Platforms

Mobile ad startups take note: Opera Mediaworks is revving up its acquisition engine. Spun out from the Norwegian browser company Opera Software last year, Opera Mediaworks is made up of companies such as AdMarvel, Mobile Theory, 4th Screen Advertising and Handster. After integrating its various services into one suite, the company’s next goal is to […]

If all goes according to plan, Rubicon Project’s public offering will raise about $108 million ($77 million after expenses) in cash and give it a market cap of $671 million. In an update to its January S-1 filing with the US Securities And Exchange Commission, the company said shareholders will offer 6.8 million shares of […]

Mobile app retargeting firm ActionX is the latest company with a solution to help retailers target consumers across screens. ActionX’s Crossfire technology uses a set of pixels on a retailer’s app or website to track customers logged in to the site across a mobile device and desktop PC. “[Customers] roll up their cross-screen data and […]

Facebook and Google have emerged as the front-runners in the race to capture mobile ad dollars, with Google leading the charge. Facebook’s efforts to extend its mobile reach and rapid growth has made it a strong contender for first place, but can the behemoth social network overtake Google’s hold on mobile advertising? It is difficult […]

As brick and mortar giants like Walmart and Tesco do more to monetize their customer data, the question becomes – will they go it alone or maintain third-party partnerships? Tesco subsidiary dunnhumby’s rumored purchase of demand-side platform Sociomantic is the most obvious example of a seismic shift that’s occurring in the shopper data space. The […]

Display and search ad tech company IgnitionOne has acquired Knotice, a data-management platform (DMP) and email service provider with approximately 70 employees, AdExchanger has learned. The deal is the latest in a wave of consolidation in the DMP space that began with the October acquisition of Aggregate Knowledge by Neustar for $119 million, and also includes Oracle’s […]

China is one of the fastest-growing, largest mobile markets in the world. Two new studies from Forrester Research and mobile developer-services platform Umeng delve into the unique characteristics of this continuously growing industry, including how consumers deal with the lack of high-speed data service and how social sharing plays a role in many apps. According […]

Demand-side platform (DSP) DataXu has recruited Ed Montes, CEO of programmatic trader Digilant, to lead its sales and marketing operations as chief revenue officer. Montes helped found Digilant in 2009, back when it was still called Adnetik and operated as the trading desk unit of French agency conglomerate Havas. Later, when Adnetik was spun off […]

Although the performance-based pay-per-call model is not new, there is renewed interest from publishers due to the ubiquity of mobile and new experimentation in ad formats. Twitter last week, for instance, revealed plans to serve direct-response marketers through beta tests with brands for click-to-call functionality, as first reported by Digiday. At its most basic, the […]

Data management platform (DMP) Lotame has acquired AdMobius, a company that identifies audiences across devices for ad targeting purposes, AdExchanger has learned. Terms weren’t disclosed for the deal, which comes two weeks after we first reported on talks between the companies. With the purchase, Lotame accelerates its ability to use non-cookie methods to find users […]

Mobile analytics firm Kontagent has rebranded itself with a new name – Upsight – through its merger with mobile monetization platform PlayHaven, the companies said Monday. The rebranding comes a month after Kontagent and its competitor, HasOffers, were booted out of Facebook’s Mobile Measurement Program (MMP). Upsight also launched a new mobile analytics platform that shares the […]

Media agency MediaCom launched a partnership with mobile ad creation and analytics platform Celtra on Wednesday, a year after the two began working together. The two companies hope to develop solutions that simplify the management, observation and delivery of mobile advertising. Traditionally, these steps required clients to work with individual publishers and multiple tools. In […]

Despite Bitcoin’s volatility, businesses are beginning to experiment with the peer-to-peer payment system. One such company is Vungle, which helps mobile app publishers promote through 15-second in-app video trailers distributed through its ad platform. Vungle said Thursday it’s giving publishers the option to be paid in bitcoins, though its advertising clients cannot pay with the digital […]

Microsoft has added new ad formats to Skype’s “connection hub,” the screen users see before and after placing calls and while instant messaging each other. The new placements are a logical way to boost Skype’s monetization. The company hopes connection hub ads will generate an at least 20 billion additional impressions per month for advertisers. […]

Marc Landsberg knows agencies. Landsberg previously served as the former EVP at Leo Burnett and president and CEO of Arc and MRM Worldwide. As the current CEO of Chicago-based social agency socialdeviant, he says the traditional media-buying process has been turned upside down and the players flipping the tables aren’t the platform providers. Comcast’s planned […]

Marking up cheap Facebook inventory has been a lucrative business for a range of companies in its Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD) ecosystem. And Facebook is fine with that practice, just so long as it’s clear to advertisers just how big of a cut their partners are taking. But do advertisers know, and do they care? […]

Traditional radio as a hotbed for ad tech? Well, not really – or at all – but this is precisely the problem Jelli co-founder and CEO Mike Dougherty recognized when his company launched on Wednesday a platform, called RadioSpot, designed to enable programmatic buying for radio advertising. “Radio is a little more simple [than digital […]

Although Google is the $4 billion darling of the US display ad space, players like AOL, Amazon and Facebook are closing in on that share. Most noticeably, Facebook, which for the first time last quarter served more ad impressions on mobile devices than on the desktop, experienced a 50.5% increase in US digital display ad […]

Kargo, a mobile ad platform, has undergone several transformations and is about to make another one. Following the 2001 dot-com crash, Kargo pivoted from providing wireless operators with software and services to helping media brands launch mobile ad campaigns. The New York City company now has a client roster that includes CBS, Univision, Meredith and […]

Add another vendor to the Marketing Cloud fray. Teradata on Tuesday updated its marketing products, revealed a partnership with Urban Airship and officially began calling its stack the “Integrated Marketing Cloud.” Teradata isn’t a newcomer in the field of marketing tech. The company’s VP of marketing, Wes Moore, emphasized the company has been providing marketing […]

If you’ve ever shortened or shared a link on a social platform, chances are you’ve used Bitly. “We are so ubiquitous, but at the same time, people gloss right over us,” said Mark Josephson, CEO of URL shortening service Bitly. He joined the company six months ago from AOL, where he served as SVP of […]

RelayRides knows that mobile devices are an essential channel for reaching new and current customers. The San Francisco-based car-sharing service lets private car owners rent out their vehicles. It serves more than 1,900 US cities including 270 airports, connecting drivers with car owners who post photos and information about their vehicle on RelayRides’ website. When […]

Twitter’s average cost per ad engagement decreased steadily over the past seven quarters, culminating in an 18% decrease in the quarter ended Dec. 21. While ad revenue, by contrast, increased during those same quarters, this chiastic trend isn’t sustainable, as Twitter itself conceded in the 10-K it filed Thursday. The company noted its ad revenue […]

Call-measurement company Telmetrics says it’s seeing digital call tracking jump among its customer base of agencies, publishers and brands. The company’s core business focuses on measuring calls to businesses that come in through advertising assets. AdExchanger checked in with President Bill Dinan for an update on the company and the industry. AdExchanger: What’s new at […]

Facebook hasn’t said much about Atlas since buying it a year ago, but it has been making incremental tweaks to the product. On Wednesday it took a bigger step, launching a creative partner program (blog post) with rich media vendors Innovid and Flite. The deal will let Atlas’s agency customers more easily integrate rich media into […]

An updated S-1 from IPO aspirant Rubicon Project shows the sell-side platform’s revenue grew 47 percent in 2013, to $83.8 million for the full year. In its earlier filing, submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month, the company disclosed revenues only up to the third quarter of 2013. The new document […]

What is the cost of acquiring a loyal app user? Based on the testimonial of various industry insiders, the price is rising so quickly ad revenue can’t keep up. As such, app developers are looking for new ways to profit, often by developing ad tech. Gartner predicts mobile ad spend will reach $18 billion this […]

Adap.tv, acquired by AOL six months ago, unveiled on Monday a new add-on to its Audience Path demand-side platform (DSP), called Audience Path for TV, to let advertisers and agencies apply more data to their linear TV ad buys. The release capitalizes on a trend in which data-driven ad buying on linear TV presents opportunities for […]

Palo Alto and Paris-based startup Ifeelgoods is betting consumers will gravitate toward personalized offers over traditional loyalty concepts like deep discounts. The digital rewards network founded in 2010 has launched a Personalized Offers Platform for marketers and established a strategic partnership with VivaKi for an initial rollout to Publicis Groupe agencies Razorfish, Digitas and Performics. […]

One of the key strengths of a business is knowing when to pivot. For demand-side audience-targeting platform ChoiceStream, that involved switching from product recommendation software to programmatic advertising services in 2011. Eric Bosco, formerly the company’s COO, took the reins as CEO last May. AdExchanger spoke with Bosco about the company’s transition. AdExchanger: Where does […]