Platforms

Lying in digital advertisements has become a flashpoint in US politics this year. A running dispute between Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign and Facebook ratcheted up this weekend, after the Massachusetts senator posted an ad on the social platform featuring a lie that Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had endorsed Donald Trump for reelection. “You’re probably […]

If TikTok is still proving its value as a marketing platform, despite skyrocketing popularity among Gen Z, it got a huge boost in October when the cosmetics company e.l.f. ran a sponsored hashtag challenge, #eyeslipsface, that amassed 1.6 billion views in just over a week. Two factors led to e.l.f’s success on TikTok: showing up […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Vote With Your Feet Mobile location data is gaining importance in US politics. Campaigns can now connect supporters at a rally or event to online audiences via mobile device IDs collected at the venue, a popular trick for campaigns with large rallies and social […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Ad Booking Frenzy YouTube created an instant reserve program to allow political campaigns to lock up key slots through February 2020. Just like when your favorite band goes on sale at Ticketmaster, campaign employees stayed up until 3 am so they could book the […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Twitter Oops Twitter used emails and phone numbers provided by users for two-factor authentication – when you provide a backup security contact to catch any improper account logins – for advertising purposes. Specifically, emails and phone numbers were used for Tailored Audiences campaigns, Twitter’s […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Plaintiff Engagement Remember Facebook’s video metrics mess? That situation led to a class action lawsuit, in which ad agencies alleged that Facebook inflated video engagement. And now, a proposed settlement would have Facebook pay $40 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The money would […]

Small businesses in the United States are driving ad spend growth globally, thanks to self-serve and cost-efficient ad buying tools from Facebook and Google. While local businesses traditionally use local TV and radio, producing a commercial can cost thousands of dollars. And even though some DTC brands are targeting on OTT, production for those spots […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Getting Ugly Disney has banned ads from Netflix across its platforms as it gears up to launch a subscription streaming service in November, The Wall Street Journal reports. Disney, Comcast and AT&T will spend hundreds of millions of dollars each on advertising over the […]

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. TikTok Snubs Campaign Ads Candidates: The world’s fastest-growing social app doesn’t want your money. “We have chosen not to allow political ads on TikTok,” VP of Global Business Solutions Blake Chandlee, writes in a post innocuously titled “Understanding our policies around paid ads.” He […]

Companies large and small have griped for years that tech giants – Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple – habitually engage in anticompetitive behavior. Regulators around the world are now paying attention. In some cases, companies proactively proffer their grievances, while in others, regulators solicit their feedback as evidence gathering in newly launched antitrust investigations. Here’s […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Vice And Virtue The consolidation of media proceeds apace. One week after Vox nabbed New York Media, Vice said it will acquire Refinery29. The price was not disclosed, but CNN business sources put the deal below $500 million. Vice CEO Nancy Dubuc called the […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Big Guns Vs. Google Comcast’s FreeWheel unit told a congressional task force last month that Google used privacy concerns to limit FreeWheel and other video advertising companies from selling ads for its clients on YouTube. Other ad tech and cable companies have spoken out […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Rerouting Traffic Google plans to use a new internet protocol (DNS over TLS) to improve security in its Chrome browser, and internet service providers are worried. Specifically, they fear Google’s shift to a new standard could change the competitive landscape in Google’s favor. “They […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Settling The Score The US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Comscore and its former CEO, Serge Matta, with engaging in a fraudulent scheme to inflate its revenue and making false or misleading statements to investors and auditors. Read the SEC release. Between 2014 and […]

Assembled from acquisitions totaling in the multibillions, Oracle Data Cloud (ODC) had become inefficient, too focused on its declining business selling third-party data. Now, the embattled unit is trying to streamline. ODC cut 10% to 15% of its staff Monday, multiple sources told AdExchanger, after which it will focus on contextual data, brand safety and […]

Google’s advertising chief Prabhakar Raghavan is reorganizing Google’s ads business – and adding new heads of measurement and privacy, according to multiple AdExchanger sources. As part of the reorg, he’s re-visualizing the company as four “concentric circles.” The innermost circle is Google’s owned-and-operated properties, including search and YouTube. The next circle outside of that is […]

Facebook said Friday that it’s suspending “tens of thousands” of apps from its platform for data usage violations. The suspended apps are associated with around 400 developers. The purge is part of Facebook’s continuing investigation into how third-party app developers use Facebook data, sparked by the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March 2018. So far, the […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Is This Innovid-ive? Video ad company Innovid bought Argentinean display company Herolens for $30 million, after raising $30 million in January. “Display is a bad business,” Innovid CEO Zvika Netter told The Wall Street Journal. Huh? Well, Innovid needs a display ad business to […]

While you chill on the sofa trying to figure out what to watch next, there’s a war raging for your attention, and Facebook is the most recent combatant. On Wednesday, Facebook launched the latest additions to its suite of Portal hardware products, including a streaming stick for TV sets complete with video chatting functionality, augmented […]

Advertising in the news feed is set to get more interactive with the introduction of three new ad products: poll ads, playables and augmented reality ads. “This is advertising that users can play with, and I use the term ‘play,’ because it should be fun,” said Mark D’Arcy, VP of global business marketing and chief […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Satellite Down Little over a week after activist investor Elliott Associates criticized AT&T’s operations, including its $67 billion DirecTV acquisition in 2014, the satellite unit might be on the chopping block. AT&T is considering “parting ways” with DirecTV, according to The Wall Street Journal. […]

The Washington Post became the latest publisher to develop a self-serve platform to compete with Facebook when it released Zeus Prime on Tuesday. Zeus Prime adds a self-serve buyer interface to Zeus, The Washington Post’s revenue platform. The software-as-a-service platform emphasizes fast ad load times and high viewability. Most recently, it added the cookie-less contextual […]

YouTube is doing its damndest to appeal to TV advertisers. On Tuesday, YouTube made its masthead ad format available within the YouTube TV app through an open beta. Ford was an early beta tester. The unit will be generally available on TV screens sometime in Q4. The masthead format already exists for YouTube on the […]

After Freestar landed atop Inc.’s 2019 list of “Most Successful Companies in America,” co-founder Chris Stark pointed to header bidding as the reason the 45-person company’s growth exploded 36,680% over three years. Freestar solves for the complexity programmatic and header bidding created for publishers. In recent years, publishers managed bids through AdSense, then waterfalls, then […]

When Japan-based SmartNews raised its most recent funding round – $28 million in August – the company’s valuation hit $1.1 billion. It’s an eye-popping appraisal for a news discovery app. There aren’t many ad-supported unicorns galloping around the digital news biz these days. SmartNews has raised just over $116 million since 2013. The app, founded in Tokyo […]

Big tech can’t swing a cat these days without hitting an antitrust investigation. Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple are all facing varying degrees of heat from the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general across the nation, the House Judiciary Committee and competition authorities around the world. It’s hard to keep track […]

Oracle wants to help marketers bridge the gap between the known and unknown. The company integrated the BlueKai data management platform (DMP) and ID graph with its customer data platform (CDP), it said Tuesday at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. The move is meant to help marketers tie device-level data about unknown prospects […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Cart, Meet Horse Seth Dallaire, Amazon’s global ad sales leader for the past five years, was named chief revenue officer of Instacart on Friday. Read the release. Instacart’s primary business is with grocers and retailers, who use it for online ordering and delivery. But […]

Usually, you’ve got to pay lawyers for legal advice. But between sessions at Fordham University’s annual conference on international antitrust law and policy in New York City on Friday, there was lots of informal chatter about Google’s growing list of antitrust inquiries. The takeaway: This isn’t Google’s first antitrust rodeo, but it might be different […]