Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba Group is experiencing growing pains as it introduces mobile ad formats and weans itself from its pay-for-performance model toward one involving algorithmic-based advertising. On the company’s earnings call Thursday, COO Daniel Zhang called pay for performance a “great discovery mechanism,” but said focus on mobile monetization could have a short-term negative […]
Ad tech observers tend to assume it’s early innings in the “programmatic-direct” game, but that may not be the case. Newly reported revenues from one early startup suggest the game hasn’t started yet. iSocket, a programmatic-direct platform company acquired by Rubicon Project in November, posted full-year revenues of just $207,000 in 2013, according to a filing with the […]
While many brick-and-mortar retailers grapple with bringing their businesses online, cosmetics brand e.l.f. did things in reverse. After 11 years in ecommerce, e.l.f. (that stands for Eyes Lips Face) is now expanding its offline footprint, said Megan O’Connor, VP of digital and ecommerce at e.l.f Cosmetics. In the past year, e.l.f. has opened three flagship […]
The name of AppLift’s game is lifetime user value. The Berlin-based mobile game marketing platform launched a tool called DataLift on Thursday aimed at helping mobile advertisers get a better grip on the overall lifetime value of their users. “Price is what you pay, but value is what you get,” said AppLift CEO Kaya Taner, […]
Home furnishings company IKEA looks for consumers undergoing life changes – like moving, having a new baby or becoming empty nesters – and tries to get them to set foot into its retail outlets, where most purchases occur. Even its website, which has ecommerce features, is generally used as a tool for customers to plan […]
App attribution company TUNE is dog-earing a significant chunk of a new funding round to go on a hiring spree. Announced Thursday, the Series B cash injection was led by Icon Ventures (which happened to have rebranded from Jafco Ventures on Monday), with contributions from Performance Equity Management and Accel Partners, the latter which also […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Agencies On Board With Armstrong Though Google hasn’t been keen on making music with agencies, AOL seems to be hitting the right notes. As AOL repositions as an ad tech and media company, a handful of agency execs tell Digiday they’re swayed by the […]
Facebook reported ad revenue growth of 53% in the fourth quarter as it put the pedal down on video ads and its mobile ad network. Speaking on the quarterly earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts that Facebook users now watch 3 billion videos per day on average, a figure that only includes videos directly uploaded […]
DC-based XAPPmedia builds voice-activated mobile ads, and the company wants to use these units to bridge traditional and digital broadcasting. To advance that goal, XAPPmedia on Wednesday debuted a mobile audience ad service called JAX in partnership with mobile app developer jacAPPS. JAX is designed to let commercial and public radio stations monetize their mobile […]
Michael Jaconi, CEO of freshly funded mobile commerce startup Button, sees untapped opportunity in the app economy. Specifically, he’s tailoring Button’s Deep-Link Commerce Platform as a utility to help encourage ongoing app usage rather than a one-time app install ad. Uber is among the company’s customers. With a new $12 million Series A round in […]
When Rant Inc. founder Brett Rosin created RantSports.com out of 150 sports blogs he pulled into one centralized hub, it became the foundation of what would soon turn into a massive portfolio of properties. Rant, founded in 2010, is no longer just RantSports. The media company now includes RantChic (fashion), RantStore (ecommerce), RantFinance and RantPolitical […]
Advertisers are still reluctant to share their hard-earned data in a co-op. And Avi Spivack, senior director of product management at MediaMath-owned co-op Adroit Digital, gets it. “Some advertisers have straight-up security and privacy concerns, while others are afraid that other members of the co-op will get more benefit from their data than they themselves will […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Viewability Battleground The Wall Street Journal’s Mike Shields takes a deep dive on viewability and finds rancor. Publishers are upset about lost revenue, vendors want new methods of bidding with viewability metrics and advertisers are demanding make-goods on their investments. “The industry needs to […]
During Yahoo’s earnings call Tuesday, CEO Marissa Mayer went into some detail about Yahoo’s plans to leverage Flurry’s developer connections to launch a mobile ad network. Mayer said mobile app developers who have downloaded Flurry’s free analytics will be able to turn on monetization with Yahoo Gemini, its native solution, as well as BrightRoll video ads. More than 600,000 apps […]
“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 Peter Vandre, senior vice president and digital analytics practice leader at Merkle. I have a confession. As a marketing analytics professional, I’ve bashed the likes of Facebook and Google for […]
AOL took its first step toward becoming a “video-led content company” with the launch of AOL Rise, a morning show formatted as two-minute clips tailored for mobile devices, said Dermot McCormack, president of AOL video and studios. AOL hopes people will watch AOL Rise instead of browsing the web or tuning into televised morning shows when […]
As the Internet of Things ramps up, the Federal Trade Commission isn’t far behind. In a report issued Tuesday, the FTC set out a series of privacy recommendations leveled at the IoT device-making community, including best practices on data collection, usage and storage. [Download the report.] Regulators and agencies are most concerned about the ubiquitous […]
Just because someone didn’t click on an ad doesn’t mean that ad didn’t have an effect. Facebook has been beating that drum for quite some time now with the release of a variety of tools aimed at getting nearer to true multitouch attribution and effectively measuring the connection between online media and offline sales, including […]
Data marketing company eXelate on Tuesday launched the eXelate Customer Data Cloud, unifying its data exchange, data-management platform (DMP) and analytics. It also launched a streaming audio DMP in partnership with digital audio measurement company Triton Digital and is partnering with interactive video ad platform Innovid and set-top box provider Roku to create a smart […]
With all the recent talk about automating the ad-buying process, it’s easy to forget about content. But Drew Panayiotou, president and CEO of BBDO’s Atlanta division, thinks agencies will sink or swim depending on their ability to produce the “next generation of content.” “Content is dramatically changing as media is changing,” Panayiotou told AdExchanger. Panayiotou […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Snapchat: Where’s The Data Snapchat is still a product in search of a revenue model, Digitas LBi UK CEO Scott Ross told The Drum. “It’s very, very difficult for advertisers and marketers to get the metrics they need to validate their campaigns and media […]
Publishers love to wall off their audience data, but is that good for marketers, who need to track consumer activity across devices and various sites and apps? Certainly messaging across channels is more precise when the targeting mechanisms are based on, say, Facebook login data instead of cookies. But what happens when a marketing campaign needs […]
Linear TV as a distribution channel is splintering and the impact will be most felt in planning and buying around audience, said Forrester analyst and report author Jim Nail. In a survey of 3,166 adults in the Forrester report “Making Sense Of New Video Consumption,” released Friday, it’s estimated that only 46% of TV viewers […]
APAC is one seriously loaded acronym. “There’s a fallacy that exists among many executives in the US that Asia is one block,” said Chetan Kulkarni, CEO of Bangalore-based digital CRM company Vizury. “But it’s actually a complex mix of very different countries that behave in very different ways.” Take India and China, for example. The […]
“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 Amihai Ulman, founder and chief operating officer at Mass Exchange. Markets and exchanges are now an everyday part of life in the media industry. Like all businesses, they seek to […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. AOL Reorgs For A Programmatic Future AOL is close to a big restructuring that will impact sales teams serving the company’s sprawling media brands and ad platforms. Re/code reports the changes “will mean the collapsing of several sales teams into one, moving specialized ad […]
Relativity Media has acquired a minority stake in publisher-platform Say Media, the companies said on Wednesday. In addition, the film and content studio will use Say’s content platform to support its entertainment releases and its other divisions, including sports, TV and branded entertainment. “When I first came here, I really wanted Relativity to begin to own […]
Despite the amount of attention Facebook Exchange generated when it was released way back in 2012, today it’s mostly focused on retargeting desktop users. Consequently, some ad industry insiders are skeptical of its future. When asked directly about FBX’s future at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview conference, David Fischer, Facebook’s VP of business and marketing partnerships, said […]
Pinterest, which just made its Promoted Pins tool generally available, will soon offer more features for its paid advertising products, said Pinterest COO Dan Faul at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview conference on Thursday. These features will include integrating rich targeting features with a brand’s first-party CRM data and solutions around branding and direct-response advertising. Despite this […]
Persado has raised $21 million in a Series B round led by StarVest Partners with participation from Citi Ventures, American Express Ventures and Bain Capital Ventures. The company uses natural language processing to tailor email, site, search, SMS and social ad campaign copy. Persado is among a class of companies that specialize in algorithmically selecting […]
