digital media

Who bought what and why this year? Here’s a (mostly) comprehensive list of all the notable ad tech, agency and digital content deals of 2025.

Forget the well-worn narrative that digital media publishers are always on their back foot, says Liz Gough, the co-founder and newly minted CRO of Puck. In a world of social media soundbites, Puck is proving that there’s a place for long-form, in-depth, dishy journalism.

Read on for an inexhaustive list of the most notable ad tech, agency and digital content deals of 2024, with a few fun wild cards tossed in. (Looking at you, “Hot Ones.”)

Winners and losers are emerging from the streaming melee. (Or at least the winenrs are.) Plus, CNN will begin testing metered content.

Attempts to measure the impact of digital ad dollars on physical sales often fall flat. Blame it on retail data silos, says Graham Goeppert, VP of digital commerce and media at probiotic soda brand Poppi.

Although more companies are promising to reduce emissions and reach net zero by some unspecified date in the future, many onlookers are starting to question whether progress is being made.

Freddie Liversidge, HP’s global head of media, explains the benefits and challenges of building an in-house digital media agency from the ground up.

Roughly one-third of the US population has a direct connection to the military. And yet many brands “still struggle to authentically connect with this key demographic,” says Mark Harper, GM of military and defense at Recurrent Ventures.

Sustainable digital media business models exist – just look at Dotdash. Dotdash acquired Meredith at a $2.7 billion valuation Wednesday to form a new media business to be called Dotdash Meredith. At first glance, the two entities coming together feels like a marriage of opposites: a century-old magazine media company and a digital native. But […]

GroupM, Magna and Zenith released global ad spend forecasts on Monday, and all agree that 2020 was not the catastrophe many had predicted. Disaster was averted in large part due to the accelerated shift to digital during the pandemic. Global advertising fell by 5.8% in 2020, according to GroupM, which “could have been worse” and […]

The French video publication Brut emerged with a splash three years ago, just before the French presidential campaign. Brut produces high-quality news content with experienced journalists, but delivered casually, like friends talking to each other. In the short time since its debut, Brut said it became the third-most trusted news source in France. But now, […]

Digital media is starting to feel the effects of COVID-19’s US invasion. Consumer engagement in online content is spiking. And while some advertisers are watching and waiting, others are taking action and shifting media budgets or strategy. The traffic effect At Insider Inc., for example, traffic is way up as people seek information about the […]

Whenever Google changes how its ad server works, publishers fear that Google will wrest control over how they run their digital advertising. Those concerns often have merit. So when Google added rules about how publishers could prioritize different ad exchanges earlier this week – and buried those changes in a confusing help center document instead […]

The watchword at entertainment and sports media company Whistle is distribution. “We go direct-to-consumer on whichever platforms our audience prefers to do their watching,” said Alison Meyer, who leads brand marketing solutions at Whistle. Originally known for its influencer-led sports content, Whistle has since branched out into lifestyle, humor and general entertainment – anything “positive and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. RIP Mark Hurd Mark Hurd, former co-chief of Oracle and CEO of Hewlett Packard, died Friday at age 62. Hurd and co-CEO Safra Catz were put in charge of Oracle about five years ago, during which time the company’s stock grew 37%, CNBC reports. […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. ePainfully If legitimate interest is disallowed as a provision for targeted advertising by the EU’s ePrivacy law, which expands on GDPR regulations, it could cause a 70% reduction in display ad revenue in Europe and a 33% cut in digital ad budgets, according to […]

Business Insider’s sales team sells everything from programmatic to sponsored content and sponsorships. “One meeting will be focused on content creation, tentpole sponsorships and really big executions with lots of creative services layered in,” said CRO Pete Spande. “The next conversation might be about how their DMP [data management platform] connects to our DMP, and […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Active-ating Audience Boston-based IPG agency Hill Holliday continues to add to its media buying platform (AdExchanger Q&A) capabilities. Yesterday, it was announced that the agency has reached across Charles River into Cambridge to partner on the launch of a new ChoiceStream (AdExchanger Q&A) product […]

Nicole Estebanell is VP/Group Director, Media at Publicis’ digital agency Digitas.  Estebanell discussed data and social targeting’s impact on her agency’s client strategy as well as its use of social ad network 33across. AdExchanger.com: How is the agency dealing with the challenge created by “big data” in media? NE: I think the challenges we’re seeing it […]

Ed Busby is Partner at Boston Consulting Group. He is finishing up a study on data strategy in the digital media space and presented some his findings at the BlueKai Summit in New York City. AdExchanger.com: How do you break the data ecosystem down -and in layman’s terms? EB: We think about the various services […]

“Data Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and containing fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Matt Shanahan, SVP of Strategy for Scout Analytics. The sciencification of advertising is on a clear, steady march toward greater and greater efficiencies, whether that be optimized cost for […]

Sean Muzzy is Managing Director, N.A., at Neo@Ogilvy, a full-service digital and direct media company and division of OgilvyOne Worldwide, a WPP Group company. Where are the big opportunities for digitally-minded agencies today in your opinion? Digital is complex and it’s getting even more technical. There also doesn’t appear to be a slow down in […]

Jonathan Mendez is CEO of RAMP Digital, a digital, performance media agency. AdExchanger.com: Why did you found your performance marketing agency, RAMP Digital? JM: I was becoming much more interested in emergent technologies for delivering relevance, namely APIs and semantic driven tools. At Offermatica (now Omniture Test&Target) our platform was 100% JavaScript and while that […]

Gal Trifon is CEO and Co-founder of Eyeblaster, a campaign management and advertising technology company. AdExchanger.com: Can you see video ad inventory available through an ad exchange model someday soon? What are the complexities? GT: That’s a tricky question — the efficiencies of an exchange are relevant for videos, but there is still the brand […]

Jon Baron is Co-Founder and General Manager of TagMan. AdExchanger.com: What challenge is Tag Man solving for advertisers? How do you help publishers? JB: TagMan addresses a challenge facing all businesses involved in digital media. At all levels of the digital media business (creative through to publisher placement through to buying/selling) there is a transition […]