Platforms

Political advertising in the United States from 2019 through 2020 will total $6.9 billion, up 63.3% from the last presidential cycle, according to eMarketer’s first political spending forecast published on Wednesday. If electoral budgets do play out as eMarketer forecasts, it will show the enduring hold TV has in the political media world. Television will […]

Marketers are spending boatloads on YouTube – to the tune of $15 billion in 2019 ad revenue, which Google shared for the first time last week. But YouTube can be a black box for data, and buyers want more insights to optimize their spend on the platform. “The more [data] we can get upfront about the […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Champing At The Fitbit Regulators around the world are taking a long look at Google’s proposed $2.1 billion takeover of the wearables company Fitbit. It’s not a typical antitrust situation, because Google doesn’t compete directly with Fitbit and the company isn’t the leader in […]

Mobile advertising IDs are probably not long for this world. Neither Apple nor Google – which is fresh off announcing its plan to kill third-party cookies in Chrome less than two years from now – has taken concrete steps to eliminate their respective device IDs as of yet, but the app ecosystem should be preparing for that […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Us Too Newly merged ViacomCBS will throw its hat into a crowded ring of streaming services with a new service that spans its whole content portfolio, joining its current OTT vehicle CBS All Access. Nothing is set in stone, but executives are considering an […]

Direct response and improving its revenue products are top priorities for Twitter in 2020. Twitter, which reported more than respectable Q4 earnings on Thursday, plans to finally finish rebuilding its ad server – codename: Project Tao – during the first half of 2020, and roll out a revamped version of its mobile application promotion product (MAP). Last […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. What Will Google Do? Heightened regulatory scrutiny of Google’s ad platform business has sparked an internal discussion about whether to get rid of its ad tech vendor stack (the artist formerly known as DoubleClick), sources tell The Wall Street Journal. “[Federal and state scrutiny] […]

Facebook said Wednesday it will nix mobile web publishers from Audience Network in order to exclusively focus on apps. Beginning on April 11, Audience Network will no longer fill any ad requests to web and in-stream placements. Facebook warned that campaign performance may fluctuate during the phase-out period. Read Facebook’s post on the change here. […]

It’s been just a year since Spotify entered the podcasting market, and consumption is already growing like gangbusters. Podcast hours streamed on the platform grew 200% year over year, and more than 16% of Spotify monthly active users (MAUs) engage with podcasts, the company said in its Q4 2019 earnings report on Wednesday. Spotify also […]

“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 Kunal Gupta, CEO at Polar. Facebook last week announced that its Off-Facebook Activity (OFA) tool would be available to more than 2 billion users worldwide. The tool debuted in a […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Oh The Places You’ll Grow Instagram reportedly brought in about $20 billion in ad revenue last year, more than a quarter of Facebook’s total earnings, Bloomberg reports. Those numbers aren’t confirmed – the sources are anonymous and Facebook doesn’t break out Instagram revenue. But […]

Snap is super focused on improving its average revenue per user (ARPU) this year. Snap’s ARPU for North America is growing – up 31% year over year (YoY) in the fourth quarter of 2019 – but at $4.42, it still significantly lags Facebook’s, which topped $41 in Q4. On Tuesday, chief business officer Jeremi Gorman outlined […]

YouTube drove $15 billion in ad revenue in fiscal 2019, according to Alphabet’s Q4 and FY results, released Monday. Read the release. This is the first time Google has disclosed YouTube’s revenues, which have grown briskly over the past three years – from $8.2 billion in 2017 and $11.2 billion in 2018. Alphabet will now […]

As the mobile app space matures and consolidates, one of its early entrants is floundering. Smaato just appointed its fourth CEO in a year after laying off 10% of its staff. Total headcount is down 20% from the beginning of last year, with the mobile exchange going from 240 to 190 employees. Ajitpal Pannu, who […]

Amazon is the ultimate bottom-of-the-funnel play for brands. But the company sees big opportunities to expand into branding. “I don’t think we do a good enough job of allowing brands to have a recreational and ongoing conversation with consumers,” said Colleen Aubrey, VP of performance advertising at Amazon, at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview in New York […]

Remember those “ad targeting-related headwinds” Facebook keeps talking about every quarter? They’re finally going to hit this year. Facebook experienced some effects in 2019 from global privacy regulations, privacy-focused changes made by mobile operating systems and browsers (Google did a thing) and its own privacy product rollouts. However, “the majority of the impact lies in […]

OpenX CEO Tim Cadogan is leaving after 12 years to become CEO of GoFundMe. OpenX President John Gentry, a seven-year vet at the company, will step into the CEO role. “I’ve been walking in this direction for a long time,” Cadogan said. “It’s been a quarter of my life.” He said he told the board […]

Mike Brooks, WeatherBug’s SVP of revenue, is a mobile programmatic evangelist. “We’ve seen a huge positive impact from adopting a unified auction, and we like to be vocal about it,” Brooks said. “We talk about programmatic to anybody who will listen, because this is the way of the future.” In early 2018, the weather app, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Stalling The Install  Google is changing its search-to-app install campaign measurement starting this month so that iOS installs driven by Google searches will no longer be reported by third-party attribution companies, Ronan Shields reports for Adweek. The change is a forerunner to Google’s eventual […]

Sarah Personette’s career has taken her on a wild tour around the industry. After graduating from Northwestern in 2001, she landed an agency job at Starcom – taking the interview on a whim. She was on an upward trajectory when she left the agency world to join an upstart social media company called Facebook. “My […]

Subscribe to AdExchanger Talks on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts. In this episode, we try to unpack the mystery of China: its tech giants, its attention economy and, yes, the role of the Communist Party. Our guide is Humphrey Ho, US Managing Director of China-based agency Hylink Digital. […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Not-So-New Microsoft Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, speaking at a private media event last week, explained how the trillion-dollar company plans to keep up with the evolution of enterprise and consumer tech – and why that doesn’t mean giving up on legacy businesses. “What […]

Google GM and VP of apps, video and display Sissie Hsiao will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference in New York on Jan. 28-29, 2020. Google is known for making methodical changes with long roll-out periods. But Sissie Hsiao, who became general manager and VP of Google’s advertising business across apps, video and display in […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. WhatsAds? Facebook is giving up on its plan to introduce ads on WhatsApp. The messaging app recently shut down a team tasked with bringing ads to the platform and deleted the code from its app, The Wall Street Journal reports. Despite unveiling a prototype […]

As the streaming wars intensify, NBCUniversal on Thursday sought to draw a clear distinction between the soon-to-be-launched Peacock and its streaming and digital competitors. Peacock will debut with 10 ad experiences that emphasize interactivity and performance, the company revealed during an investor day in New York City. It will run just five minutes of ads […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Cookie Crumbs Industry trade bodies are not pleased with Google’s bombshell announcement this week that it would phase out support for third-party cookies over the next two years. In an open letter, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. There’s An App For That Mobile apps earned $190 billion in ad revenue in 2019 and are forecast to surpass $240 billion this year, according to App Annie’s annual report. App stores made $120 billion from in-app and app download payments, with 72% coming […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Brand Safe Or Bust  TikTok may offer a curated feed of content that will appease advertisers as brand safety becomes a bigger concern on the platform. The feed of vetted TikTok creators will enable the app to charge advertisers higher rates for guaranteed brand […]

When Nielsen CEO David Kenny stepped into the top role at the end of 2018, the company was embattled on multiple fronts. Viewers were shifting to streaming TV, which Nielsen struggled to measure. Nielsen’s media customers, frustrated with the company’s slow pace of innovation, started moving away from its measurement services. NBCUniversal, for example, spearheaded […]

Facebook clarified its political advertising policy on Thursday. And the update is: No update. Facebook has been at the center of a PR and policy firestorm over its political advertising policies since October, when President Trump’s reelection campaign ran an ad featuring a lie about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. At the same […]