Platforms

Microsoft has added a new unique identifier to Windows 8.1 to help app developers better monetize their apps, the company said today. “Specifically, in Windows 8.1 we include a unique identifier that can be used to improve the quality and relevance of advertisements displayed within Windows Store apps while providing other services such as analytics […]

Facebook is taking aim at small and medium-sized businesses with the latest update to its Custom Audiences database-matching program. In addition to the current setup, advertisers will be able to use Custom Audiences in a simplified way through the Ads Create tool. “To use Custom Audiences, advertisers had to use Power Editor or have access […]

In August, Amazon opened its longstanding Amazon Associates Web affiliate program to mobile developers looking to monetize in-app purchases. Using the Amazon Mobile Associates API, game and app developers could earn up to 6% in advertising fees on all Amazon product purchases they helped facilitate. And Amazon Appstore Developer Select launched in early October for […]

“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 Lung Huang, vice president of digital advertising, global partnerships, at dunnhumby. I moderated a panel last month at D2 Cincinnati, a digital marketing conference focused on customer centricity. The panel, […]

Facebook’s barricade against Google held up a long time, but the wall had to fall: Google wanted the audience, marketers wanted the interoperability and Facebook wanted the demand. As we reported Friday, after giving Google the cold shoulder for more than a year, Facebook has decided to let DoubleClick Bid Manager bring its buying clout […]

Amazon, the ever-silent commerce stalwart, may be next in line to join the Facebook Exchange party, according to AdExchanger sources. Today, Facebook finally granted (long-awaited?) access to Google’s demand-side platform, DoubleClick Bid Manager, to enable DoubleClick advertisers to dish up retargeted ads on the social network through integration to FBX. A number of DSP partners like […]

Oracle has acquired cloud content marketing platform Compendium for an undisclosed sum. Oracle, which bought marketing automation company Eloqua for $871 million last December, has since formalized that deal into the Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud and has plans to improve “top-of-the-funnel” customer engagement with its acquisition of Compendium, according to the company. These moves are […]

Facebook has made steady progress on closing the loop between media spend and consumer transactions, according to Brian Boland, the company’s VP of ads product marketing. “Digital marketers expect accurate reach,” Boland said in a presentation at the DMA 2013 annual summit in Chicago this week. More and more are “expecting proven results. They’re now […]

Retailers are pouring more money into Facebook’s ad products and driving up CPM costs, according to a new report from Nanigans, an ad platform and Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer partner. The report is based on data from more than 100 online and brick-and-mortar retailers over the first nine months of 2013. CPMs of Facebook ads […]

Nearly a year after exiting Yahoo on less-than-amicable terms, Michael Katz, one of the founders of targeting and data provider interclick, is back on the scene with a new startup called mParticle. Billed as a mobile data platform, mParticle has secured a $3 million seed round from Google Ventures, Buddy Media’s Mike Lazerow and digital […]

A year after Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said there was more potential “upside” for the portal’s revenues in search than display, its Q3 performance suggests it will not reverse its declines soon. Among the topline results in Yahoo’s Q3 (read the earnings release): GAAP display revenues fell 7% to $470 million. Last year, this percentage […]

Krishna Subramanian, the chief marketing officer of the mobile marketing agency Velti and co-founder of ad exchange Mobclix, which Velti acquired, has resigned from the troubled agency. In an email, Subramanian writes, “As many of you already know I have moved on from Velti. I am grateful to have co-founded Mobclix and humbled by the part […]

Alibaba Group, the Chinese equivalent of Amazon, has invested $206 million in ShopRunner, a member-only subscription ecommerce platform connecting consumers to hundreds of retail brands (like Toys R Us and Tommy Hilfiger) and a plethora of perks — like free, two-day shipping and express checkout for $79 a year or $8.95 a month. Alibaba, in […]

The retargeted advertising space is becoming highly lucrative, finds retargeting platform AdRoll, which announced today that it had passed a $100 million run rate, up from $50 million last year. The 6-year-old company claims to have more than 10,000 customers across 100 countries and was one of the first platforms to become a Facebook Exchange […]

This morning NBC Universal entered a strategic partnership with Comcast and Twitter to engineer a “See It” feature allowing Xfinity TV viewers to take action around a TV show from their Twitter stream. The integration allows Xfinity TV viewers to take actions such as starting a show on-demand or setting a DVR to record. Executives […]

All location-based mobile advertising campaigns are not created equal and, for retailers, the nuances between data sources and surfaced promotions have several layers of intricacy. Mobile advertising continues to pique the interest of retail marketers – and investors. Just today, end-to-end mobile marketing platform Swirl Networks closed an $8 million strategic investment round from Hearst […]

Panel-based TV ratings and TV-themed “social buzz” are on a collision course, and audience research mainstay Nielsen is doing everything it can to retain its pole position.  The company today announced “Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings” to measure TV-related Twitter discussion — both the volume of discussion and its total reach. Last fall, Nielsen, through a joint […]

In a summer interview, Facebook’s head of vertical measurement, Fred Leach, described the company’s measurement products and its partnership with Datalogix. In the below follow-up Q&A, Leach digs deeper into the company’s work on mobile measurement, attribution and the CPG category. AdExchanger: What are you working on in terms of mobile measurement? FRED LEACH: There are a couple ways […]

There’s a bright future for agencies in being effective purveyors of first-party data, said Brian Krick, the newest head of North American search and biddable for digital agency Essence. But, he said, they have to be willing to have tough conversations and break down barriers. Weaning channel-specific marketers off artificially inflated CPAs that don’t reflect true incremental revenue […]

However much click tracking, psychographic surveying, and big data analysis marketers do, few have a solid understanding of how their customers engage with social marketing content — or how those customers’ behavior differs between commercial and non-commercial interactions. To address the knowledge gap, Forrester Research has come up with a “Social Technographics Score,” a model […]

There is no doubt that data-driven advertising has transformed the marketing landscape. Traditional advertising agencies are fighting a steep battle against data-heavy enterprises like Google and Facebook as well as more nimble startups. Roundarch Isobar — an Aegis Media-owned digital marketing agency — is striving to embrace big data and mobile advertising. Its clients include […]

Twitter’s IPO filing is no longer “confidential” as the microblog released its full S-1 document with the SEC that details its plans to sell $ 1 billion worth of stock. Twitter, which recently acquired mobile supply side platform MoPub and unveiled its own version of an ad exchange with several API partners, will trade under […]

In-app ad supply keeps growing as people spend more time with their devices. Last year 80% of time spent on a smartphones and tablets took place in apps, versus a mobile website, according to comScore. Of course mobile developers remain a prime source of demand in the in-app ad space. There are more than 1.5 […]

Facebook is once again experimenting with a mobile ad network that would place ads on non-Facebook mobile apps and sites based on the social network’s data, the company confirmed. Business Insider first reported the news. “We’re currently running a second test to show Facebook ads off Facebook in mobile apps and on mobile sites. Our […]

Video is a big part of the programmatic ad discussion taking place at New York’s Advertising Week. A recent look at the landscape by Jeffries & Co. finds that early players like Tremor and YuMe have certain advantages in the short term. But the time is nearing when the majority of video advertising will be […]

Maybe it’s the turbulence that has surrounded Yahoo for the last several years, or maybe it’s reflective of CEO Marissa Mayer’s general worldview, but when asked about the competitive landscape by Charlie Rose during a Q&A at the IAB Mixx conference, she said the portal is more of a potential partner than a challenger to […]

Microsoft is hoping to gain more traction with higher priced, direct sales inventory on its network by striking an agreement with its fellow portals, AOL and Yahoo, to support technical specifications for automating the buying process around reserved ad sales. In other words, Microsoft is joining the push toward “premium programmatic” that AOL trumpeted Monday […]

AOL finally answered the question “What is a programmatic upfront?” by saying it would put its money where its mouth is: starting in 2014, it will make its reserved, guaranteed inventory available through its automated platforms for the first time. The portal lined up an array of advertising partners, noting that five of the six […]

While online video continues to grow, it’s becoming less certain that media buyers are ready to shift their focus demonstrably away from primetime TV. That’s not to say companies in the video space aren’t trying to make the movement between PC, mobile and TV screens more seamless. “We’re seeing single-digit ad dollars starting to move […]

Spotify, the ad-supported music streaming service, has barely scratched the surface of its advertising capabilities, but the 7-year-old company is treading carefully. The streaming service is up to more than 24 million active users, a quarter of whom are premium subscribers, and earned $577 million in total revenue last year. Part of the Stockholm-based company’s […]