AppLovin is one of the most well-funded indie ad platforms out there – and it’s growing like a weed. The mobile ad network last year received $841 million in debt financing from Chinese private equity firm Orient Hontai Capital. In 2014, AppLovin raised just $4 million in seed funding. Originally, Orient Hontai had intended to acquire a majority […]
It looks like China is not the ultimate exit for ad tech. Late Tuesday evening, app marketing platform AppLovin said that company will no longer be acquired by a Chinese private equity firm for $1.42 billion as planned. The deal, now scrapped, was first announced in September 2016. The duo will still do a deal, […]
Breaking into the China market requires feet on the ground painstakingly building direct relationships with local players, a fair amount of intestinal fortitude and patience. It also helps having a Chinese parent. Mobile ad exchange Smaato is capitalizing on its affiliation with Spearhead Integrated Marketing Communications Group, the Beijing-based offline marketing service provider that acquired […]
Tencent doesn’t like it when WeChat is called a walled garden, even though it has all the markings. “This is a form of walled garden in the same way you have Facebook or Google,” said Jon Mansell, VP of marketplace innovation at Magna Global, during a panel hosted by Tencent at Advertising Week on Monday. […]
Chinese tourists spent $35 billion dollars in the US in 2016. WeChat parent company Tencent rolled out a suite of advertising tools on Thursday to help US brands reach that spendthrift audience both in China and abroad. The scale of Tencent’s audience is staggering. WeChat alone has 963 million monthly active users, nearly three times […]
You’ve got to be a tough cookie and have good fortune to crack the China market. And success in other regions is not a guarantee of success in the People’s Republic. Such was the case with Criteo, which, after investing heavily in the domestic China market, discreetly pulled out in late May, nearly three years […]
Chinese advertisers want viewability standards – but the country’s unique media landscape offers unusual challenges. “There is definitely a growing concern among advertisers here about wasted media budget and the transparency of their media buying,” said Martin Zhang, CEO and founder of Shanghai-based verification firm Adbug. Zhang is also chair of a Mobile Marketing Association China […]
The Chinese ad tech acquisition drumbeat continues. On Wednesday, Shanghai-based private equity firm Innotech bought data aggregator and discrepancy management company Ad-Juster. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but industry sources told AdExchanger the sale was well within the eight-figure range. Even at the potential high end, that doesn’t touch the astonishing deal prices […]
Programmatic ad spend will grow faster globally than all other buying methods in 2017, according to Zenith’s Programmatic Marketing Forecast, released Monday. Zenith also reported that premium buying models like private marketplaces (PMPs) are taking off as RTB tapers off. Globally, programmatic will account for 64% of digital display spend by 2018, or $64.1 billion. “We […]
Chances are you haven’t heard of Hylink Digital Solutions. But it’s the largest independent agency in China, has been around for 22 years, employs 2,200 and just opened its first US office in Santa Monica in late September. Think of Hylink as a sort of hybrid between Merkle, Hill Holliday and Wieden+Kennedy. “Hylink isn’t really a […]
LeEco, the Chinese electronics company that shelled out $2 billion for smart TV manufacturer Vizio in July, held a splashy event Wednesday in San Francisco to mark its entry into the US, where it could one day give Apple a run for its money. Beyond making a selection of its smart devices available in the […]
In a bid to capitalize on digital ad growth in China, AdRoll has recruited a new adviser with lots of experience in the country and is developing a go-to-market strategy. Peter Cheng is Tencent’s former GM for ad platforms and products, as well as the former COO of AdChina (which sold to Alibaba in January […]
Are the Chinese buyers that have been feasting on Western ad tech companies just starting on their appetizers? Eastern buyouts marked the biggest shift in merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the ad tech space this past quarter, said Terry Kawaja, CEO of Luma Partners, which released its Q3 M&A report on Friday. “What’s been […]
Another unicorn rides off into the eastern sunset. App marketing company AppLovin has agreed to be acquired by a Chinese private equity firm for $1.42 billion. “AppLovin” could also be used to describe the scene in China right now, where consortia of institutional investors have mobile fever. This acquisition, which was confirmed on Monday after […]
Western ad tech companies looking for an exit only have a handful of choices. They can IPO like The Trade Desk (not likely), get acquired like Yahoo (slightly more likely), sell to private equity like Marketo or Mediaocean (only an interim solution) or, as is now becoming the trend, find a Chinese consortium with an […]
Although Opera Mediaworks is no longer packing its bags and moving to China, newly minted CEO Will Kassoy is still bullish on the opportunity there. “China is a huge market for advertising,” said Kassoy, who took the reins from former company chief Mahi de Silva in December after roughly two years as CMO. Kassoy joined […]
It’s probably not a good idea to use Google Translate on legal language. Roughly two weeks ago, the Chinese government released online regulations that include new rules governing paid search results, embedded links, video ads and email advertising. A buried clause within the edict also seems to outlaw ad blocking – and when Adblock Plus realized […]
Deals fall through all the time. But the failed acquisition of Opera’s ad business could be a signal that China’s western buying spree is liable to hit a few regulatory snags. In February, a consortium of Chinese companies, which comprises mobile game maker Kunlun and security software provider Qihoo, announced its intention to buy up all of […]
Another day, another acquisition of a mobile company by a Chinese conglomerate. Publisher-focused mobile ad exchange Smaato will be snapped up by (this is a mouthful) Spearhead Integrated Marketing Communications Group, a Beijing-based offline marketing service provider. Spearhead will shell out $148 million on the deal, pending the usual approvals. Getting acquired by a Chinese […]
China is a market that gets people excited – a largely untapped potential audience of more than 1 billion people. It’s certainly one of the stated “strategic rationales” behind the recent $1.2 billion buyout offer that browser maker Opera received from a consortium of Chinese companies, including mobile game maker Kunlun and security software provider […]
Walled gardens – everybody’s got ’em. In the US and most of Europe, it’s the usual suspects. In China, it’s what the cognoscenti refer to as the “BAT” companies: Baidu (think Google), Alibaba (think Amazon) and Tencent (think Facebook). And it makes cross-device quite the challenge. Although the BAT companies “all have cross-device applications which […]
Mobile numbers are moving up and to the right – and social is along for the ride. Taptica is looking to take advantage of that trend. The mobile DSP announced Tuesday that it would fork over $17 million to acquire programmatic social marketing tech company AreaOne, formerly known as SocialClicks. Both companies maintain their headquarters in […]
Data collection can pose a challenge beyond borders. Looking for IT professionals who work at companies with more than $20 million in revenue and headcounts over 250? Fashionistas between the ages of 18 and 34 with an affinity for shoes? Most data providers could take care of that type of request before breakfast in the […]
Nestlé recently kicked off a global initiative to increase programmatic buying, but the market needed a specialized approach. Working with a local DMP and DSP, Nestlé media agency Mindshare recently kicked off a programmatic video program for its client in the region, allowing the brand to work with the big four video publishers there. “There […]
Taboola is paving the way to enter the Chinese market. On Monday, it revealed it had received a multimillion-dollar investment from Chinese search provider Baidu. Baidu does not name the level of investment unless SEC rules require it. “The goal behind the investment is to work together on launching native advertising in China,” Taboola CEO […]
Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba Group is experiencing growing pains as it introduces mobile ad formats and weans itself from its pay-for-performance model toward one involving algorithmic-based advertising. On the company’s earnings call Thursday, COO Daniel Zhang called pay for performance a “great discovery mechanism,” but said focus on mobile monetization could have a short-term negative […]
APAC is one seriously loaded acronym. “There’s a fallacy that exists among many executives in the US that Asia is one block,” said Chetan Kulkarni, CEO of Bangalore-based digital CRM company Vizury. “But it’s actually a complex mix of very different countries that behave in very different ways.” Take India and China, for example. The […]
Online sales during China’s annual discount event topped $9 billion this year, once again thrusting the country into the spotlight as a commerce powerhouse, and not by a little bit. Singles Day, which was originally created in the late ’90s by a group of Chinese college students celebrating their singleton status, falls on Nov. 11 […]
This is the tenth in a series of interviews with vendors combating the problem of ad fraud. Other companies participating in this series include Moat and Sizmek. Read previous interviews with comScore, DoubleVerify, Dstillery, Forensiq, Integral Ad Science, PubChecker, Telemetry, Videology and White Ops. When Andy Fan founded Shanghai-based RTB Asia a couple of years […]
As Asia-Pacific commerce powerhouses like Alibaba and Rakuten push West, it’s still unclear how they will grow large US-based audiences. One such method is through acquisition. Alibaba late last week priced its IPO at $60 to $66 per share and expects to raise $24 billion when the company begins trading on the New York Stock […]
