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

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. PE Strikes Again Private equity firm GTCR on Thursday snapped up a majority stake in Simpli.fi, the programmatic ad platform helmed by Frost Prioleau, for an undisclosed sum. “They’re stepping into the shoes of our existing shareholders,” including Progress Ventures, Prioleau tells AdExchanger. He […]

Welcome to AdExchanger Talks, a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. After graduating Stanford in 2010 with a degree in math and computational sciences, Anneka Gupta took her first software engineering job with a company called Rapleaf. That was seven years ago, and she’s still there – though the company and its positioning have changed utterly. […]

Cross-screen startup VideoAmp said Thursday it has raised a $21.4 million Series B growth round led by Mediaocean, with support from existing investors, including the German broadcast giant RTL Group. Mediaocean CEO Bill Wise will join VideoAmp’s board of directors. VideoAmp has raised $36.6 million in total and will use the growth financing to hire […]

MoPub is getting very cozy with its viewability vendors. On Thursday, the Twitter-owned mobile ad exchange released the latest version of its SDK, bundled with viewability support from Integral Ad Science and Moat. MoPub’s SDK is integrated with just shy of 50,000 apps. As the buy side bangs the drum on independent verification and uniform […]

Digital media publisher HowStuffWorks is spinning out from parent company System1 as an independent podcast network with a $15 million Series A investment from The Raine Group, the company said on Thursday. HowStuffWorks, which launched as a website in 1998, publishes and distributes podcasts, video and other digital content that explores curiosity-driven topics. Popular podcasts […]

In its short, two-year lifespan, FuboTV, a streaming video service specializing in live sports content, has mostly monetized through paid subscriptions. But after raising a $55 million Series C round in June – and pushing to grow subscribers for its new skinny bundle, Fubo Premier – it’s turned its attention to its tech stack. FuboTV […]

“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 Marco Kloots, CEO at Platform161. The challenges associated with the upcoming European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are well documented. The opportunities, not so much. The fact is, GDPR is […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Onboard-orama Pandora partnered with Neustar to let advertisers onboard their first-party and CRM data in a self-serve fashion. Read the release. Pandora previously offered data onboarding as a managed service. Brands can build custom audiences to reach Pandora listeners on their own, rather than […]

German broadcaster RTL Group, which acquired a 65% stake in the video ad server and supply-side platform SpotX in 2014, said Wednesday that it has purchased the remainder of the company for $145 million. RTL, which houses SpotX with other technology and content assets under a division called the RTL Digital Hub, also plans further […]

Many advertisers want reach, but when Canada Dry executed a campaign with Spotify and Adobe, it optimized against a softer metric: mindset. “We don’t think of consumers as just 18-49-year-olds or young millennials,” said Brit Sundberg, programmatic media and data strategy manager for Dr Pepper Snapple Group, which owns Canada Dry. “We think of our […]

Where a person goes can be used as a solid signal of intent, but that signal gets stronger and more predictive when location is combined with shopper marketing data. Although the insights aren’t always intuitive, they’re always useful, said Kim Riedell, a Digilant vet and SVP of Advantage Media, the media-buying arm of Advantage Solutions, […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Denis McFarlane, chief executive officer at Infinitive. Google’s recently announced deprecation of DoubleClick Sales Manager (DSM) has caused some consternation in the publishing and mar tech worlds. After July 31, 2019, DSM users will no […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Pick A Side As more brands and agencies demand transparency, ad tech dynamics are shifting in favor of pure-play DSPs and SSPs. “Straddlers have a conflict of interest as they need to fill that inventory for their own financial reasons,” Dan Davies, SVP at […]

Digital marketing platform Valassis acquired ad network MaxPoint for $95 million, the companies said Tuesday. Read the release. Valassis itself was acquired by private equity firm Harland Clarke Holdings in 2013, and it will take the public company MaxPoint private. “The acquisition of MaxPoint … will create greater strength in managing integrated media delivery campaigns […]

“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 Bill Wise, co-founder and CEO at Mediaocean, and Boris Mouzykantskii, founder, CEO and chief scientist at IPONWEB. With its ability to radically open up opaque transaction systems, blockchain is perfectly […]

In April, Verizon joined the ranks of Apple, Samsung, Citi and other enterprises when it hired its first chief customer experience officer. For the role, it tapped Disney and Capital One alum Scott Zimmer to help connect the dots between all channels that Verizon consumers come across. Unlike CRM, which originated in the late ’90s […]

 Engaged readers make for loyal subscribers. The New York Times’ mobile app, which the publisher once feared would cannibalize its desktop subscriber rate, has proven to be the watering hole where many of the Times’ young, engaged readers hang out. Readers within the app rank among the most loyal and committed, in terms of the […]

PepsiCo’s fitness water brand Propel wants its digital messaging to reach consumers while they’re working out, so it’s focused its media investments around music and mobile. Propel has a deep relationship with Pandora as well as Under Armour’s fitness tracker app, Map My Fitness. “Propel as a brand has centered itself around uniting fitness tribes and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Banners Unbanned BuzzFeed has embraced programmatic and will begin selling display ads, a format the company long denigrated as a “terrible” fixture of online media. “Tactically, programmatic has improved in terms of loading times, mobile experience, and ad quality and opens up another way […]

Google’s latest anti-fraud measure aims to stamp out ad fraud by clawing back money from the exchanges where its DSP purchased fraudulent inventory. In Q4, DoubleClick Bid Manager will give advertisers the option to buy only from exchanges that will refund media spend for fraudulent inventory. Over the past month, Google’s DSP has issued advertisers […]

Founded in 1999, SurveyMonkey has evolved beyond its original positioning as a provider of email questionnaires. The 18-year-old company is on a $200 million revenue run rate for 2017, and CEO Zander Lurie says its next wave of growth will come from the rise of cross-device survey data. “We see a big opportunity to grow […]

Buffalo Wild Wings is leveraging interactive mobile video to extend its TV advertising efforts – and give consumers a chance to play with their food. The casual dining and sports bar chain worked with mobile video ad company AdColony to develop a game-like video ad experience featuring “Foodoo,” a voodoo doll with carrots for its […]

“Brand Aware” explores the data-driven digital ad ecosystem from the marketer’s point of view. Today’s column is written by Belinda J. Smith, global director of media activation at Electronic Arts. Belinda will present “EA’s Programmatic Arts” at AdExchanger’s upcoming PROGRAMMATIC I/O New York conference on October 25-26.    Having been in the biddable/programmatic space for more than 10 […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Andy Dale, VP, legal and data protection officer at dataxu. My grandfather was a real-life “mad man.” During the “creative revolution” of the 1960s, he built copy and art teams at Doner Advertising, handling […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Cut Your Losses The world’s largest CPGs – including Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Mondelez, Nestlé and Danone – are slashing their marketing budgets, and digital ad outlays in particular. “We want our advertising to be seen by real people,” a P&G spokesperson told the […]

Welcome to AdExchanger Talks, a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. Eyeo and its Adblock Plus browser extension don’t grab the headlines they did in 2015 and 2016, when ad blocking rates in the US and Europe surpassed 20% of desktop users. But mobile ad blocking failed to meet doomsayers’ warnings. Still, the company has pressed […]

“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 Ken Rona, chief data scientist at IgnitionOne. About 10 years ago, the marketing consulting firm I worked for was discussing where to focus our efforts. At the time, leadership was […]

There’s been no shortage of ad tech M&A lately, and video’s been one of the biggest drivers of deal activity. “Thirty-six months ago, YouTube MCNs [multichannel networks] were the video solution of choice to reach audiences with compelling content,” said Elgin Thompson, managing director for investment bank Digital Capital Advisors. “Now, solutions intended to monetize […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by David Jakubowski, director of publisher solutions at Facebook. The benefits of header bidding on the web are well documented: Publishers receive an average increase of 15% to 30% – even as high as 50% […]