Platforms

Facebook’s nascent real-time bidding marketplace is steadily ramping up. The Facebook Exchange continues to add new RTB partners and may be close to publishing a list of approved Facebook Exchange vendors to its Preferred Marketing Developers directory. The list of approved Exchange RTB partners now includes 14 firms, up from 9 in late June – […]

Facebook is trying out a new ad placement that lets advertisers build the reach of ads in the news feed – the most visible real estate for its sponsored ad units. In what’s being called “a very small test,” Page owners will be able to promote posts to Facebook users who are not fans of […]

Demand Media’s Q2 earnings beat Wall St.’s expectations last week, as the content aggregator (don’t call them a “content farm,” okay?) and owner of eHow, Livestrong and Cracked posted its first, albeit slight, profit since issuing its IPO over a year ago. The company has attributed much of its growth to social media, something that traditional […]

Display ad retargeter TellApart continues to grow its footprint among ecommerce publishers. CEO Josh McFarland recently discussed his company’s momentum and industry trends. Though he demurred on the subject of revenues, McFarland offered an optimistic outlook on his company and the industry at large in a Q&A with AdExchanger. AdExchanger: Can you talk a bit […]

Internet radio player Pandora has had some ups and downs since going public a year ago. For example, in the past month, streaming music service Spotify began directly competing against Pandora with its own internet radio offering. A month before, Pandora unveiled an advertiser-friendly update to its mobile apps – to withering reviews from users […]

Dentsu-owned 360i is well known for “earned” and social media strategies, but about half its revenue comes from paid media billings, search, and analytics. The agency has solved complex data problems for the likes of Capital One, J.C. Penney, and NBC Universal, and it’s positioning for a future of ballooning analytics requirements. EVP Jared Belsky […]

In addition to running several vertical blog networks around subjects from tech to food to health, Federated Media has built up its tech side in the past year. The first anniversary of its acquisition of ad net operator and supply side platform Lijit is approaching and FM is preparing to start offering private exchanges to […]

App marketing is often about incentivizing downloads, with little thought given to post-installation engagement. For obvious reasons that’s not workable for free or “freemium” app developers who make their money after the install. Apsalar is trying to address this. The two-year-old firm began with a mobile analytics platform that later became the foundation for a […]

Media companies aren’t what they used to be as distinct technology companies and agencies may percolate within. Think Hearst/iCrossing, Gannett and its cadre of digital tools and services, The New York Times, Conde Nast – and Washington Post Company and SocialCode. As CEO Laura O’Shaughnessy tells it, SocialCode is “the biggest player in the paid […]

Facebook has certified DoubleClick for ad impression tracking, ending an unofficial policy against Google technologies on its platform. Sources tell AdExchanger Facebook’s decision went into effect in the last two weeks. It’s undoubtedly good news for DoubleClick and its customers, who will now be able to track and attribute Facebook campaign impressions alongside their other […]

Socially persistent Google will buy Wildfire Interactive for approximately $25o million. The deal comes just a few months after Google reportedly sniffed around Wildfire competitor Buddy Media, before Buddy sold to Salesforce. (Read Google’s blog post) The deal hasn’t closed  but sources tell AdExchanger that Google doesn’t expect the need for regulatory review and hopes to finalize things […]

Early engagement with a new Facebook app, RedPlum Social Savings, suggests a possible path forward for traditional coupon marketers eager to break into social. The three-month-old app is offered by Valassis, the coupons giant behind the RedPlum brand, famous for newspaper inserts and direct mail coupons. Valassis says RedPlum and its other channels reach 100 […]

Free text and calling app Pinger is the biggest mobile app you’ve never heard of. In December 2011, ComScore rated it third in daily usage minutes among iOS apps, ahead of Facebook and Twitter, and fifth in device installs. It’s backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which has a knack for picking winners with […]

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are still riding above the fray. For all the talk about Facebook’s new Wall Street masters, about its inevitable kowtowing to advertisers, about its bummer of an IPO and its withering stock price, the overall impression made by its first earnings call (story) was  of a company largely indifferent to […]

Facebook disclosed Q2 ad revenues of $992 million in its first quarterly earnings report, with cash from ads making up 84% of its total haul. Revenue growth was 28% year over year, a deceleration from Q1 when revenue grew 45%. Facebook is darn close to the billion user mark, with Monthly Active Users at 955 […]

CPX Interactive was founded and long run as a traditional ad network business, but it wants to be known for multi-channel advertising — a la ValueClick. So it’s breaking out its channel offerings into branded divisions, starting with mobile and affiliate ads. Its new mobile network, Moversa, is three months old but already contributes 5% […]

In Q2, as it has for the past year, AOL’s third party network revenue rose by double digits, while U.S. display dollars remained flat. Read the earnings release. During the earnings call with investors, who once again saw their low expectations exceeded by AOL’s performance, CEO Tim Armstrong batted back questions about the advertising challenge […]

As Facebook hosts its first quarterly earnings call tomorrow after market close, investors will be looking at a range of health indicators. Among them are user engagement (daily, monthly), monetization of mobile, and ad pricing. The bar is lower than might have been expected pre-IPO, with some analysts forecasting decelerated growth in Q2  — owing partly […]

“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 Sacha Xavier, Partner, Media & Innovation Director for Neo@Ogilvy. The mobile media space is as exciting as it is daunting. As a digital media director, it seems there are more […]

One particular area of hope for Yahoo has been its acquisition of data management platform interclick, for which it paid $270 million November 2011. But the financial boost it provided was deemed “disappointing” by CFO Tim Morse  during the company’s Q2 earnings call last week. AdExchanger spoke with Peter Foster, Genome’s GM, on the integration of Yahoo’s data […]

Upcast Social is a London-based marketing firm specializing in managing Facebook campaigns. It was one of the early companies to be certified as a preferred marketing developer (PMD) for the Facebook Ads API. AdExchanger spoke with CEO Jim Brigden and Client Services Director Josh Wallin. AdExchanger: What’s the origin story for Upcast Social? JB: Upcast […]

Having originally conceived the idea while at vertical ad network Adify (which he sold to Cox in 2008 for a healthy $300 million), CEO Russ Fradin has not lost any steam in his own personal startup engine – let alone his passion for his latest startup, Dynamic Signal. Fradin explains that brand clients want to […]

When it comes to attribution modeling on the Facebook platform, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Last week, Adometry became the first pure play attribution vendor to get certified under Facebook’s ad tracking requirements (AdExchanger story). But not all of its competitors see approval of their ad tags as an important step […]

Social analytics provider 33across just raised $13.1 million as part of a “growth round,” designed to help the New York-based company build up its technology offerings and marketing team. Read the release. We sat down with CEO Eric Wheeler to discuss the details of those plans and to take a look at how the company […]

WPP-owned Mindshare has a lot of love for its digital ad partners, but it’s tough love — especially on the first date. For one client, new ad networks, data providers, and other platforms must prove their worth within a week of testing. “Every test partner for this client has seven days to perform, and if […]

Facebook is gradually opening up to third party ad vendors, including ad tracking companies. Its list of certified tracking partners includes Atlas, Mediamind and Pointroll. Until today, none of them was exclusively focused on the burgeoning niche of attribution management. That changes with the certification of pure play Adometry’s tags for the Facebook platform. Customers […]

Yahoo followed yesterday’s big news that Google product veteran Marissa Mayer was its new CEO with a Q2 earnings report consisting of small, barely-better-than-flat revenue and profit gains.  Read the release. Display revenue  was $473 million (excluding traffic acquisition costs), representing a 1 percent increase over Q2 2011. To put that number in context, in […]

Late last week Facebook released Premium Ad inventory to its self-serve and Ads API channels. By doing so, it intends to relieve the burden of selling these ad types solely from its direct sales force and make them more widely available. But the eventual impact of the move could be more complicated. For instance, from […]

Having lost its display dominance last year to Google and Facebook, Yahoo has turned to high-profile Google veteran Marissa Mayer to help reverse the company’s decline. Read the release. In making the choice, Yahoo has decided to replace widely respected digital ad sales veteran Ross Levinsohn, who had been serving as CEO on an interim […]

Having come a long way from its mobile video days, Waltham, Massachussetts-based Nexage appears ready for the next stage of its real-time bidding (RTB), mobile ad exchange strategy given the recent round of investment led by telecom SingTel’s venture group, SingTel Innov8. Though Nexage CEO Ernie Cormier cautions the investment is financial versus strategic and […]