Platforms

ComScore had a rough go of it in 2016, with fierce competition from Nielsen and other media validation companies, culminating in its delisting from the Nasdaq this month. But CEO Gian Fulgoni also expressed disappointment with the performance of comScore’s digital ad measurement tool, Validated Campaign Essentials (vCE), during a corporate update on Friday. Though […]

Dash Labs lets users transform their regular car into a smart car. The app interfaces with a dongle, sold separately, that plugs into a port beneath the steering wheel and connects via Bluetooth. But driver data isn’t something marketers commonly use, so company CEO and co-founder Jamyn Edis is on a mission to prove that […]

Pandora’s audio ads are about to get personal. The streaming giant partnered with UK-based dynamic audio creative vendor A Million Ads on Thursday to bring tailored creative and sequential messaging to audio ads in-stream. The capability will launch this year in beta, but Pandora did not state specifically when. Pandora will leverage A Million Ads’ […]

Snapchat is settling into ad tech, and so are its partners. Video production and editing startup VidMob, one of five Creative API partners that Snapchat announced in late January, launched a self-serve platform on Thursday that lets advertisers and publishers create, manage and buy Snap Ads within a single interface. The platform combines Snapchat’s recently released […]

The Media Rating Council (MRC) will audit YouTube’s third-party measurement partners, Moat, Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify, Google revealed Tuesday in a blog post. While the MRC has audited several parts of Google’s ad-serving and search functions for years, YouTube wasn’t historically included, said George Ivie, the council’s CEO: “This will be a first-time audit […]

The Verizon-Yahoo marriage is still on and will close “as soon as practicable” in Q2, the companies announced Tuesday. The companies have jointly amended the terms of their purchase agreement by $350 million, shaving 7% off Yahoo’s original sticker price of $4.8 billion. The agreement puts an end to a monthslong game of “Will they, […]

User retention, good user experience and monetization can coexist, they just require a deft touch. But for devs that monetize mainly through ads, there’s an inherent tension between their retention and re-engagement efforts and the bottom line. They make the bulk of their money through a means that could easily turn off the users they’re […]

Facebook will be audited by the Media Rating Council. (Pause for dramatic effect.) The company said Friday in a blog post that it plans to commit to an independent audit by the MRC in order to verify the accuracy of the measurement it delivers to its ad partners. Facebook had reportedly started talking to the […]

Since iCrossing entered the market as a search agency in 1998, digital spend has expanded to social, display and mobile, all of which are table stakes. As a result, iCrossing expanded into a full-service agency, eventually getting acquired by Hearst in 2010. Since then, it’s snagged AOR accounts for clients like Bayer, Church and Dwight and […]

Ad revenue was down year over year for Donald Trump’s favorite communication channel. Twitter’s ad revenue for Q4 slumped to $638 million from $641 million in 2015, although ad revenue was up from $616 million in the third quarter. A year-on-year ad revenue loss is a major problem, considering mobile advertising revenue comprises 89% of […]

The Association of National Advertisers voted “transparency” as 2016’s marketing word of the year. Although this year is still young, “crap” is shaping up to be 2017’s word. “The reason why so much of digital marketing doesn’t work is because it’s basically crap optimized on crap,” Rishad Tobaccowala, strategy and growth officer at Publicis, said […]

Hootsuite aims to prove it’s not just your average social media management dashboard. The company – which was founded in 2008, the heyday of companies seeking to tame the social fire hose – revealed Tuesday it had acquired AdEspresso, a Facebook and Instagram ads platform, for an undisclosed amount. Hootsuite will roll out an enterprise […]

Whereas Facebook seems to have outgrown its app developer platform, Parse, Twitter more likely shut down its dev toolkit Fabric in a bid to slim down and focus on its future survival. In January, Twitter sold Fabric to Google and Facebook officially pulled its support of Parse one year after announcing its intention to do […]

By Kelly Liyakasa and Alison Weissbrot Snap Inc. brought in $404.5 million in revenue in 2016, six times the $58.7 million it made in 2015 and higher than some investors had estimated, the company disclosed Thursday in its long-anticipated S-1. The popular photo, video and messaging app company aims to raise $3 billion in an […]

In the 16 years since it launched in 2001, Propel, Gatorade’s fitness-focused water brand, has slipped from top-of-mind presence for its audience to out of mind. “Consumers would say, ‘I love Propel. I kind of forgot about it,’” said Gina Hardy, senior marketing director of Gatorade at PepsiCo. To get its brand back in action […]

As mobile eats the world, Facebook is making a meal out of mobile advertising. The company reported Wednesday that roughly 84% of its full year 2016 revenue of more than $26 billion was thanks to mobile ads. Facebook also saw strong gains this quarter in average revenue per user in the US and Canada, which […]

Pinterest introduced its first search ad offering Wednesday, almost seven years after the company launched. “Now we believe we’re at a place where we understand how people are leveraging the platform and using it to plan their lives,” said Michael Akkerman, head of Pinterest’s marketing partners program. The new search functionality comes via Kenshoo, an […]

Pizza Hut set a record during last year’s Super Bowl when it sold $12 million worth of pizza through digital channels. This year, it hopes to set a new one by doubling down on traditional and digital media – early and often. “People are thinking about what they’re doing for Super Bowl Sunday earlier now,” said […]

Snapchat parent Snap Inc. added partners to its Ads and Custom Audience Match APIs on Tuesday and introduced a new API category for Creative. It also did something marketers have been wanting for a while: letting them license Ad Partners’ tech for self-serve buys. Before the update, buyers could only purchase Snap Ads via a managed service, which was basically […]

Facebook is activating marketing-mix modeling across Instagram, Audience Network and Facebook proper. On Tuesday, Facebook rolled out a portal that lets advertisers pull campaign data for cross-channel measurement. Only aggregated data will be available across ad formats – reach and volume of impressions by week and geographic area. But it represents another chink in the garden […]

Publishers contemplating a switch to server-side header bidding now have two more options. They can use AppNexus’ Prebid server-side wrapper, which will tap into Index Exchange’s demand. Or they can put Index Exchange’s wrapper on their page, which will make a server-side call out to AppNexus. “We are giving publishers choice, and a flexible, transparent solution,” […]

As app downloads slow down due to a maturing ecosystem (dropping 20% among the top 15 US pubs, according to a mid-2016 Nomura/SensorTower report), developers are turning to a new success metric: Usage. “Usage is the new currency for the app economy, not downloads, because downloads just tell you that first part of the story,” […]

Snapchat’s ads API works. And the ad platform is hitting product development milestones earlier than other social platforms, according to buyers participating in the API’s beta. It’s the benefit of last-mover advantage, said Noah Mallin of MEC Global. “They’ve seen all the pitfalls and all the successes.” The Ins And Outs Of Snapchat’s Programmatic Platform […]

As the United States ushered in its 45th president on Friday, Google quietly ushered in a number of updates to its ad platforms. But it was Google’s reduction of third-party cookies and pixels on YouTube, as well as the release of a cloud-based YouTube measurement system called Google Ads Data Hub, that had industry insiders […]

The mobile monetization firm Button announced Wednesday it had raised a $20 million Series B round, led by Norwest Venture Partners. The investment, which brings Button’s total funding to $36.5 million, will go largely toward expanding Button’s headcount as the startup looks to tack on new products in fledgling verticals like travel booking and media […]

In acquiring Adelphic for an undisclosed price, Viant hopes to create a “people-based DSP” that combines media execution with deterministic data from parent company Time Inc. But don’t think of what Time Inc. is building as a mini walled garden, said Viant CEO and co-founder Tim Vanderhook. “Everyone wants the scale that Facebook and Google […]

Bellwether retailers like Macy’s, Sears and Nordstrom that once anchored US malls never fully recovered from the onset of web-driven ecommerce. Now they’re facing something new that could either be an opportunity to get back in the game or another threat entirely: mobile commerce. Consumers are spending more time on mobile, including on retail app […]

Tubi TV knows that not everyone wants to pay for premium content. “We see a strong desire among viewers who want free content, whether they’re viewers in search of value or subscription viewers who can’t find the content they want on their SVOD [subscription video on demand] service,” said Thomas Ahn Hicks, co-founder and head […]

At long last, AOL is really starting to make use of its 2015 Millennial Media acquisition. On Tuesday, Verizon-owned AOL rolled out self-serve functionality for its mobile supply-side platform, One by AOL: Mobile. It’s basically AOL’s answer to Google’s AdMob or Twitter’s MoPub. AOL beta tested the capability for several months before launch with several partners, […]

Update 1/27: MediaMath said some employees were let go in December, but insisted those layoffs were not related to the executive reorg. The company said 13 were released in total, and seven were hired. MediaMath’s executive shuffle Friday, originally reported by Business Insider, was meant to improve its ability to sell enterprise technologies and services, said CEO […]