Platforms

SAP entered the digital advertising market this week, creating a DSP and DMP from scratch it’s dubbing SAP Exchange Media (XM). Wolfgang Faisst, co-founder and head of SAP XM, acknowledged that despite an ecosystem of “thousands of ad tech companies,” SAP decided to step up because of demand for end-to-end integration. Because SAP XM connects […]

Exploding smartphone growth makes Brazil more than just a mobile market to watch – which is why German mobile performance marketing firm glispa is putting down local roots. On Tuesday, glispa announced the acquisition of Mobils, a 10-person mobile-focused digital agency based in Sao Paulo. Glispa declined to share how much it spent on the […]

In a significant expansion of its video ad offering, Facebook will bring video ad formats to its Instant Articles platform and to the external apps and sites in its Audience Network, the company announced Monday. It’s the first time the company will deliver video ads beyond its owned-and-operated properties – excluding its LiveRail video sell-side […]

Eliza Nevers, Christian Calderon and Michael Oiknine will participate in a panel discussion on mobile fraud at the May 24 CLEAN ADS I/O conference in New York. AdExchanger: What’s the single biggest thing marketers contending with mobile ad fraud should be focused on? MICHAEL OIKNINE, CEO of Apsalar: Fraud has become such a problem in large part […]

Andy Kauffman, Marriott’s VP of digital marketing, loves running tests. “We’re very comfortable failing as long as we learn from that and iterate going forward,” said Kauffman, who oversees product and digital brand strategy for Marriott.com. “It may be an overused term, but we really do embrace a test-and-learn approach.” There are dozens of multivariate […]

Playboy’s first NewFront is Friday and the publisher is treating the event as a “multi-platform” coming-out party. Following its recent rebrand as a safe-for-work men’s lifestyle media option, Playboy wants to attract more millennial males. The publisher’s first no-nude print issue in Playboy history ran in March. The rebrand is a key moment. Despite Playboy’s position […]

When Amazon debuted its Video Direct service on Tuesday, the media hailed it as a rival to YouTube. Video Direct lets content creators post and monetize video directly on Amazon’s Video and Prime platforms. Amazon isn’t commenting beyond the release, but there’s no standalone platform and the only launch partners are media publishers, film studios […]

Activision Blizzard, the gaming and interactive entertainment brand behind the “Call of Duty” franchise, and which acquired Major League Gaming (MLG.tv) for $46 million in January, is betting that e-sports will go mainstream. Its media imprint, Activision Blizzard Media Networks, aims to build the “ESPN of e-sports,” spearheaded by former ESPN CEO Steve Bornstein. On […]

At face value, AwesomenessTV looks like your average YouTube multichannel network (MCN). Except it’s not, according to Paul Kelly, AwesomenessTV’s chief partnerships officer. AwesomenessTV has amassed 160 million total subscribers and now boasts nearly a billion monthly video views across platforms. A network of creators helps support its shows, but the company is also a […]

Facebook’s Dynamic Ads – a format the social network introduced last year – is available as of Tuesday on both Instagram and the Facebook Audience Network. (More on the Facebook blog.) Basically, Dynamic Ads lets advertisers promote products to their highest-value prospects as they navigate Facebook (and now Instagram) properties. Facebook claims that more than […]

Updated with comment from FreeWheel’s CEO. Comcast has acquired StickyAds.tv, a French video ad tech startup focused on publishers. Re/code first reported the news Sunday night, and Comcast confirmed it Monday morning. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Business Insider claimed the deal was an all-cash transaction and worth “at least $100 million.” […]

YouTube reaches more 18- to 49-year-olds on mobile alone than any cable network or broadcaster, said Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, during Google’s glitzy Brandcast event Thursday night in New York City. She cited MAGNA Global’s $250 million upfront commitment to Google Preferred as evidence of the shift of brand TV dollars to digital. YouTube […]

The claim that Facebook Instant Articles is about a faster user experience is a red herring. While that may be one goal, the program has a strong business rationale: It extends Facebook’s walled garden and creates a new foothold for its $1 billion Facebook Audience Network ad platform. Instant Articles does not allow third-party monetization. […]

Essence co-founder and chief product officer Andrew Shebbeare will discuss fraud, lack of transparency and misaligned incentives in the ad ecosystem at the May 24 CLEAN ADS I/O conference in New York. Andrew Shebbeare says the ad industry is at a tipping point. The acceleration of consumer ad blocking and uncertainty around viewability and fraud […]

MAGNA Global, the strategic investment arm of Interpublic Group, revealed Wednesday it would shift $250 million from its TV budget into Google Preferred over a three-year period, making it the latest agency to commit big upfront dollars to YouTube. Other agencies, such as WPP, Publicis and Omnicom, have collectively committed “billions” through the Preferred program to […]

After completing his first full quarter as CEO of performance marketing company Criteo, Eric Eichmann seems confident. Criteo had “very strong top-line growth,” Eichmann told AdExchanger ahead of the company’s Q1 earnings call on Wednesday. Revenue was up 41% year-over-year to $162 million at constant currency minus traffic acquisition costs and that performance was consistent across […]

Mobile marketing automation platform Appboy is on a quest to steal some market share from the CRM incumbents with $20 million in Series C financing led by Battery Ventures. The round, announced Wednesday, brings the New York City-based company’s total funding to $45.5 million since 2011. Appboy plans to use the cash to keep on […]

Rubicon Project enjoyed a strong first quarter, growing overall advertising revenue by 26% year over year, while its cut of the revenue swelled even more. Non-GAAP net revenue reached $63.6 million, a 71% year-over-year increase. That’s largely because Rubicon Project acquired the DSP Chango a year ago to form its Buyer Cloud, causing take rates […]

Pinterest’s rumored acqui-hire of deep-linking startup URX is a go. On Tuesday, Pinterest announced that it’s bringing the San Francisco-based URX team into the fold, but not its technology. URX, which started as a deep linking provider before becoming a mobile retargeting platform, will work with its customers to sunset its advertising product. As of […]

Like most app developers, SGN – whose games have been downloaded more than 700 million times – is looking for long-term love. But in the casual gaming space, retention rates usually leave something to be desired. Only about one-third of users relaunch an app within 24 hours of the original install, according to Appsflyer. After […]

Snapchat’s 10 billion daily video views can’t be wrong. At least, that’s publishers’ logic as they push vertical video. Hearst, for instance, rolled out a vertical video unit last month that it sells via direct deals with advertisers, and on Monday, outstream video company Virool launched a vertical video format called Vertical Reveal, which exchange partner […]

Like every marketing cloud, Oracle’s was built through acquisition. The tech giant has devoted more than $3 billion to construct a suite that includes campaign management or marketing automation from Responsys and Eloqua, data management solutions from BlueKai and Datalogix, omnichannel commerce through Maxymiser and online ad targeting tools like AddThis – among many others. […]

As a matter of course, tech talent flows between companies in Silicon Valley – there are former eBay employees at Facebook, ex-Yahoo execs at Uber, prior Google people at Snapchat – but Twitter seems to be particularly susceptible to departures. “The Twitter diaspora has been very sad for the company,” said Mike Ng, who left his […]

Pandora’s Q1 2016 call on Thursday revealed that programmatic sales of display inventory drove increased sell-through rates. In an earnings release, Pandora claimed the buying method is “starting to contribute meaningfully” to advertising revenue per 1,000 ad-supported listener hours, which grew 19% year over year to $45.47, and take pressure off ad loads. Pandora made […]

When it last reported its quarterly earnings, LinkedIn revealed to the world that it would sunset Lead Accelerator, the B2B lead-nurturing product it inherited from the $175 million Bizo acquisition. The remnants would be fed into its Sponsored Content offering – which has developed into a major growth area. Sponsored Content has continued to benefit […]

LiveRail, once a dominant video supply side platform and ad server focused solely on publishers, is now a shell of its former self. It’s been nearly two years since Facebook bought the company for $400 million-plus, and in the last six to nine months it has shut down major pieces of it and transferred some […]

The steady growth of AppNexus’ advertiser-facing business in recent years has led to a jump in employees. Out of AppNexus’s roughly 1,050 total headcount, about 318 now serve the buy side, developing and supporting the company’s demand-side platform product. Of those employees, about 97 are engineers, 19 are product managers, 74 are in sales and a […]

Judging by the billions of dollars spent on World Cup advertising alone, the game of soccer commands a maniacal fan and brand following. Global soccer video platform KICK, which launched as early YouTube multichannel network “KICKTV” in 2012, wants to capitalize on that craze with an eye toward reaching millennial soccer fans with cross-platform video. […]

Facebook’s growth led to a strong first quarter and stock that shot upward post-earnings. Facebook’s Q1 2016 revenue grew 57% year over year to $5.4 billion, compared to $3.5 billion the same time last year. Advertising comprised $5.2 billion of that revenue. Of that ad revenue, 82% came from mobile, compared to 73% in Q1 2015. Meanwhile, monthly […]

To grow its readership, Engadget focused on quality and relevance. The tactic – simple to imagine but hard to execute – has paid off: The AOL-owned site posted 13.6 million unique visitors in January during the Consumer Electronics Show, according to comScore. That’s its highest-traffic month ever and nearly double the number of visitors compared […]