Mobile ad network and Indian unicorn InMobi paid $90 million for mobile video monetization platform AerServ in a bid to build a header bidding solution for apps. The deal, announced Wednesday, will bring together their respective programmatic exchanges to create “fair auction dynamics for in the in-app space,” said Abhay Singhal, InMobi’s CRO and co-founder. […]
Two years ago, lift tests weren’t something OLX Group even talked about. Today, lift tests, which measure the incrementality of a marketing channel or advertising tactic, are in heavy rotation at the Argentinian web company, which owns and operates 17 classified apps and sites around the world, including Craigslist competitor Letgo in the US. Performance […]
Searching and not being able to find the perfect GIF to embed within a chat is the definition of a first-world problem. But it’s a real pain point, and something Emogi, which uses predictive technology to suggest contextually relevant emoji, stickers and GIFs within conversations, is able to solve for brands that want to get […]
AdColony’s Q4 revenue is expected to drop 5-10% more than it did last quarter and CEO Will Kassoy is out, effective immediately. The news caps off a “disappointing” year for AdColony, according to a release late Thursday from parent company Otello Corp. (formerly Opera Software, which rebranded to Otello on Monday). Kassoy, who joined Otello/Opera […]
Mobile programmatic pricing is about to have its hockey stick moment, set to grow more than 45% by 2019, according to a projection released by programmatic agency Goodway Group on Tuesday. Mobile prices will increase incrementally, just under 4% month over month throughout the coming year, including for mobile display and mobile video ads served […]
“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 Ran Ben-Yair, co-founder and CEO at Ubimo. Transparency has always been a hot-button industry word. In the past year, it’s gained even further currency, often from the heated rhetoric of […]
The revelation that Kroger is developing a data-driven ad platform, Kroger Precision Marketing (KPM), to launch next year underscores how brick-and-mortars are trying to exert control over their data in the same manner as an ecommerce company. Yet the goal of a true brick-and-mortar walled garden is fraught with challenges. For decades, retailers sold anonymized […]
Creative often gets neglected by app publishers gunning for installs – but it’s one of the most important aspects of any app-install campaign, said Artur Grigorjan, head of growth marketing at Russian game studio Playrix. “By this point, most advertisers have enough expertise when it comes to buying,” Grigorjan said. “Now they’re transitioning to the next […]
That teens have no attention span is a fallacy. Just ask Wattpad, a platform where people can write and share stories that they’ve written and solicit feedback from their community. The storytelling platform boasts a community of 60 million monthly active users, mainly teens, young adults and millennials under 30, who spend more than 15 […]
Unlikely insights into consumer behavior can help move the needle, and location data is a rich source of unlikely insights. On Tuesday, UK-based location data company Blis released an analytics tool in beta called Smart Trends that blends point-of-interest (POI) data and offline movement data to draw conclusions about how people interact with physical locations […]
The Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend showed how mobile has grown from a retail investment-and-innovation channel to a true pillar of US commerce. On Cyber Monday, mobile commerce crossed a new threshold with $2 billion in sales, according to data from Adobe. Black Friday of 2016 was the first time US shoppers spent more than $1 […]
“The frozen dessert area is one of the most cutthroat spots in the whole store,” according to Mike Fransz, ProYo’s VP of marketing. ProYo, a challenger brand that sells high-protein ice cream, faces three primary marketing challenges: generating awareness in a crowded market, driving foot traffic to the aisle and standing out from a growing […]
It looks like China is not the ultimate exit for ad tech. Late Tuesday evening, app marketing platform AppLovin said that company will no longer be acquired by a Chinese private equity firm for $1.42 billion as planned. The deal, now scrapped, was first announced in September 2016. The duo will still do a deal, […]
The US Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against AT&T has thrown a wrench into the $108 billion planned merger between the telco and Time Warner. The complaint, filed late Monday, alleged the merger could “hinder [AT&T’s] rivals by forcing them to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more per year for Time Warner’s networks.” The filing […]
Google is opening up an API to stop fraudsters from stealing credit for app installs, and mobile measurement and attribution platform Tune is an early adopter. The API, which was fully integrated into Tune’s platform Monday, enables Google to share data with partners about the exact time an app install is initiated in the Play […]
Facebook is gearing up to grab automotive advertising budget with dynamic and lead ads for auto brands, both released on Thursday. Dynamic ads for auto, like Facebook’s other dynamic ad products for ecommerce and travel, allow advertisers –auto manufacturers and car dealerships, in this case – to retarget auto intenders and create lookalike audiences for […]
There’s no point in targeting people with app-install ads if they’ve already downloaded the app. But that’s exactly what SeatGeek found itself doing. In the mobile app world, audience suppression often requires extensive manual work. Although Facebook – a huge beneficiary of mobile media dollars – makes audience suppression easy, newer platforms like Snapchat don’t […]
Breaking into the China market requires feet on the ground painstakingly building direct relationships with local players, a fair amount of intestinal fortitude and patience. It also helps having a Chinese parent. Mobile ad exchange Smaato is capitalizing on its affiliation with Spearhead Integrated Marketing Communications Group, the Beijing-based offline marketing service provider that acquired […]
AdColony will lay off more than 20% of its workforce and exit the mediation and ad-serving game in a bid to focus its business on programmatic. The mobile video ad company said Monday that it will shutter most of AdMarvel, the mobile ad tech company it acquired in 2010. The ad exchange portion of AdMarvel […]
Ericsson is taking the wraps off its DMP for telcos. On Thursday, the Swedish networking giant announced the global launch of Emodo, a mobile ad platform that lets carriers monetize their subscriber data programmatically. The release of Emodo follows Ericsson’s surprising intention to enter the ad tech space, which it announced in March at Mobile […]
Leanplum is leaning into machine learning and mobile marketing automation with $47 million in Series D funding, announced Wednesday. The round was led by Norwest Venture Partners with pinch-hitting from existing investors, including Canaan Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Shasta Ventures, and brings the company’s total funding to just over $93 million since […]
Messenger hopes to insinuate itself deeper within the customer journey. On Tuesday, Facebook released a closed beta test of a customer chat plugin as part of Messenger 2.2 that allows businesses to continue a single conversation thread across multiple channels, including Messenger and an advertiser’s own mobile and desktop sites. Businesses that integrate the customer […]
When Snap acquired location-based data company Placed over the summer, agencies got excited about the prospect of intermingling the data sets – but that won’t be happening anytime soon. Placed will not share any advertiser or partner data with Snap, Placed CEO and founder David Shim told AdExchanger. “Keeping the data set separate is important if […]
Although the industry is settling on a few practical uses for beacons, primarily as a helpmate for attribution, they’re just one marketing data point among many – a tactic. “Beacons are only one piece of the equation, a component of a larger effort,” said Chris Cunningham, CRO of proximity and location data aggregator Unacast. “There are […]
Marketers are open to spending on location data, but they lack the proof to show that their efforts are working. “It’s a dilemma,” said Kevin McGinnis, CEO of Pinsight Media, a Sprint-owned mobile analytics company with access to anonymized first-party mobile carrier data from Sprint subscribers. That’s why Pinsight, which helps its advertiser clients gather […]
Publishers are on the cusp of only needing one software development kit (SDK) to measure in-app viewability. On Wednesday, the IAB Tech Lab kicked off a limited beta to test an open-measurement SDK that would enable publishers to work with multiple viewability vendors without requiring multiple SDK integrations. The test will run for roughly two […]
The redesigned App Store in iOS 11 creates a challenging environment for mid-tail and long-tail app developers. Apple’s primary goal with the redesign, which came along with the release of its new operating system in September, is to “make discovering apps and games easier than ever before,” the company said. The revamped App Store store […]
Poncho wants to “own the bed.” The weather app aims to start engaging with its core user base of millennials the moment they wake up. Around 90% of people 18-30 use smartphones as alarm clocks, according to Cisco, making the lock screen the first thing they see when they crack an eye. But there’s a […]
Retargeting is largely associated with product ads that stalk users across the internet. But Facebook sees retargeting as a tactic that can open the door to ongoing engagement within Messenger. Ted Helwick, the Facebook product manager leading monetization efforts on Messenger, told AdExchanger that “the KPI advertisers tell us they care about most right now […]
IHeartRadio, the streaming app by media and radio giant iHeartMedia, puts app store reviews at the center of its customer retention strategy and product road map. “We give our users a little taste of what [the app] could be and then let them help design the road map for features and functionality,” said Rob Rowe, SVP of […]
