Popular messenger app Kik, which hosts a colossal 185 million users, revealed it had snapped up GIF messaging firm Relay on Wednesday for an undisclosed sum. Additionally, the company secured a $38.3 million round of Series C funding, which it will use to invest in new-product development and expand its engineering and business-development teams. Relay […]
ShareThis, the purveyor of a social share button spanning a wide swath of publisher sites and channels, on Tuesday appointed Wade Rifkin as its VP of Programmatic Partnerships. Rifkin came from agency DigitasLBI, where he was VP of Programmatic. (See the Q&A on his transition). Rifkin’s relationships with trading desks and agencies should come in handy, particularly since ShareThis […]
For recipe sites, the days leading up to Thanksgiving bring a rush of users searching for turkey-basting tips and instructions for making stuffing and pumpkin pie. In the coming weeks, the winter holidays will bolster traffic even more. These audience surges represent an opportunity and challenge for publishers as they try to maximize yield. Sales […]
“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 Josef Mandelbaum, CEO at Perion Network. In 1930, Kroger Grocery & Bakery Co. store manager Michael Cullen came up with the idea for the model that would become the modern […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Time Inc. Recommends Time Inc. has picked Outbrain to be the exclusive content discovery platform for its owned and operated sites. The multiyear deal is expected to earn the publisher an estimated $100 million. Read the press release. Time Inc. will also adopt Outbrain’s […]
When it comes to digital media, Allstate is in good hands: its own. Starting in Q1 2015, the insurance giant will bring its digital media-buying function fully in-house. Although Allstate will now take care of all of its own programmatic buying, its media agency, Starcom, will continue to take the reins on traditional planning and […]
Watch out, Constant Contact and SurveyMonkey. A 10-year-old email marketing platform from down under is moving in. A few months after raising $250 million from Insight Venture Partners – its first fundraising since the company was founded in 2004 – Campaign Monitor revealed Tuesday that it has acquired online survey startup GetFeedback. It’s a homecoming […]
When Undertone released its programmatic platform Virtuoso in September, the goal, according to co-founder Eric Franchi, was for it to eventually become the primary console of brands and agencies that want to purchase high-impact ad units, or ads that use unique formats designed to snag the audience’s attention. The onetime ad network has hired George […]
This is how to make a beer commercial. Combine gorgeous women, average-looking men, laughter, extreme close-ups of flowing beer, long shots of snow-capped mountains (optional). Shake it up and toss it onto an NFL game, preferably sometime during the first quarter when people are still watching. This is also the antithesis of how Heineken-owned Newcastle […]
“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 Lung Huang, vice president of digital advertising and global partnerships at dunnhumby. Here it is: Holiday Season 2014. Already. Before you could pry your sugary fingers away from the last […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Poaching YouTube’s Users Ex-Hulu CEO Jason Kilar has been working on a platform to challenge YouTube’s online video dominance. The video streaming service, dubbed Vessel, is staffed by a fleet of ex-Hulu, Netflix and Amazon leaders, and Ad Age reports that it could debut […]
Adobe’s having a good couple of months. Following Forrester’s high ranking of Adobe’s enterprise marketing suite last month, the software company unveiled a series of mobile enhancements to the Adobe Marketing Cloud on Tuesday. Adobe customers can now tap into in-app messaging capabilities and send personalized follow-up emails and other messages based on a consumer’s […]
Tech and media agency Assembly, which originated last March when MDC Partners combined multiple agency assets into a single unit, has added digital video into its Dynamic Creative Versioning tool mix. “We’ve developed a technology that allows us, in real time, to test, learn and reapply content,” said Martin Cass, CEO of Assembly and former […]
At Pandora, the watchword is “engagement.” “At a certain point, it’s not how many people you bring to your product, it’s about how much engagement you see, and for us, engagement means time spent,” said Heidi Browning, SVP of strategic solutions at Pandora. The same sentiment was expressed by Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews during the […]
Rubicon Project has snapped up iSocket and Shiny Ads, two companies in the rapidly emerging category of automating direct, negotiated deals between ad buyer and publisher. The total cost of both deals is less than $30 million, mostly paid in stock, according to a press release. The bulk of that $30 million likely went to iSocket, […]
Engagement metrics are all well and good, but before someone can be engaged by an ad, that person has to be able to see it. And with more time and money shifting over to mobile, the viewability debate is heating up there. “Viewability is the first step towards engagement, and we’re starting at the front […]
Editor’s note: The below column has been significantly updated from the version published Monday morning. “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 Ben Legg, CEO at Adknowledge. Video is digital advertising’s biggest opportunity. I talk with a […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. FB: Money Talks, ‘Likes’ Walk On Friday, Facebook revealed plans to remaster news feed content with controls that edge out promoted posts from brands. In a blog post, Facebook explained that it’s not ads that irk users. According to its research, it’s an oversaturation […]
On election night, ABC News wanted to engage users with breaking news via its app, but it didn’t want to overwhelm them. Among its updates, ABC News wanted to point users to video content. For the ABC News mobile app, pre-roll video ads drive the most revenue. Thanks to ABC Unified, which sells TV and […]
What do telcos and YouTube talent have in common? Not a lot right now, but that will change once video and TV ad budgets converge. Consider the YouTube multichannel network (MCN), Google content partners that are responsible for both production and audience monetization and which get 55% of banner and pre-roll ad revenue. The digital […]
Rubicon Project wants more customers on its Buyer Cloud and has hired ad sales vet Adam Chandler as SVP of revenue to bring brands to the platform. He started Monday. “There’s a lot of education needed on Madison Avenue and with brand marketers directly to explain what automation means,” Chandler said. “I see a big […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Brian Mikalis, senior vice president of monetization at Pandora. Looking back about 10 years, marketers either focused on driving brand metrics or worked to achieve immediate direct-response results. The sell side often tried to […]
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. Blackout Benefits Wednesday’s 90-minute global outage of DoubleClick for Advertisers was a glaring reminder of Google’s ad server dominance, and sent publishers scrambling to tally their make-goods. But some publishers benefited from Google’s fumble, Ad Age reports. Data from Casale Media, an ad exchange, […]
Video demand-side platform (DSP) TubeMogul posted Q3 revenue of $27.4 million, up 112% from $13 million during the same period last year. Total advertiser spend through its platform was $62.5 million, up from $25.7 million last year. TubeMogul stock was up 6% in late trading. TubeMogul gained considerable business via its self-serve model “Platform Direct” used by […]
Sizmek had another disappointing quarter, with Q3 revenues increasing only 3% YoY to $39.5 million – results that “were lower than we had expected,” according to company CEO Neil Nguyen. The decline was driven by the company’s faltering rich media business, which decreased 35% YoY. The ad management company found a silver lining in its […]
There’s nothing more cliché in the ad world than the phrase “right message, right time.” But as the cross-device game heats up, it’s a platitude that’s gaining a new lease on life. Kahuna, a Sequoia Capital-backed mobile marketing startup which raised $11 million in Series A funding in February, aims to tackle the cross-device messaging […]
The walled gardens around publishers’ premium inventory are hard to take down, since publishers are reluctant to put premium inventory in channels associated with low-priced, performance-focused inventory. But Sonobi, whose platform combines direct-sold impressions with those sold programmatically, is trying to chip away at those walls. The company hosted a Premium Programmatic Summit with its […]
“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 Tim Mayer, chief marketing officer at Trueffect. Smart enterprises nurture their best assets. Not surprisingly, data has recently taken the coveted second-place position behind companies’ most valuable asset: employees. Companies […]
Mozilla, which makes the Firefox web browser, officially released on Thursday its in-browser ad product, which the company first announced in February. Early adopters include media agency Mindshare North America, online booking site Booking.com, and The Weinstein Company’s video-on-demand portal Radius-TWC. How it works: Individuals opening Firefox for the first time will see tiles filled […]
