Platforms

The TDB company that was formed when IBM sold the bulk of its Watson Marketing portfolio to private equity firm Centerbridge in April finally has a name: Acoustic. Acoustic is starting out with a large stable of clients – around 3,500 – inherited from IBM, and a headcount of 1,100. It’s also hiring, with a particular focus […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Facebook Is Fine Looks like Facebook was prescient in setting aside billions in anticipation of a $3 billion to $5 billion FTC fine. The FTC reportedly approved a $5 billion fine against the social networking giant on Friday. If the fine is approved by […]

It’s hard enough to develop features that work well for one app or site – let alone more than 100. But that’s the task at hand for Kara Chiles, senior director of product development at USA Today Network, a national news service that shares content and resources between USA Today and Gannett-owned local properties across the […]

 The French ad-tech company Pubstack said Wednesday it raised $2.3 million in seed funding from two VC firms and a handful of angel investors, including Criteo co-founder Romain Niccoli. Pubstack’s tech is designed to make it easier for publishers to monitor their programmatic partners in real time, and it connects monetization data with what happened […]

Facebook is putting out the welcome mat for professional content creators by diversifying the ways they can earn revenue on the platform. Creators can pursue up to four different revenue streams. They can set up subscriber-only paid groups, receive “stars” as tips from fans, rent their audience to their branded content partners and share in […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Ecom And Go Walmart’s big move into ecommerce, starting three years ago with its $3.3 billion deal for Jet.com, has been an overall success. It’s online sales grew by 40% last year, and an online grocery pick-up service is one of the fastest-growing elements […]

After more than a year on ice, Facebook is bringing back reach estimates in Custom Audiences. Facebook suspended the metric, which advertisers would use to preview reach estimates for lists uploaded to Custom Audiences, in March 2018 when academic researchers from Northeastern University discovered a vulnerability. The exploit could have allowed someone to infer attributes […]

Twitch streamers will sling products during two 12-hour streams on July 15 and July 16 to drive Amazon Prime Day sales. The Twitch Presents channel will be taken over by different streaming celebrities selling products ranging from electronics and gaming to kitchenware and kitsch. It’s QVC, but with gamers making the sale. The close alignment […]

Last year, Mark Zuckerberg went on a Cambridge Analytica apology tour. This year, he’s got a new theme: DC, bring on your regs. In the absence of regulation, “we’re going to do the best we can,” the Facebook CEO said Wednesday during a fireside chat at the annual Aspen Ideas Festival. But private companies, he […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Global Transparency Facebook started rolling out transparency tools for political ads in 2018 – now it’s pushing those tools out globally. These tools include an authorization process, where Facebook confirms a political advertiser’s identity, and the party responsible for the ad will appear on […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Snap, Mon Ami Snap is starting to tone down its too-cool-for-school vibe. The company has been known to operate with a certain level of hauteur in relation to advertisers, agencies and the press. But Snap is making a concerted effort to be less secretive […]

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. Watch And Learn Facebook really wants those TV ad dollars – but it’s going to take more than simply showing up at the upfronts. The first thing Facebook needs to do is prove that its video service, Watch, is a hit with audiences. Facebook […]

Industry insiders were largely puzzled when LinkedIn said it would buy cross-device linkage company Drawbridge in May. LinkedIn buried the announcement in a blog post, and the LinkedIn-Drawbridge synergies weren’t obvious, so it made sense to assume the purchase was either an acqui-hire or a fire sale. But, according to two AdExchanger sources, LinkedIn paid […]

Serious runners wear Saucony, the Boston-based footwear brand. But there are also many runners who don’t define themselves as hardcore. Rather, they’re attracted to what running enables them to do: Stay fit, enjoy good food or run for a cause. Saucony is tapping into that mentality through its Run for Good campaign, an Instagram-based relay […]

This article is sponsored by Facebook.  Creating a strong customer experience across all of the digital moments that matter is essential to prevent customers from dropping off. Few digital channels play a more pivotal role than Facebook and Instagram in funneling customers through this journey. According to one survey by Ipsos, nearly 75% of monthly […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Adobe On A Cloud Adobe bragged about its customer data platform Tuesday on the company’s second quarter earnings call. The marketing clouds are going for broke this week on the CDP front – Adobe, Salesforce and Oracle all made CDP-related announcements – but Adobe […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Bull’s-Eye Targeting If you want to use Target’s first-party data, you don’t need to use Target’s DSP – just the SSP where it has its data loaded. Competitors (ahem, Amazon) force advertisers onto an owned DSP to activate segments such as “electronics purchasers,” for […]

Pinterest really wants people to shop on its platform. The newly public company revamped its marketing partner program on Monday and added a new partner category for third-party tech providers that facilitate shopping experiences. But the rebrand of Pinterest’s Marketing Developer Partners program to a global Pinterest Partners program is more than a cosmetic change. […]

Instagram has a lot going for it right now: Millions of active advertisers, an opportunity to capitalize on commerce, impression growth, a love affair with DTC brands, the continued breakneck growth of Stories … and the fact that a lot of people still don’t necessarily associate it with Facebook. The Facebook connection has been both […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The B2B CDP? Dun & Bradstreet has agreed to acquire Lattice Engines, a B2B marketing startup. D&B says it made the deal to add a customer data platform (CDP), a trendy category of tech companies that collect and manage consumer data. Lattice started as […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Publishing Tech Wednesday was a big day for hybrid ad tech/publisher businesses. TheStreet, a stock market news site, was acquired by Maven for $16.5 million. Read the release. Maven was founded by ad industry vets after doing a reverse recapitalization of a public shell […]

The US Department of Justice is reportedly preparing an antitrust investigation into Google. But that doesn’t mean Google is headed for a breakup and, at least for now, there are way more questions than answers. Which parts of Google’s sprawling business will the DOJ look into? Will it delve beyond Google’s search practices, which have […]

When Snap first acquired Placed in 2017, it teased the prospect of proving to buyers how Snap Ads translate into store visits and real-world results. Yet over the next two years, before Snap sold Placed to Foursquare last week, Snap never highlighted the Placed technology in its pitch to media buyers; Placed was never integrated […]

The former CTO of Disney ABC Television, Michael Napodano, who also spent a decade at NBCUniversal, joined Operative on Monday in the newly created role of Chief Delivery and Information Officer. “Having been on the programming side of the house for so long, I wanted to challenge myself to be a part of a company […]

Amazon’s acquisition of Sizmek’s ad server and dynamic creative optimization (DCO) platform Friday puts it in a better position to compete with Google for advertiser budgets. Amazon will likely gain new clients from Sizmek who don’t want to deal with switching ad servers, as well as some advertisers who don’t like the idea of working […]

Placed has found a new home. Foursquare is buying the location-based measurement company from Snap. Separately, it raised $150 million in fresh funding courtesy of The Raine Group, some of which is going to fund the acquisition. The rest is earmarked for R&D. The deal, announced early Friday morning, comes less than two years after […]

Mark Zuckerberg has four top priorities for Facebook in the year ahead – but stepping down as chairman of the board ain’t one of them. At Facebook’s annual stockholders meeting on Thursday, numerous resolutions to create a check on Zuckerberg’s power – he simultaneously serves as chair of the board and CEO – were vetoed, as expected. Although […]

Today in the podcast studio, Criteo COO Mollie Spilman talks about what makes companies survive and thrive in the ever-changing digital advertising business. Criteo was the emblem of the wild growth in programmatic marketing, and remains the second-largest publicly-traded ad tech companies with a valuation of $1.3B. In the five years since Spilman joined to […]

Facebook is bringing playable ads, an interactive format that lets users demo a mini version of an app before downloading it, to Audience Network starting Wednesday. It’s available within rewarded video and interstitial placements. In the coming weeks, Facebook is also planning to expand access to its rewarded video unit to all publishers across the […]