Marketers

Brands are being tough on platforms, pulling advertising dollars after brand safety fiascoes and thinking critically about appearing adjacent to unpredictable content that can expose them to brand-safety risks. Yet Reddit, which languished with minimal advertising for years in part due to those brand-safety concerns, is thriving. Revenue grew by a factor of three in […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Agent Amazon Amazon is on a charm offensive to bring in more agencies and non-endemic brands, like financial services companies or auto manufacturers that don’t sell on its platform today. Amazon is doing a roadshow pitching its data and OTT chops to help create […]

Twitter is angling for its sliver of the performance advertising pie dominated by Facebook and Google. A top priority for the Twitter revenue team this year is to work on enhancing its Mobile App Promotion product, the company’s answer to app install ads. The opportunity is ripe, CFO Ned Segal told investors during an earnings […]

Starting this week, luxury bedding startup Boll & Branch will add TV to its marketing mix, joining many other direct-to-consumer brands. But the data-driven company is being disciplined, which means using a different strategy than other DTC brands and the traditional marketers that dominate TV. It’s targeting a broad national customer base, not just urban […]

Snap teased an audience extension product called Snapchat Audience Network in early April, but the offering is still being baked and the beta likely won’t open until some point this summer. So, advertisers have to wait to find out how targeting will work outside of the Snapchat platform, what data will be available and what […]

“Let it go, let it go” is the theme song for any advertisers who might’ve had their hearts set on an ad-supported option for Disney+. There won’t be one, Disney revealed during an investor day event on Thursday in Los Angeles. Disney’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming service, slated to launch in the United States on Nov. […]

The US retail chain Albertsons, which also operates grocery brands like Safeway, Acme and Shaw’s, is accelerating investments in the data-driven advertising platform it launched last year for consumer brands carried in stores. The idea is to turn its retail loyalty card programs into an advertising and attribution engine, since those shoppers can be tracked […]

 Large, established companies such as P&G, Verizon and Kellogg’s are building direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands to compete with the challengers encroaching on their territory. In addition to investing in or acquiring other DTC brands, there are strategic advantages to a company building its own. P&G for instance thinks of buying, building and acquiring brands as a […]

Allison Lowrie is at home with data-driven marketing tactics. As CMO of ANGI Homeservices, the IAC-owned parent of Angi (formerly Angie’s List), HomeAdvisor and Handy, Lowrie is helping the company infuse a performance mindset into how it approaches offline channels. HomeAdvisor, which connects homeowners with home improvement professionals online, advertised during the Super Bowl for […]

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

Facebook wants that upfront money. On Tuesday, Facebook said it will start letting TV buyers purchase inventory in specific programs hosted on Watch. This offering, called Showcase, resembles an upfront buy, as the inventory will be priced against Nielsen-validated demos and sold in advance at fixed prices. This content includes programs like “Sorry For Your […]

Once upon a time, direct-to-consumer startup Parachute sold high-quality sheets online, touting efficiencies by cutting out middlemen. Five years later, Parachute sells sheets, towels, mattresses, bathrobes and baby blankets to consumers online and in five stores on each coast. “Bedding was a vehicle to gain customer trust, but it was never the end goal,” said […]

Marketers are reacting differently to YouTube’s latest brand safety flare-up compared to 2017, when scores of global brands suspended YouTube campaigns over ads monetizing violent or offensive videos. There’s certainly some déjà vu, with Disney, Nestlé’s and McDonald’s halting YouTube spending after YouTube creator Matt Watson showed them advertising on a video that had a […]

Six-year-old women’s underwear brand ThirdLove considers data critical to its whole business, not just its marketing plan. The direct-to-consumer company was founded by husband-and-wife team Heidi Zak and David Spector, who both hail from Google’s advertising business. “The biggest thing I learned [at Google] was about testing and optimization,” Zak said. “Even if something didn’t […]

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

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 IAB’s Annual Leadership summit wrapped this week and increasingly, the show has moved to focus on DTC companies like ThirdLove, the startup underwear brand […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video.  Today’s column is written by Lance Neuhauser, CEO at 4C Insights. To maintain incremental growth, today’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) darlings are looking to expand beyond the digital sandbox where they grew up. After years of slathering on the search and Facebook ads, DTC […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Gray Lady Rising While digital media suffers a blood bath, The New York Times is reaping the rewards of a growing digital readership. The publisher brought in $709 million in digital revenue last year and is on track to pass its goal of $800 […]

Carving out a spot in the ever-crowded direct-to-consumer streaming market is an expensive proposition – and Disney is ready to spend. DTC is “a bet on the future of this business,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told investors on Tuesday, the equivalent of pouring money into building a theme park. “We are deploying capital so that the […]

Attention: Attorney General, State of California Re: California Consumer Privacy Act You’re killing us here. Thanks, The advertising industry The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is set to take effect in 2020 and the advertising community is desperate for some clarification. On Tuesday, a coalition of ad trade orgs sent a joint letter to the […]

Reddit is getting into the performance marketing game. On Wednesday, the self-described front page of the internet launched the ability for direct response advertisers to buy any of its inventory across desktop, mobile web and app on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. Until now, advertisers could purchase ads on a CPM model – or cost per […]

After more than a year in beta, Facebook is letting advertisers use third-party vendors to manage brand safety on its platform. Facebook is putting a ring on its commitment to brand safety by adding a new badge for brand safety protection companies under its marketing partner program. DoubleVerify and OpenSlate are the first two verification […]

Claritas acquired the CRM and identity company AcquireWeb on Tuesday, the third in a yearlong buying spree as Claritas revamps its traditional audience segment business for real-time, data-driven media. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Claritas will gain 20-30 AcquireWeb employees. In the past year Claritas has also added Geoscape, a multicultural audience […]

The analytics startup Civis was founded in 2013 with roots in political data and targeting and has since transitioned to commercial business, where advertisers are less familiar with testing messages to sway public opinion. Most big brands rely on panels or focus groups, which “have a lot of contamination” because more people self-select into groups […]

Former AppLift CEO Tim Koschella is launching a company called Kayzen to help app marketers bring their programmatic ad buying in-house. Kayzen, which came out of stealth Tuesday after several months in beta, is powered by a bidder that Koschella purchased from AppLift through a management buyout last year. It positions itself as a self-serve […]

NBCU is not getting left in the dust as competitors like Amazon, AT&T and Disney plan their direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming services. On Monday, the broadcast titan said it will launch its yet-to-be-named streaming service in early 2020. The service will provide ad-supported content to pay-TV subscribers, including 90 million Comcast-connected homes in the United States […]

There’s no rest for direct-to-consumer mattress marketers. “We’re constantly running tests,” said Scott McLeod, co-founder of DreamCloud, a mattress startup housed under Nectar Home, parent company to a growing portfolio of DTC sleep and home furnishing brands, including Nectar Sleep and ecommerce rug brand Wovenly. “We have disdain for the idea of running something without […]

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 desert sun rises in Las Vegas, emerging from the eastern horizon like a roll-up LG OLED TV. The device manufacturers – reps from TV […]

While industry executives were ogling Alexa-enabled gadgets and 8K roll-up TVs at CES on Tuesday, Martin Sorrell took the stage to talk about the future of the industry and his new holding company, S4. The former WPP CEO, joined on stage by S4’s newly minted board members, MightyHive CEO Pete Kim and MediaMonks CEO Wesley […]

If Apple has its way, privacy will be a topic of conversation at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The tech giant posted a giant billboard outside Springhill Suites Marriott Hotel in Las Vegas with a message that plays on the infamous Vegas catchphrase: “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.” The poster, […]