Measurement

by Sarah Sluis, Alison Weissbrot, James Hercher and Ryan Joe The economy is a roller coaster. It’s up, it’s down, it does a loop-de-loop. A downturn isn’t guaranteed, but there’ve been enough rumblings that people are waiting for the other shoe to drop. The last recession in 2008 catalyzed some change in the industry – […]

Nielsen and Comscore take a lot of heat for moving too slowly and failing to provide the sort of cross-channel measurement buyers and sellers say they crave. But cut ’em some slack, said Beth Rockwood, SVP of portfolio research at Turner. “Both Nielsen and Comscore have made good advances in the last year and they’re […]

NBCU did something it had never done before: transacted on a TV advertising campaign based on business outcomes. The campaign for the STXfilms movie “The Upside” was guaranteed based on ticket sales and, secondarily, show time searches, the broadcast giant said Friday. Comscore will measure viewership data and tie it to ticket sales from Fandango, […]

Cords are getting cut left and right, but TV still works … right? “We all know that TV does drive ROI, but there haven’t really been any proof points like there has been in digital,” said Donna Speciale, Turner’s president of advertising sales, at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview event in New York City on Wednesday. That’s […]

Does the world need yet another tech company to combat malvertising on the internet? “Well, do you still constantly see malvertising when you browse the internet?” said Seth Demsey, co-founder of Clean Creative, an anti-malware company started by a handful of security experts and Oath vets who exited before the name change. Touché. Based in […]

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 […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Video Jockeys Amazon has a monster ad business, but it’s missing one piece: video inventory. The Amazon Prime video library has the audience, but like Netflix, it’s ad-free. Some recent moves show how Amazon will broaden its video supply. At CES last week, Amazon […]

Nielsen went public with ratings for the Netflix hit film “Bird Box” on Tuesday, estimating that the blockbuster (so to speak) attracted 26 million US viewers in its first week. But wait, didn’t Netflix say 45 million accounts watched “Bird Box” in the first seven days? Netflix rarely discloses specific viewership numbers for any content, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. CTV Sees Green Innovid has raised $30 million to invest in CTV ad serving and measurement products. Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investing Group led the round, bringing Innovid’s total funding to $52.6 million. Innovid has held on to its independent status, which it thinks […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Broadcast Impasse CBS will be without Nielsen ratings after failing to renew a contract that expired on Monday. The dispute began six months ago over pricing, with CBS, which spent $100 million with Nielsen last year, demanding fairer terms and arguing that the metrics […]

Over-the-top TV wasn’t invented in 2018, but 2018 was certainly its year. Advertising on over-the-top (OTT) was one of the hot-button issues at Dmexco, Advertising Week and other major conferences this year – for good reason. Content providers, DSPs and others in the industry are seeing explosive growth in this sector of their businesses. The […]

Dish and Sling TV are joining Comscore’s cross-platform measurement solution in beta, their parent company, Dish Media, said Thursday. Dish Media is the first multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) to join the Campaign Ratings pilot program, which launched in September. Campaign Ratings is designed to be a cross-platform metric that can be tracked across linear, […]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The old adage applies to the new media landscape, where sweeping technology changes have scattered US audiences across new devices but has also greatly increased the amount of content consumed per year. The average American adult watches 5 hours and 24 minutes per day of […]

A Nielsen survey released Thursday suggests esports watchers are a prime target for advertisers, but old strategies won’t work on them. The 2018 Nielsen Esports Fan Insights report includes behavior data from hundreds of esports gamers collected over the last year. These fans watched and participated in games like “League of Legends,” “Overwatch League,” “Fortnite” […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Adapting Accenture Interactive will acquire Adaptly, an ad tech and programmatic services company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Adaptly has 150 employees and has raised $13 million in funding. Adaptly should help Accenture Interactive “enable workflow, improve quality assurance and really […]

After a protracted, year-long alpha period, the IAB Tech Lab has released the specs in beta for the app version of its Ads.txt initiative to reduce counterfeit ad inventory. The App-ads.txt hold-up was caused by app stores dragging their heels on providing support for the Tech Lab’s preferred solution of using metadata tags – essentially […]

When people learned in 2014 that ad fraud was a $6.3 billion problem, many asked why no one had been arrested for stealing all that money from brands. Four years later, that day has arrived. “Finally, somebody gets arrested for this,” said Neal Richter, chief architect of Rakuten Marketing Platform. The FBI charged eight people […]

Nielsen’s hire of IBM Watson honcho David Kenny as CEO, first reported on Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal, is a major bet for the measurement company as it rises to meet new competitive challenges and prepares for a possible sale of the business. Kenny oversaw IBM’s artificial intelligence initiatives, using machine learning to support enterprise […]

The Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) released a study on Thursday that found an 84% drop in fraud compared to the industry average when all members in the supply chain are vigilant, badged and on the level. TAG analyzed 75 billion display and video impressions across desktop, mobile web and in-app channels to look for sophisticated […]

An actor, AI expert and the former head of digital at CNBC walk into a bar. They create an analytics startup. There’s no punchline here – that really happened. (Maybe not the bar part.) Ed Norton, Daniel Nadler and Kevin Krim’s new company EDO announced Thursday it raised $12 million in Series A funding. The […]

Pinterest is growing its ad inventory with a new promoted carousel format, which moved out of beta on Thursday. Carousels, which allow advertisers to include up to five images within a single format, can appear within the Pinterest main feed as a related pin recommendation or through search. Users tap the cover image and then […]

Brad Stamulis, director of digital marketing at Dish Network, has long called out viewability measurement’s shortcomings – but at AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O in New York City on Tuesday, he specified the steps the industry needs to take to fix it. Eliminating waste in programmatic marketing is always a challenge when it comes to viewability and […]

Brian Wiener will present on video measurement at AdExchanger’s upcoming Programmatic IO New York conference on Oct. 15-16. ComScore is getting back on its feet. After the Nasdaq delisted the company due to a string of financial foibles and leadership changes, the measurement company brought on former 360i Chairman Bryan Wiener as CEO in April. By May, […]

The first rule of ad fraud: If it can be spoofed, it will be spoofed. Bad actors are pretending to be legit, demand-side platforms to try and fool partners and blend in with real ad calls as a way to purvey malware and litter the web with forced redirects. “They weasel their way onto the […]

The Big Story is a breezy new podcast featuring a roundtable of AdExchanger editors talking about the biggest stories from the past week. It is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. So you’ve made it to the final day of Advertising Week in New York City. Congratulations. This year, the annual shindig crammed its attendees […]

Nielsen is reviewing “strategic alternatives” to selling its entire company, the company told investors this month. The TV ratings giant is reportedly under pressure from hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. “All options are being weighed,” a Nielsen spokesperson told AdExchanger. “The company has hired external advisers to conduct a full review and the board is […]

Pooja Midha will speak on the future of TV measurement at AdExchanger’s upcoming Programmatic IO New York conference on Oct. 15-16. Founded in 2007, true[X] was acquired by Fox in 2014 for $200 million. Its president, Pooja Midha, has hit the ground running since she assumed the role in March. “I was a true[X] customer […]

AT&T’s promise to connect data, technology, distribution and content to make advertising better for all constituents is exciting. So exciting, in fact, that industry executives from both the buy and sell sides gathered in support of the idea at the Relevance conference in Santa Barbara, Calif., this week, willing to help make it happen. But […]

Advertisers on Dish’s over-the-top service Sling TV can now power their addressable TV campaigns using Nielsen audience segments based on purchases and loyalty programs. Sling TV advertisers can also measure using Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings currency. These capabilities are available due to an expanded partnership between Dish’s media sales team and Nielsen, which the companies […]

For the last four years, mobile measurement company TUNE has been “fighting with one hand tied behind its back,” said Alex Austin, CEO and co-founder of California-based deep-linking outfit Branch. In 2014, TUNE lost its Facebook marketing partner badge for allegedly retaining user data for too long. “But we’re giving TUNE both its arms back […]