Platforms

Zynga is buying in-app growth and mobile monetization platform Chartboost for $250 million. It’s an excellent exit for a company that’s only raised $21 million since its $2 million Series A in 2011. The deal, expected to close in the third quarter, was announced on Wednesday on Zynga’s Q1 earnings call, during which the company […]

The founders of AdGear – a Canadian DSP and ad server acquired by Samsung Ads in 2016 – raised $3.6 million in seed funding to build a SaaS data connectivity platform called Optable. Optable uses specialized algorithms that ensure the secure transmission of encrypted audience data. The cryptographic technology allows for decentralized and secure data […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. CTV On Top People love to talk about streaming surpassing linear TV viewership, and that trend shows no sign of slowing down. Digital video advertising is on track to account for more than half of total video ad spend and to outpace traditional TV […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Dark Underbelly You know when the opt-in button is, like, way bigger than the opt-out button, or a checkbox is ticked by default? Those are dark patterns, and regulators are starting to take notice. The Federal Trade Commission held an all-day workshop last week […]

Amazon’s “other” segment, which houses its advertising business, grew 73% YoY to $6.9 billion in Q1. “The advertising team has done a great job turning clicks into productive sales, and the advertising that results is valuable to us as well,” said Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky. While Amazon’s ads business grew due to traffic increases, its […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Dropped Call It’s no surprise that Verizon is reportedly exploring a sale of AOL and Yahoo, the Web 1.0 titans it acquired in 2015 and 2017, respectively. As The Wall Street Journal points out, the telco has already divested itself of Tumblr and HuffPost. […]

WebMD and Medscape parent company Internet Brands is set to acquire PulsePoint, a New York-based programmatic platform focused on healthcare marketers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is set to close in early June following regulatory approvals. Healthcare and pharmaceutical marketers’ digital advertising spend grew over 14% in 2020 and is expected […]

Seems like almost every ad tech company you meet these days has attained unicorn status. Mobile ad platform Moloco has raised a Series C funding round, announced Thursday, that brings its valuation to $1 billion. The funding came courtesy of the South Korean investment banking group Shinhan GIB and a handful of other new and […]

Facebook’s ability to generate buckets of ad revenue frankly makes its earnings reports a bit … boring. The company shared results for Q1 on Wednesday. Advertising revenue for the first quarter was up 46% year-over-year to $25.4 billion dollars, accelerating across all regions. Average revenue per user in the United States and Canada clocked in […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Take Two Google seems perennially mired in litigation these days. The latest legal salvo hurled at the tech giant is a $4.16 billion class action lawsuit in the UK alleging that Google illegally tracked 4.4 million iPhone users nearly 10 years ago in England […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. All For Me And None For … Thee? Apple’s new privacy restrictions in iOS 14 could give its own small but growing ad business an edge over rivals, The Wall Street Journal reports. For one thing, advertisers targeting iPhone users will get more data […]

One year after the pandemic led to a sharp fall in Alphabet’s ad spending, the company’s Q1 2020 ad revenue has more than rebounded, sending the stock upwards in after-hours trading. Alphabet revenue grew 34% in Q1 to $55.3 billion. The amount Google paid out to its partners (or traffic acquisition costs) trailed revenue, growing […]

Despite widespread DSP consolidation, some buyers still find their needs aren’t being served. So IPONWEB developed Bidcore, a customizable DSP for buyers with unusual needs or use cases, and who don’t want to optimize around CPA, click-through rate or viewability. In the past, ad tech companies would have asked IPONWEB to build them a white […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. #Fail The pervasiveness of fake ad schemes on Facebook and Google have left their users “worryingly exposed to scams,” especially because the two giants have failed to crack down on fraudulent activity, even after it has been reported. Or so says the British consumer […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Another Day, Another Grilling The Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust is continuing its probe into big tech, and the latest hearing drilled down on competition (or, rather, the lack thereof) in Apple’s App Store and Google Play, The Wall Street Journal reports. The usual […]

Amazon provided the spark for a surge in retail and commerce-based advertising. That surge has now reached fever pitch as other online retailers, including Walmart, CVS and Target, launch ad platforms in pursuit of incremental advertising revenue. It’s working. Already advertisers are spending $5 billion annually on non-Amazon retail media platforms, according to Forrester Research. […]

Snapchat is growing up. Well, its ad tech is, at any rate. The youthful makeup of Snapchat’s user base is still one of its biggest selling points for advertisers. But competing against Facebook, Google and even Twitter for direct response dollars requires a big investment. DR spending was up during the pandemic across most large […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Swimming With The Stream In an effort to change with the times, Nielsen is releasing a new ratings system that will measure streaming more like linear TV, Adweek reports. The system, called Nielsen Streaming Video Ratings, will track who is watching, when they’re watching, […]

Pinterest and Shopify have globally expanded a social commerce partnership that launched last year. The partnership began in the United States and Canada with the Pinterest Shopify app, which allows businesses to quickly upload their product catalogs to Pinterest and convert them into shoppable Product Pins. The app is now available in 27 other countries, […]

Hive, which supplies AI-based contextual and measurement technology to media and ad tech companies, said Wednesday it raised $85 million in funding, valuing the company at over $2 billion. The company has raised $121 million in total. Hive has raised a lot in the past year. It closed a $50 million Series D round earlier […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Jay Stocki, the data practice lead at Prohaska Consulting. When consumer data goes into a walled garden, it never comes out. Ad dollars go in, but the true measurement of the results never come out. […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Not So Safe Eighty percent of the more than 3.3 billion pieces of content removed from social media platforms – including Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and Snapchat – is either spam, adult or explicit content, or hate speech, according to a new report from the […]

Some media buyers report feeling a niggling sense of FOMO when they try to use Facebook Ads Manager to target their ads on Facebook and Instagram. “Everyone I talk to has the sense that they’re missing out on something, that something feels … hidden,” said Ty Martin, a former iCrossing search and digital media executive […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Audit Demanded Remember when the TV networks and Nielsen got into a pretty big fight because Nielsen didn’t do such a great job of measuring TV audiences during the pandemic? Well, CBS, ABC, NBC and other TV networks are now calling for an audit […]

Amazon’s demand-side platform saw tremendous growth in Q1 as ad spend on the platform soared nearly 90% year over year, fueled in large part by its powerful audience targeting capabilities that proved attractive to advertisers during an ecommerce boom.  Ad spend growth was strong across all ad formats, particularly display available through the Amazon DSP, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. All Organic Things are starting to look up at Publicis Groupe. After getting battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the holding company saw a return to organic revenue growth in Q1 as marketers were confident enough to restart projects, especially in the US. The Wall […]

AppLovin is hoping to get some lovin’ from a white hot public market that’s been rewarding technology stocks with massive valuations. The company announced its IPO on Thursday, offering 22.5 million shares at $80 a pop. Trading will begin on the Nasdaq under the ticker APP. (Update: Shares opened at $70, below the target, and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. TikTocking Dollars TikTok wants in on the ecommerce action that has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s introducing new ad formats designed for purchase conversions on the platform. Business Insider reports that the Chinese video app plans to roll out new tools l that […]

Google’s lack of transparency has long frustrated publishers and independent ad tech companies, and its clandestine program “Project Bernanke” has only confirmed their suspicions that Google uses learnings from its auction to benefit itself. Ad tech insiders met the allegations that Google secretly fed publisher ad server data into its buying systems to gain market […]

As ecommerce advertising becomes more expensive on Facebook, Jeremy Bloom, co-founder and chief revenue officer of tech startup Marpipe, said that brands need to take a data-driven approach to creative testing instead of relying on antiquated “spray and pray” A/B testing methods. Marpipe was founded by 26-year-old CEO Dan Pantelo and last year launched an […]