Latest

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. IPO-No It’s a rough year for tech firms hoping to exit. Research from Renaissance Capital suggests that a mere 11% of all US IPOs this year were held by tech companies, a seven-year low. To be clear, that percentage is not specific to advertising […]

“Marketer’s Note” is a regular column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. This week it is written by Catherine Oddenino, Analyst, AdExchanger Research. While working on publisher-focused research, there’s a common theme I hear from vendors and publishers alike: The transition to mobile is hurting their bottom lines. Just as some […]

Demandbase has acquired Seattle-based WhoToo, a behavioral data platform focused on B2B marketing, for an unidentified sum, the company disclosed Thursday. Underscoring the deal was Demandbase’s desire to beef up its behavioral marketing data set and hook into clients’ existing data-management platforms. “This isn’t just data for data’s sake,” noted Chris Golec, CEO of Demandbase: […]

HookLogic raised $15.5 million in Series C funding and will sell AutoHook, a suite of lead-gen and marketing tools designed for automotive companies, the company announced Thursday. Terms of the AutoHook sale to auto consultancy firm Urban Science were not disclosed. In addition to previous investors Bain Capital and Intel Capital, this funding round included […]

Programmatic advertising makes it difficult for publishers like Hearst Newspapers to ensure that users enjoy fast-loading pages and quality ad experiences. Hearst closely monitors its site templates, optimizing for fast load times and ad viewability. But once it starts letting third parties run scripts on its website – aka programmatic advertisers – that can slow […]

Developers are up to their ears in mobile SDKs – and they’re not going to take it anymore. The trend toward consolidated mobile solutions is real, said Omer Kaplan, deputy CEO and co-founder of app discovery platform ironSource, which has acquired mobile monetization platform Supersonic. The deal was officially announced Thursday following a leak in mid-July when […]

DataLab USA, a boutique analytics firm that works mostly with financial services and insurance companies, is betting on advancing addressable TV through customized algorithms. “Our role in the data world is to aggregate all the aggregators,” explained Alex Aigner, DataLab Digital’s COO. “We’ve commoditized how we build custom algorithms. Whether those algorithms are used for […]

Social marketing platform Unified, an early Facebook and Instagram ads partner, has raised $30 million in Series B financing and an additional $10 million credit facility, the company said Thursday. IHeartMedia led the Series B round with support from existing investors, including Advance Publications, Upfront Ventures and Foundry Group. Silicon Valley Bank, provided the credit […]

It was an orgy of new products. At its “Hey Siri” event on Wednesday, Apple unveiled enhancements to the Apple Watch and launched the iPad Pro and something called the Apple Pencil, which is basically a super fancy stylus for the new, bigger iPad. The company also rolled out the next generation of iPhone 6 […]

“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 Dave Zinman, chief operating officer at RadiumOne. Back in 1994, a group of my Stanford business school classmates and I shared a fascination with the web and immediately recognized its […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Over The Hill In an interview with Adweek, Trilia Media President Cindy Stockwell opens up about what led Hill Holliday to spin off its media operations. Prior to her current role, Stockwell served as EVP and chief media officer for Hill Holliday. “We wanted […]

The Weather Channel is restructuring its TV assets, motivated by the realities of consumer demand – and what it perceives as an opportunity for live programming in mobile and connected TV. A week after making its first real foray into TV Everywhere, The Weather Company revealed on Wednesday that it is pulling back on non-weather […]

The ongoing media reviews have created inroads for agencies to use creative, informed by data, as a strategy to win new business. In a bid to take advantage of this growing opportunity, Initiative, the IPG Mediabrands-owned agency, hired Nick Childs as its first-ever global chief creative officer on Sept. 1. “As a lot of media […]

“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 Eric Berry, CEO at TripleLift. There’s a profound and seemingly inexorable movement in which each year we see a higher percent of media traded via real-time bidding (RTB). At face […]

Until a few years ago, Bauer Media sat on the digital advertising sidelines. Since Bauer Media earned most of its revenue from newsstand sales of well-known brands, such as InTouch Weekly, J-14 and Life & Style, it didn’t want to give content away for free online. “The strategy until a few years ago was to […]

In the two years since Facebook’s huge image-sharing platform sold its first ad, Instagram has focused on fixed-price advertising from big national brands. In keeping with the platform’s emphasis on aesthetics and high design, many early advertisers were lifestyle companies like Starbucks and Disney. With Instagram’s 300 million global users now accustomed to seeing ads, […]

There’s no need to freak out, but content blocking in iOS 9 goes beyond the mobile web and in some cases will also apply to in-app advertising. And that’s because of an in-app browsing mechanism in iOS 9 called Safari View Controller. It’s basically a more streamlined version of Apple’s current webview framework that developers […]

Comcast’s drumbeat of new video services is designed to support content parity across devices rather than to create a cord cutter’s alternative, per se. The cable giant recently rolled out to Xfinity Internet customers a $15-a-month streaming video service appropriately dubbed Stream. Comcast has also flirted with a Web video portal to rival YouTube and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Missed The Starting Gun Last week, AOL acquired Millennial Media to grow its mobile ad biz, but capturing mobile ad dollars is no easy feat. Google has cornered 32.9% of all US mobile ad spend (about $10.02 billion), while Facebook commands 19.4% ($5.2 billion), […]

The rise of ad blocking, mobile usage and a general regard for user experience over pure advertising concerns have all led to a renewed focus on one of the digital world’s most fundamental features: the page load. From buttons and tracking pixels to preload content and infinite scrolling feeds, the digital community is struggling under […]

“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 Elliot Hirsch, CEO at AdYapper. For digital advertising veterans, talking about how to manage campaign frequency might seem a bit old school. DoubleClick researcher Rick Bruner released a frequency best […]

The US market can be a tough nut to crack for an international startup. “If you’re not a US company, there are hurdles,” said Frederic Joseph, global COO and UK chief exec at French mobile retargeting company S4M. “Some people think, at least on some level, that if a company doesn’t come from the US, […]

Media General will acquire Meredith Corp. for $2.4 billion, combining the two companies’ TV and digital assets to create greater reach and efficiency. The new company, Meredith Media General, will own 88 TV stations in 54 markets, making it the third-largest owner of network affiliates. On the digital side, it will reach 200 million monthly unique […]

Mobile numbers are moving up and to the right – and social is along for the ride. Taptica is looking to take advantage of that trend. The mobile DSP announced Tuesday that it would fork over $17 million to acquire programmatic social marketing tech company AreaOne, formerly known as SocialClicks. Both companies maintain their headquarters in […]

“On TV and Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in programmatic TV and video. Today’s column is written by Jason Miller, director of product management, brand measurement at Google. I’m often deeply impressed by the creativity of TV ads. I loved the sentimentality of P&G’s “Thank You, Mom” ads, the humor of Dodge […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. The Magic Of Clorox Clorox will spend three times more on programmatic ads this year than it did last year, the Journal’s Jack Marshall reports. At that rate, about half of Clorox’s full digital budget will go to automated buying. “Programmatic media has enormous […]

CPG brands are the big TV spenders, but ecommerce and subscription startups like Gilt and Birchbox are coming on strong. Take Urban Ladder, a Bangalore, India-based online retailer specializing in home furniture and décor. While the company historically focused on digital, it has lately begun to include TV for awareness building. It declined to share […]

AOL’s acquisition of Millennial Media for $238 million was a coup for its purchaser, if not for its investors. The mobile ad platform went from an opening-day share price of $23.50 to $1.75 when AOL announced its intent to purchase Thursday. But Elgin Thompson, managing director at investment firm Digital Capital Advisors, cautioned not to […]

Does Verizon have access to rich user data? Undeniably. Will Verizon successfully capitalize on that opportunity? Questionable. After all, Verizon’s user data is only as valuable as its data practices. Verizon could certainly benefit in the wake of an acquisition spree that somewhat resembled a line of falling dominos – AOL into Verizon, Millennial Media […]