Imagine buying Costco-sized bulk items online. That’s the proposition of ecom startup Boxed. But while competitors like Amazon offer thousands of items associated with a single search, Boxed offers just a handful. As a newcomer, Boxed’s challenge is acquiring more customers while keeping customer acquisition costs in check. So Boxed is doing local, geo-targeted marketing. […]
“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Matt Hultgren, vice president of analytics at Marketing Architects. Complicated, expensive, unreliable and frustrating. I have heard CMOs and marketing executives use these adjectives – and a few other unprintable ones – to describe […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Mother Knows Best Amazon has been called out by new parents for not clearly labeling sponsored products in its baby registry. Some couples receive gifts they didn’t register for since brands like Johnson & Johnson and Kimberly-Clark can pay for placement and its sponsored […]
The Big Story is a breezy podcast featuring a roundtable of AdExchanger editors talking about the biggest stories from the past week. It is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The Wild West days of ad tech are over. Any new startup that wants to stick around must show it can be a business first, […]
When people learned in 2014 that ad fraud was a $6.3 billion problem, many asked why no one had been arrested for stealing all that money from brands. Four years later, that day has arrived. “Finally, somebody gets arrested for this,” said Neal Richter, chief architect of Rakuten Marketing Platform. The FBI charged eight people […]
Until now, if an ad fraud scam was uncovered, the criminals behind it would usually fade back into the shadows with impunity, and shortly thereafter, they’d be back at it again – the seemingly eternal game of Whac-A-Mole. This time, there’s accountability. Two global botnets, Methbot and 3ve, are no more, and there are real people […]
The waterfall wasn’t working out for WeatherBug. “We had what I call ‘too-many-SDKs syndrome,’” said Olivier Vincent, president and general manager at the GroundTruth-owned weather app, which has 20 million monthly active users. If you had peeked inside WeatherBug’s ad stack last year, you’d have found the code for as many as eight different ad […]
When Gap Inc. launched the men’s activewear label Hill City in September, it marked its first new brand in a decade, and its first-ever foray into digital-first territory. Hill City has some notable differences compared to other DTC companies – like corporate ownership and a running start with distribution in 50 Athleta stores (Gap’s activewear […]
New York Media is putting programmatic front and center. The publication has long serviced programmatic deals yet didn’t tout them in market. But as programmatic becomes the dominant way to transact, New York Media hired Jeremy Fass in July to head its programmatic revenue operation. His mandate? Be proactive about programmatic, not reactive. “Due to […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Accredit Where Due Facebook got a little much-needed positive news on Tuesday when it cleared a major hurdle in its effort to gain MRC accreditation for third-party viewability measurement. Facebook completed the first of its three-part accreditation process in April, which was an inspection […]
There’s no point passing a comprehensive federal privacy legislation if the main enforcement agency doesn’t have the means to hold feet to the fire. On Tuesday, all five commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection in Washington, D.C., to make an appeal for more resources. “Section 5 is […]
AdExchanger Talks is a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. In the podcast studio this week, GCA Advisors managing director Josh Wepman talks about the changes afoot in television. Wepman has sold companies to Google, Snap, Yahoo, Pitney Bowes and Telstra, among others, and TV is his key strategic focus right now. “When you think about […]
Condé Nast will execute its turnaround with a new leader. Its longtime CEO Bob Sauerberg is departing after 18 years with the company, including eight in the top spot. He’s leaving just months after he announced a turnaround plan for the publisher of Vogue, Wired and The New Yorker that would see it diversify away […]
The Walt Disney Company has found its happily ever after with Google, not Comcast-owned FreeWheel. After months of speculation, Google said in a blog post that Disney would implement its ad platform across its brands, including Disney, ABC, ESPN, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars. The relationship will span all of Disney’s video and display inventory. […]
Representatives from nine governments gathered in London on Tuesday with pointed questions for Mark Zuckerberg about fake news, misinformation, hate speech, election interference, privacy and data collection. Thing is, Zuckerberg wasn’t there, having declined repeated invitations to testify before the UK’s Digital Culture, Media and Sports Committee. The parliamentarians from Britain, Canada, France, Ireland, Belgium, […]
Thanksgiving holiday shopping trends have shifted from surprising to predictable. At this point, the big news will be in some hypothetical, future November when ecommerce sales stop growing hand over fist. Ecommerce sales reached $18 billion combined for Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to Adobe. Cyber Monday alone cleared about $8 billion, the […]
One year ago, Rubicon Project removed buyer fees from its platform, halving its take rate to 12.8%. The gutsy move occurred during a battle over take rates: Competitor AppNexus said its take rate stood at 8.5%, and its CEO called for a price war. Drastically cutting take rates forced Rubicon to use cash reserves to […]
“AdExchanger Politics” is a recurring feature that tracks developments in politics and digital advertising. Today’s column is written by Ray Kingman, CEO at Semcasting. In 2008, it was the one-click political donation via email. In 2012, it was social media outreach. In 2016, it was fake news on Twitter and Facebook. Following every election, political […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. NBCU In 2019 In 2019, NBCUniversal will expand two ad products launched this year. “Prime pod,” an audience-targeted 60-second commercial that runs at the beginning and end of a show, will be made available across NBCU’s entire portfolio. And all of the company’s inventory […]
WPP said Monday it will merge digital agency network Wunderman with storied creative agency J. Walter Thompson (JWT), forming a new entity called Wunderman Thompson. Wunderman Thompson will employ 20,000 people in 200 locations across 90 markets, according to Adweek. Wunderman’s newly minted global CEO Mel Edwards will lead the agency, while JWT global CEO […]
How Questionable Data-Sharing Practices And A Healthy Dose Of Hubris Helped Bring Down One Of The Most Well-Known Players In Ad Tech The Rocket Fuel brand is dead and buried, the founders long gone, its tech sold off to Sizmek for a song and the code completely rewritten. An ad tech unicorn that courted top […]
In-market auto is one of the most prized data segments – and it’s notorious for being inaccurate with artificially large scale, which makes it emblematic of the problems with third-party data. First-party in-market auto data, however, is another story. VerticalScope, which operates over 600 niche automobile sites about various car makes and models, knows what […]
“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 Richard S. Eisert, partner and co-chair of the advertising, marketing & promotions practice group at Davis & Gilbert. The influencer marketing industry continues to grow rapidly. Some expect influencers to […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Collective Sigh Visto, the company formerly known as Collective, filed for bankruptcy protection and has reached a “stalking horse” deal to sell its assets to largest investor Zeta in a $15 million all-stock deal. The court filing gives a glimpse of just how tough […]
A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…
Thanksgiving and watching football on Thanksgiving are American traditions. But this year will be the first celebration of what you might call Ticketmaster’s football Thanks-for-giving-us-your-business day. The ticket-sales company has secured the exclusive ticketing rights for the NFL and transitioned the league to digital-only tickets this year. Now Ticketmaster is spiking the football – which, […]
Stories. It seems like everybody’s got ‘em, from Snap and LinkedIn to Instagram and Facebook – and now Google. But while AMP Stories might look like a knockoff of the other guys, it’s actually quite a different animal. What’s the story? The main difference: AMP Stories are specifically designed for publishers to create full-screen experiences for […]
“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 Jason Alan Snyder, chief technology officer at Craft Worldwide / McCann Worldgroup. Those who grew up when MTV first coughed itself awake saw David Byrne “swimming” across their TVs in […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Profesh Stories LinkedIn is the latest platform to join in on the Stories craze. The professional networking site is launching Student Voices, a video-only stories product for US college students that it plans to expand into a broader product for all of its users, […]
Nielsen’s hire of IBM Watson honcho David Kenny as CEO, first reported on Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal, is a major bet for the measurement company as it rises to meet new competitive challenges and prepares for a possible sale of the business. Kenny oversaw IBM’s artificial intelligence initiatives, using machine learning to support enterprise […]
