Platforms

Black Friday came and went and while the results were mixed (The National Retail Federation (NRF) estimated an 11% drop in combined online and in-store retail sales), digital seems to be the bright spot. ComScore, for instance, found $26.7 billion was spent online in the month of November, a 16% increase from last year while Adobe’s […]

The merits of deep-linking are clear – considering the numbers on smartphone penetration, mobile needs direct links as much as, if not more than, the web – but deep-linking is not just a matter of embedding app links into the mobile experience and calling it a day. Not only do app developers have to consider the […]

It’s become generally accepted wisdom that brands aren’t dedicating dollars to mobile at a rate commensurate with consumer time spent. That said, certain big brands like Walmart and Heineken are embracing mobile as a key part of their advertising initiatives. “Going forward, we will always view campaigns as mobile-first,” said Ron Amram, senior media director […]

Datalogix, a provider of online and offline data, is nearing a sale of the business. According to multiple AdExchanger sources, the company has entertained offers in recent weeks, including from TV ratings mainstay Nielsen and Facebook. However Facebook is no longer in the running, and Nielsen is considered the most likely buyer. Although neither company […]

Monetizing an app is never child’s play, but it becomes even more difficult if the app in question is aimed at children. Clark Stacey, CEO of game publisher WildWorks, knows about those challenges firsthand. Wildworks, which recently rebranded from Smart Bomb Interactive, has been working in close collaboration with the National Geographic Society since 2010 […]

Following on the heels of its buy button announcement and its recent CardSpring acquisition, Twitter announced the introduction of what it’s calling Twitter Offers – another step by the social network to add more commerce functionality to its offering. Twitter bought CardSpring back in July. The platform enables the creation of payment applications, a clear complement […]

When you’re tweeting, the last thing you’re thinking about is your retirement fund. But that was precisely why insurance provider Voya Financial used Twitter for an ongoing brand campaign. Voya’s goal was to introduce its new brand – the company had been renamed in April after it spun off from Dutch bank ING Groep and […]

It’s been nine months since Susan Wojcicki was named CEO at YouTube, clearing the path for Sridhar Ramaswamy to take full control of Google’s $50 billion-plus advertising business. As org changes go, it was a doozy. YouTube would get a proven leader to take it to the next level – by investing in talent and courting new […]

Drawbridge sees itself as the democratizer of cross-device identity. “We’re the folks that provide cross-device connectivity for inventory that isn’t on Facebook and we do it without PII,” said Nimeshh Patel, Drawbridge’s VP of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., Drawbridge – whose technology analyzes various non-personally identifiable data points, […]

Advertisers need to be inventive to adhere to health marketing regulations, particularly since 2011, when the IAB banned health marketers from using cookies to target patients. PageScience’s approach is to bring contextual, cookie-less targeting to its clients through page scoring. On Wednesday, the company made public its Health Insights dashboard, which lets brands and agencies […]

When it comes to performance metrics, AIG’s online marketing chief Daniel Loebl isn’t joking around.  “In my work, we don’t have soft metrics,” said Loebl, whose official title is assistant VP of the digital center of excellence at AIG in the US. “I don’t allow them in my spend. Something either gets conversions or not.” […]

App developers are test-obsessed. They don’t spend a dime without knowing how it’ll turn out. That could be part of the reason why they haven’t done much spending on in-app mobile YouTube pre-roll. Until recently, Google Analytics provided developers with feedback on things like rate of install, AdWords performance, how often an app is opened, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

Yahoo’s ad stack had been under a microscope, as CEO Marissa Mayer sought ways to appease shareholders and prove she had reached “parity” at last with competing ad tech stacks. On Tuesday, Yahoo’s announcement that it would acquire video demand-side platform (DSP) BrightRoll for $640 million enhanced this portfolio. “We now have scale with Flurry […]

Rocket Fuel is adding SaaS to its revenue mix, but slowly. During the company’s Q3 earnings call with investors on Wednesday, CEO George John said Rocket Fuel now has 137 “licensee customers” buying through one of its three software-as-a-service channels. Those channels are: Rocket Fuel’s self-serve offering, called Mission Control; the company’s partnership with Dentsu subsidiary CCI in Japan; and [x+1], the […]

SHIFT is among the first Facebook marketing partners to integrate with the newly rebuilt Atlas ad platform. CEO James Borow said the company’s customers will soon be able to leverage Facebook’s data within SHIFT’s new platform to reach people in mobile apps outside of Facebook-owned mobile apps. “The inventory is not just locked within the […]

Online sales during China’s annual discount event topped $9 billion this year, once again thrusting the country into the spotlight as a commerce powerhouse, and not by a little bit.  Singles Day, which was originally created in the late ’90s by a group of Chinese college students celebrating their singleton status, falls on Nov. 11 […]

Yahoo will indeed acquire BrightRoll, a video ad network turned platform company, as TechCrunch first reported in October. (See the release). The transaction, priced at $640 million, fires up Yahoo’s ad tech strategy after a dry spell when the company’s M&A was focused primarily on consumer-facing mobile platforms. It also provides a partial answer to those wondering […]

As fraudsters swarm like so many bees at the display advertising picnic, the industry is trying to blunt their stings with a combination of automated and manual solutions. Google has been among the most proactive ad platform players, hiring legions of real humans to review websites submitted to DoubleClick Ad Exchange. It recently acquired Spider.io, a […]

Twitter analytics and targeting platform StatSocial isn’t CEO Michael Hussey’s first trip to the customer data rodeo. Back in 2006, Hussey founded PeekYou, a people-based search engine that aggregates publicly available information – Twitter handles, Facebook URLs, blogs, physical address, phone number, interests, schools attended – into customer profiles that are then available for purchase. […]

MediaMath has snapped up Rare Crowds, a small, 2-year-old startup founded by ad tech trailblazer Eric Picard, AdExchanger has learned. Under the all-stock transaction, Picard will join MediaMath as VP of strategic partnerships as the media-buying platform builds out products around private marketplaces and “automated guaranteed” inventory (i.e., direct site buys). The deal has the […]

Considering two of the usual pure-play suspects in Forrester’s Cross-Channel Attribution Wave (Convertro and Adometry) were snapped up by AOL and Google on the very same day in May, its latest release Friday had all kinds of new implications – media neutrality and a platform mentality among them. The report, authored by Forrester analyst Tina […]

Last month AdExchanger reported on plans by AppNexus to roll out a “Certified Supply” stamp of approval for demonstrably valid impressions, and thereby cut off the flow of spend to impressions that are fraudulent, nonviewable or otherwise undesirable. The certified program came amid growing industry concerns about the persistence of fraud in the AppNexus supply. […]