Platforms

Facebook violates EU law by tracking users for targeted advertising, a European privacy panel said Tuesday. The report was commissioned by the Belgian Privacy Commission, which sits under the EU’s European Commission, and is an updated version of an initial draft that surfaced in February. A key development of the update claims that Facebook cookies […]

When “consumer immersion” is your top brand metric, live-streaming video enters your channel-investment strategy. Such is the case for PepsiCo-owned Mountain Dew, one of the first brands to test-drive Twitter’s new live-video app, Periscope. Mountain Dew created a three-minute video asking fans to stop by and say, “What’s up?” and to interact by sending the […]

Montreal-based Frank & Oak, a menswear ecommerce company named by Fast Company as one of the “World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies of 2015,” thinks video and mobile should be the first entry points into its acquisition funnel. Founded in 2012, the company has more than 1.6 million active users (most of them young males […]

With digital audio consumption on the rise, advertiser expectations about targeting and buying advertisements are also growing fast. These concerns surfaced Thursday during Mediaocean’s “Radio Reinvented” panel in Manhattan. Panelists included executives from Pandora, Spotify and Triton Digital. The panelists revealed there are 143 million monthly online radio listeners in the US, representing 53% of […]

Facebook is working with a dozen mobile ad networks to better track installs beyond mobile media it directly controls. Millennial Media, InMobi and AppLovin are among the networks to sign on for the beta program, but Facebook’s biggest competitors predictably aren’t playing along. The feature is part of a product called Analytics for Apps that […]

Pinterest would not exist without brands. So said Eva Papoutsakis Smith, head of marketing communications and insights at Pinterest, at eMarketer’s State of Mobile breakfast on Wednesday. “Two-thirds of all pins come from brands or business websites,” Smith said. “If you removed all of that, there wouldn’t be a Pinterest.” That said, advertising on Pinterest […]

Welcome to the real Facebook Exchange. Facebook is using its F8 Developer Conference in San Francisco, where it trotted out its Audience Network one year ago, to unveil an expansion of its publisher-facing ad tools. The big news is this: Facebook has extended the capabilities of its LiveRail video SSP – acquired last summer – […]

The most-cited reason Cosmopolitan, CNN, People, Yahoo News, Food Network and National Geographic jumped to participate in Snapchat Discover: access to millennials in a mobile platform with high engagement. Discover also has an environment pleasing to advertisers, enabling messaging via text, images or video in a section of a popular app curated by premium publishers. […]

AOL is building on its foray into long-form content, which it first announced at last year’s newfronts, by distributing the pilot of its documentary series, “Connected,” on Roku devices. Although AOL Video has content distribution agreements with 17 different Internet-streaming and over-the-top devices, including Amazon Fire and Chromecast, “Connected” – produced by Morgan Spurlock and […]

Video and cross-screen private marketplaces (PMPs) are all the rage, though their strategic uses differ from publisher to publisher. AOL’s newest PMP partner, Rev4 Media, wanted to take advantage of the silver screen and the associated second-screen opportunity for mobile app developers. It’s in the process of building a PMP using AOL’s technology. Rev4 Media […]

It’s been 100 days – give or take a day – since Yahoo bought the video demand-side platform and exchange BrightRoll for $640 million, and BrightRoll CEO Tod Sacerdoti has been busy. BrightRoll on Wednesday revealed it’s baking Yahoo audience demographic and behavioral data into BrightRoll’s DSP, which the company claims will enrich ad-targeting capabilities […]

Competition in the various app stores is fierce, and app publishers like Indonesia-based gaming developer Alegrium are feeling the burn. Contending for traffic volume with big developers and brand advertisers, tracking the quality of users by channel and coping with ever-increasing cost-per-install (CPI) rates are what keep Alegrium CMO and GREE vet Jennifer Lin up […]

The average tech stack runneth over, but that’s not exactly a good thing. According to joint IAB/Winterberry Group research, more than half of marketers use between five and 10 point solutions and roughly 27% of marketers use between 11 and 20 different technologies to manage their programmatic campaigns. One industry insider quoted in the report, a […]

Boston-based DataXu is getting into the cross-device game with a management, targeting and measurement capability of its own. The demand-side platform’s cross-device tool, dubbed OneView, exits beta next month. DataXu’s take on cross-device simplification hinges on compliance management. The tool offers check-box controls for marketers to tailor which data sources are used for targeting and […]

“Marketer’s Note” is a regular column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. This week it is written by Melissa Parrish, Executive Director, AdExchanger Research. Last week it was reported that Facebook is building out an ad exchange platform, powered by Live Rail. If true, it’s an indication that the social networking giant continues to […]

It’s been 125 years since the death of famed Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, and Holland is going all out. With a yearlong commemoration of the post-impressionist painter just underway, the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions (NBTC) hopes to drive awareness for Amsterdam, but particularly the less-frequented destinations in Holland like Gelderland and Brabant. […]

So-called marketing clouds have commonly focused on enabling outreach to known customers, which is why they lean heavily on email marketing, CRM and campaign management – while paid media remains an afterthought. But Adobe, whose annual summit began Monday in Salt Lake City, is diving into ad tech with an upgrade to its Media Optimizer […]

Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress didn’t always have a “Hall 8.”  Today, that’s where they keep all the mobile ad tech – and it’s huge. An entire pavillion packed with vendors and bustling with brands and agency reps looking to get serious about mobile innovation. “The first year I came here, it was very much about the […]

Facebook made waves two weeks ago when it delisted more than 15 companies from its Facebook Exchange (AdExchanger story). Going forward, only 12 companies will be allowed to trumpet their access to the desktop news feed and right rail ad space that comprises the FBX inventory pool. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Even […]

More automation is in the cards for Rubicon Project, which revealed its short-term goals around guaranteed orders at its Automation Summit in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., on Thursday. The company launched an updated product that powers direct, guaranteed orders. “Digital advertising is a $62 billion opportunity,” CEO Frank Addante told attendees. “The largest part, premium, […]

Criteo is retiring its AD-X attribution product and replacing it with a new partner-based approach to mobile tracking, the French company revealed Thursday. Criteo, a retargeting company that works with Internet retailers, brands and agencies, first acquired AD-X in July 2013. AD-X remained a standalone business within Criteo, offering advertisers and app developers in-app measurement […]

Depending on how you frame it, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest are either disintermediating the influencer marketing ecosystem or “wrapping their arms more tightly around it,” as Lisa Weinstein, president of global digital, data and analytics at Starcom MediaVest Group, puts it. Circa 2011, brands threw money at social marketing agencies with one goal: “Go […]

Sharing financial performance figures for the first time Thursday, PubMatic said its annualized net revenue run rate is now above $130 million, based on year-end figures. From 2013 to 2014, the publisher platform company said GAAP net revenue grew 90%. PubMatic did not disclose net income, but revealed it had turned a small profit for the past […]

Before Yahoo bought video exchange BrightRoll, it had eyes for Dailymotion, a French video-sharing site that amasses more than 2.5 billion video views a month. Although that’s nowhere near the size and scope of YouTube, which gets 4 billion views a day at last count, some speculated Dailymotion would have been Yahoo’s YouTube had French […]

IronSource is counting its cash. The Israeli ad distribution and app monetization company, which announced an $85 million round in September, said Wednesday that it’s brought in an additional $20 million from a group of unnamed investors led by Access Industries. These two funding events represent the first time ironSource, which works with Yahoo, Google, […]

Google has snapped up Toro, a tool that helps developers market their apps on the Facebook platform. The deal appears to be an acquihire, since Toro employs fewer than 10 and has begun urging customers to seek out alternative partners to support their Facebook install campaigns. (Read the blog post.) Google declined to comment other than to […]

Rubicon Project’s focus on premium inventory, international expansion and new products looks to be paying off. CEO Frank Addante said during the company’s Q4 earnings call – in which it posted quarterly revenue of $41.8 million, up 49% YoY – that Rubicon had avoided low-quality sellers that would have boosted short-term revenue while hurting its […]

With the revamp of its partner program last week, Facebook is for the first time allowing agencies to pursue certification – under a specialization called Media Buying. (Don’t call it a badge.) The change is a tacit acknowledgement that Facebook’s key relationships in the ad ecosystem include not only the builders of tools for reaching […]

Getting freemium users to become paid users is a nuanced process that varies from person to person. Users on the brink of turning their free trial into a paid subscription need only a little nudge. Others, admittedly a much smaller number of people, will quickly pay for subscriptions. But neither group is the ideal target. […]

Paris-based direct and programmatic ad platform Smart AdServer will break away from its parent company, the Internet portal AuFeminin, through a buyout by private equity firm Cathay Capital for $42.1 million, the companies said Thursday. “Smart AdServer is entering a new phase and the market is evolving very fast,” said Smart AdServer US General Manager […]