Platforms

Dan Salmon is an equity research analyst at BMO Capital Markets and covers advertising and marketing services. Salmon upgraded Facebook from “Underperform” with a $15 target to “Outperform” and $32 target and explored his outlook in a research note to investors on Monday. You can download it here (PDF). AdExchanger: Where are the ad dollars […]

It’s been nearly a year since ad sales workflow systems provider Mediaocean was given the regulatory green light to form the merger of Mediabank and Donovan Data Systems. While Mediaocean picked up the mantle of both entities’ attempts to bring online media buying methods to traditional TV, Mediaocean CEO Bill Wise tells AdExchanger that the […]

Having “incubated” rich media mobile ads firm Celtra in 2006 while he finished his graduate studies at Babson College, CEO Mihael Mikek has seen the pre-smartphone days when SMS ads were all the rage. Eventually the mobile market began to take off and after grabbing $7 million in funding since 2010, the Boston-based company has […]

AdBrite morphed into an ad exchange platform four years ago after shifting gears from its ad network beginnings, but the company was never recognized for making the full leap. Back in May, its board decided it was time for a change and brought in former Yahoo/Right Media executive Hardeep Bindra to make the evolution complete. […]

Facebook has added retargeting firm Chango to its list of preferred partners for Facebook Exchange, bringing a powerful aggregator of search intent data to the real-time bidding marketplace. The move is notable in that it represents an incursion by Facebook on the “intent currency” of Google (Bing and Yahoo too), after a period of failed […]

Nielsen has for years sought ways to measure the interplay of social media activity and TV viewing. Its new “multi-year” deal with Twitter is a tacit acknowledgement that Nielsen can’t close the media measurement loop on its own. There’s a similar observation to made about this morning’s announcement that Nielsen is buying long-time audience measurement rival, Arbitron, […]

December is an optimistic month for people in media and advertising, as retailers and other brands unleash a final torrent of spending before the period of relative hibernation known as “Q1.” It’s also a month of grand prognostications, when we collectively succumb to the folly of trying to guess what’s next. To supplement your personal […]

While anyone can follow a social media conversation stream through hashtags, social media ad tech provider RadiumOne is now starting to sell targeted ads off of these signifiers in real-time. The idea is to become part of consumers’ conversations as they’re taking off, not after they’ve already “trended” on Twitter or other social platforms. RadiumOne’s […]

AppNexus is an object of some fascination in digital marketing circles, and why not? Led by former rivals from Right Media and DoubleClick Ad Exchange, the privately held company has grown up to become perhaps the only scaled “pure” technology company in the real-time bidding landscape. It provides no managed services, accepts no insertion orders, […]

A quick search on Facebook’s Preferred Marketing Developer directory reveals that the number of real-time bidding partners for the Facebook Exchange is 12, three fewer than were announced back in September. What gives? Contrary to appearances, the three missing companies — [x+1], Optimal, and Kenshoo – have not been kicked off of FBX for violating […]

In a panel discussion at Tuesday’s AllFacebook Conference, platform providers offered their insights on Facebook’s Open Graph and what marketers should think about when it comes to their social media plans. Facebook describes “Open Graph” on its developer site as helping “people tell stories about their lives with the apps they use. It provides developers […]

AOL has been promising a bigger effort on the programmatic side of the business all year and the company is ending 2012 with an acquisition that’s intended to both reflect and build on that focus. The company being acquired is Buysight, a retargeting and retail lead gen specialist. The four-year-old company will be folded into […]

Demand side platform MediaMath has scooped up Tap.Me and its roughly 11 employees for an undisclosed sum. The deal brings MediaMath a far more robust mobile and video ad serving capability than it had previously, according to CEO Joe Zawadzki. Tap.Me was previously focused on in-game ads (AdExchanger 2011 Q&A). But as sometimes happens in […]

Adelphic Mobile is one of a handful of companies trying to address the problem of poor audience segmentation in mobile. It hopes to get there faster with the help of a $10 million investment led by Google Ventures. The money is earmarked largely for marketing and other go-to-market spending. “We’ve been pretty heads down, working […]

Mobile advertising is on the rise and, looking at reports from the third quarter 2012, the use of mobile real-time bidding by buyers and publishers is also growing. Market intelligence firm IDC predicts that mobile advertising will reach $8 billion globally in 2012, jumping to $14.2 billion by 2014. Looking just at the U.S., market […]

AOL’s display performance is in comeback mode, but growth is lopsided. The company’s Q3 earnings presented a clear demonstration of the strength of third party network, which includes the flagship ad unit Advertising.com, as revenues jumped 18 percent over the same period in 2011. At the same time, revenue from AOL’s owned & operated sites […]

AudienceScience has shuttered its publisher network business to focus completely on marketing technology. The move is yet another sign of weak demand for traditional ad networks, as buyers steadily migrate budgets to exchange-traded media bought through DSPs. President Mike Peralta tells AdExchanger, “The transition has been in the works for 12 to 18 months. Across […]

Triggit, a demand side platform that has lately repositioned itself as a Facebook Exchange specialist, has raised a $7.4 million Series B round from existing investors. Spark Capital and Foundry Group participated, as did the company’s recently added CRO Chris Zaharias. CEO Zach Coelius tells AdExchanger, “We’ve focused every bit of our development and resources […]

With the launch of an Ads API access yesterday, LinkedIn joined a very small club of social companies that allow developers of outside platforms to customize and sell into their paid media products. The club shrinks further if you count only household names. Of the roughly 8 social companies with ad APIs, Facebook is the […]

Traditional branding exercises often focus on questions that can seem a little silly. What color is your brand? What shape? Percolate founder Noah Brier says his company sprang in part from the realization that “What does your brand consume?” also needs to be part of that equation. The company, which has been compared to Buddy […]

Facebook’s menu of ad types is growing longer all the time. And as the company continually tests new formats, it’s getting harder to keep track of all of them. Below is AdExchanger’s attempt to provide a snapshot of all relevant and current paid media products the company has on offer, along with a few that […]

The Black Friday holiday shopping tradition has been turned on its head, thanks to social media and Facebook. While retailers continue to encourage customers to rise before the sun on the day after Thanksgiving, they are adding ever more Facebook deals and apps, as well as mobile tools, that can be used throughout Thanksgiving week. […]

“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 Eric Picard, CEO at Rare Crowds. I’ve been designing, prototyping and deploying new ad formats in digital advertising for more than 15 years. I started one of the first rich […]

Facebook said on Friday it’s bringing back the conversion pixel to its online advertisers by the end of the month, after abandoning it in 2010. Editor’s note: Up until now, there appeared to be exceptions made for some large advertisers who were using third-party ad tracking on Facebook – likely due to the size of […]

Just ahead of Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving and the official start of the holiday shopping season — Facebook is broadening its e-commerce platform, Facebook Gifts, to include a wide range of big name retailers and digital content companies. The social network presented the announcement at a press conference at FAO Schwarz, the […]

Last month’s ad spending tally from the Interactive Advertising Bureau was another “record-breaker,” as marketers lavished $17 billion on web ads between January and the end of June 2012. Display revenues in the first half totaled almost $5.6 billion, up 4 percent from $5.3 billion in the first half of 2011. So everything should be […]

Facebook’s Exchange is in full swing outside the U.S. Speaking at the AppNexus Summit in New York this week, Facebook VP global partnerships Blake Chandlee noted FBX buyers can now access audiences in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. A spokesperson later confirmed the expansion and said Facebook is actively […]

While AOL’s Q3 growth was surely a welcome sign to patient investors, the fact that it has continued to come from its third party network and search ad deal with Google could be a long term problem. During a call with analysts, CEO Tim Armstrong acknowledged several times that the “traditional” display model of ad […]

Chris Golec is CEO of Demandbase, which positions itself as a real-time targeting and personalization platform for B2B marketing. Golec recently spoke to AdExchanger about his company’s new ad platform, known as “Demandbase Company Targeted Advertising.” Read the release. AdExchanger: How did you get to the advertising “moment” at Demandbase? CHRIS GOLEC: For most B2B […]

“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 Brian Kaminski, President US of iProspect. In the battle for digital advertising dollars, Google is the established leader and Facebook is the scrappy newcomer. While Google offers an expansive […]