing held by the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation about the operations of so-called “data brokers” highlighted the disconnect between data marketers and consumer advocates. The hearing followed the release of a report detailing the findings of a yearlong investigation into data marketers. The core disagreement revolves around the extent to which businesses […]

Pushing hyperlocal mobile advertisements is becoming increasingly viable for businesses as tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter, as well as startups, enter the space. One such hyperlocal ad startup is Thinknear, which was acquired by GPS solutions provider Telenav for $22.5 million last year. AdExchanger spoke with Thinknear CEO Eli Portnoy about the evolution […]

Location-based technology has come a long way from geofences. As mobile usage grows, location data has become more granular, providing marketers with greater opportunities to fine-tune their messages—but it has also created more complications. Apple, for example, switched on its iBeacon technology on Friday to send customers’ tailored messages depending on their exact location in […]

After beta-testing retargeting capabilities back in July, Twitter rolled out Tailored Audiences globally Thursday. The offering includes website retargeting along with third-party audience segments, supported by an eclectic crew of ad partners. Advertisers can now “reach users on Twitter who have shown interest in your brand or category even away from Twitter,” wrote Twitter product manager Abhishek […]

Traffic accidents are more orderly than the backend of most websites. At any given moment, a multitude of information fires off a page — information about who a visitor is, where she came from, her operating system or device profile, which ads are being served up, which videos are being played, etc. This has created […]

Among the recurring themes Wednesday at Dreamforce in San Francisco was the need to develop customer-centric experiences that are both channel-agnostic and measurable. Online job finder CareerBuilder and CPG giant Unilever were among the major brands that took turns on stage and dished about their digital priorities, best practices and thoughts around their marketing investments. […]

Google has agreed to pay $17 million to settle charges it dropped cookies on Safari Web browsers in defiance of the browser’s privacy settings. According to the settlement, from mid-2011 to early 2012, Google rejiggered DoubleClick coding to get around Apple’s default blocking of third-party cookies in Safari. When the charges were first publicized last […]

While location-based ad delivery was once limited strictly to geofencing, the ability to combine device identifiers, geographic coordinates, and customer history data has added sophistication to location targeting. PlaceIQ is one of the latest companies attempting to introduce more value into location advertising via two product roll-outs last Friday. PIQ Analytics and PreVisit are designed […]

As marketers and advertisers struggle to access the right data to deliver customer experiences that are timely, relevant, and engaging, a growing number are turning to data management platforms (DMPs) for help. While the specific features vary, a DMP essentially collects data from first- and third-party data sources, and organizes and distributes the information to […]

Omnicom is going “all in” with a singular Data Management Platform offering that will support audience segmentation and ad optimization across its two key media agencies, OMD and PHD. Driving the platform consolidation is a deal with Aggregate Knowledge, a DMP recently acquired by Neustar for $119 million. Like many agencies, Omnicom already supported DMP functionality, but […]

A lot has been said lately about Twitter’s reach in terms of its monthly active users, but its ability to collect data through plugins like social sharing buttons has gone widely unmentioned. Many websites today include “buttons” on their pages that allow visitors to share content on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social networks by […]

Nearly a year after exiting Yahoo on less-than-amicable terms, Michael Katz, one of the founders of targeting and data provider interclick, is back on the scene with a new startup called mParticle. Billed as a mobile data platform, mParticle has secured a $3 million seed round from Google Ventures, Buddy Media’s Mike Lazerow and digital […]

As part of Microsoft’s entry into the world of online “offers” with a product known as Bing Offers, Microsoft recently announced a new enhancement called “Bing Offers Card-Linked” (see the Microsoft blog post). The product brings together transaction processors such as First Data with payment networks like MasterCard to address consumer audiences with offers fueled by […]

California Gov. Jerry Brown set a precedent for privacy rights last week when he signed into law Assembly Bill 370. Under the bill, which amended a section of the California Business and Professions Code, websites that collect personally identifiable information (PII) about California residents must provide a privacy policy that identifies the type of PIIs […]

The advertising industry continues to debate privacy issues, including when advertisers may collect information about consumers. Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, has added fuel to the controversy through its experiments with a cookie-blocking patch and a Cookie Clearinghouse—actions that the IAB’s Randall Rothenberg denounced as “arrogant.” Mozilla also announced in a blog post […]

Consumers don’t mind sharing personal information with retailers, but they have varying preferences when it comes to the manner in which their data is collected, a new study says. In a survey of 2,500 shoppers in the US and Canada that started last spring, IT services and consulting firm Cognizant broke down consumer sentiments on […]

In perhaps the biggest challenge yet to the legitimacy of the Do Not Track standard-making process, the Digital Advertising Alliance is giving up on efforts to build consensus for a browser-based DNT solution for Internet users. The self-regulatory group will also begin its own efforts to initiate a browser-based tracking choice mechanism for Internet users, […]

A few days after Acxiom unveiled Aboutthedata.com, a website where people can review the (sometimes inaccurate) online data that the marketing firm has collected about them, Pew Internet has published a report suggesting internet users are trying to remain anonymous online. Out of a survey of 792 online users in the US, 86% of the […]

After announcing that he had been appointed to an intelligence review panel, Peter Swire, co-chair of the Tracking Protection Working Group (TPWG), which is tasked with creating a universal standard for the “Do Not Track” browser feature, has resigned from the TPWG. A seasoned negotiator, Swire was brought in last November to salvage the DNT […]

Location data is often touted as the key to unlocking the targeting opportunities in mobile ads. How to best leverage location data varies by company, however. For JiWire—a 10-year-old firm that started out as a Wi-Fi hotspot provider—the answer lies in layering data over customized audience segments. AdExchanger talked to JiWire President David Staas. AdExchanger: […]

As the mobile ad market grows, so do the stakes for providing contextually relevant ads. Geo-targeted ads on mobile devices are getting a boost from companies like Google, Foursquare and Twitter, which are in various stages of rolling out new ad units that leverage location data. In a blog post yesterday, Google announced ads will […]

Based on a survey of more than 5,000 people in Canada, France, Germany, the UK and the US, Forrester Research predicts 905 million people, up from 15 million in 2010, will be using tablets by 2017. Tablets, write Forrester analysts JP Gownder and Michael O’Grady, have “exceeded the status of mass market to become what […]

Since LinkedIn launched its heavily dissected LinkedIn Endorsements product last September, two billion endorsements have been made to date. LinkedIn, which reported 37% year-over-year growth in membership in Q2, now has 238 million members and generated $364 million in revenue in the second quarter. The company is also flirting with an API to enable programmatic […]

Little Rock, AR-based Acxiom is gearing up to launch an “Audience Operating System,” for cross-channel and cross-device ad targeting, in September. “The world is coming to us as big data and insight-based decisioning is exactly what we do,” CEO Scott Howe said during the company’s earnings call. “It is also exactly our vision for the […]

Jonathan Mayer, a Stanford graduate student who has been a highly vocal advocate for consumer privacy, has resigned from the Tracking Protection Working Group, which is charged with setting the browser spec for a “Do Not Track” mechanism. In an email delivered yesterday afternoon to members of the Working Group, Mayer writes, “We do not […]

As more marketers use data to deploy targeted offers, clear differences are emerging in how industry verticals embrace digital strategies, a study has found. Digital technology company Lyris and the Economist Intelligence Unit found in “The Digital Marketing Gap” that some of the most widely growing areas of strategic importance to marketers include: content to guide product research, the […]