Google has snapped up Toro, a tool that helps developers market their apps on the Facebook platform. The deal appears to be an acquihire, since Toro employs fewer than 10 and has begun urging customers to seek out alternative partners to support their Facebook install campaigns. (Read the blog post.) Google declined to comment other than to […]
With the revamp of its partner program last week, Facebook is for the first time allowing agencies to pursue certification – under a specialization called Media Buying. (Don’t call it a badge.) The change is a tacit acknowledgement that Facebook’s key relationships in the ad ecosystem include not only the builders of tools for reaching […]
Facebook has decertified more than half the seat holders on its Facebook Exchange (FBX) as part of a revamp of its marketing partner program, unveiled Tuesday. Among the partners no longer badge-certified to buy on FBX are some very big ad platform players, including Adobe, Advertising.com (AOL), Rocket Fuel, IgnitionOne and Dotomi/Conversant (Epsilon). In total, […]
If an ad isn’t seen, that ad shouldn’t be counted. That’s Facebook’s position on viewability in a nutshell. As the debate around viewability swirls, Facebook outlined its point of view in a blog post Wednesday. “It doesn’t make sense for advertisers to count impressions that never enter a person’s viewable area,” said Brad Smallwood, Facebook’s VP of measurement […]
Facebook on Tuesday rolled out product ads designed to let retailers connect their product lists with news feed units. Read the blog post. Retailers traditionally have trouble syncing up inventory-level data with media, since the bulk of that information sits in transactional databases. “With dynamic product ads, marketers can directly upload their product catalog to Facebook or set […]
Five months after taking the wraps off its revamped ad management product, Facebook is slowly but steadily chalking up new Atlas customers. In the wake of its splashy deals with Omnicom Group and Havas, the company has unveiled agreements with database marketer Merkle and Mediaocean, the dominant provider of RFP and workflow management software geared […]
Twitter has developed ad products for big budgets (like second-screen targeting tool Twitter Amplify), but it’s also trying to show small and midsize advertisers it’s got their interests in mind. Twitter on Wednesday rolled out “Quick Promote,” an update to its 2013 self-serve ad platform. The feature is designed to simplify optimization for promoted tweets, […]
Face it: It’s unlikely your video campaign will go viral. Unlike Dollar Shave Club’s Michael Dubin, not everyone is a standup comedian. This is why metrics like engagement and target audience reach become much more sellable KPIs. Video platform Virool recognized this. Founded in 2012, the first iteration of the platform was as a self-serve tool for brands and […]
Facebook reported ad revenue growth of 53% in the fourth quarter as it put the pedal down on video ads and its mobile ad network. Speaking on the quarterly earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts that Facebook users now watch 3 billion videos per day on average, a figure that only includes videos directly uploaded […]
Publishers love to wall off their audience data, but is that good for marketers, who need to track consumer activity across devices and various sites and apps? Certainly messaging across channels is more precise when the targeting mechanisms are based on, say, Facebook login data instead of cookies. But what happens when a marketing campaign needs […]
Despite the amount of attention Facebook Exchange generated when it was released way back in 2012, today it’s mostly focused on retargeting desktop users. Consequently, some ad industry insiders are skeptical of its future. When asked directly about FBX’s future at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview conference, David Fischer, Facebook’s VP of business and marketing partnerships, said […]
Facebook’s Atlas is mapping a course for cross-device world domination – one agency holding company relationship at a time. In a move reminiscent of its partnership with Omnicom, Atlas unveiled Wednesday a three-year global hook-up with Havas Media Group. Omnicom was an Atlas launch partner back in September when the rebooted ad server rose from Microsoft’s ashes […]
Seeing more video in the news feed? You’re not the only one. Facebook said on Wednesday that video activity on its platform grew dramatically in 2014, bolstering its ambition to become a video platform contender to rival YouTube. In a blog post Facebook said the number of video posts per individual user grew 94% on average in the […]
The second coming of Facebook’s Atlas ad server was probably the biggest ad-tech development of 2014. Marketers could for the first time upload their first-party data for accurate measurement, de-duplication, and targeting across devices. Other platforms will follow (read: Google), but Facebook broke the tape. The “people-based” marketing opportunity will not fully materialize, however, until […]
Is a Facebook video impression worth the same as in video-on-demand? This was one of many questions posed to YouTube and Facebook reps during Tuesday’s TV Of Tomorrow Show in New York. Patrick Harris, Facebook’s director of global agency development, argued that “the CMOs we serve are not thinking about the value of specific impressions. […]
Facebook’s declining organic reach has plagued small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) since it tweaked its algorithm about eight months ago. A study by analytics platform SumAll, released in October, highlights exactly what that fallout looks like for smaller advertisers on Facebook. Because Facebook’s algorithm change reduces the reach of Facebook posts, it has made it […]
Black Friday came and went and while the results were mixed (The National Retail Federation (NRF) estimated an 11% drop in combined online and in-store retail sales), digital seems to be the bright spot. ComScore, for instance, found $26.7 billion was spent online in the month of November, a 16% increase from last year while Adobe’s […]
Datalogix, a provider of online and offline data, is nearing a sale of the business. According to multiple AdExchanger sources, the company has entertained offers in recent weeks, including from TV ratings mainstay Nielsen and Facebook. However Facebook is no longer in the running, and Nielsen is considered the most likely buyer. Although neither company […]
SHIFT is among the first Facebook marketing partners to integrate with the newly rebuilt Atlas ad platform. CEO James Borow said the company’s customers will soon be able to leverage Facebook’s data within SHIFT’s new platform to reach people in mobile apps outside of Facebook-owned mobile apps. “The inventory is not just locked within the […]
However one feels about the merits of FarmVille, it’s undeniable that the game’s creators know a thing or two about app monetization. To that end, Red Hot Labs – a game dev startup founded by the team that created back-in-the-day blockbusters FarmVille and CityVille – released Toro on Wednesday, a new tool aimed at helping […]
Gigya, a customer identity management platform, has raised $35 million in growth financing led by new investor Intel Capital, bringing its total to $104 million. Common Fund Capital, Vintage Investment Partners and existing investors, also backed Intel in this round. The new financing will go toward additional hires and to fund international expansion. Gigya’s headcount […]
Facebook is unraveling its preferred marketing developer (PMD) program, its platform for organizing and referring key partners to prospective advertisers. In its place will be a new classification system, called simply Facebook Marketing Partners (FMP, for the acronym-addicted), with no badges but with a list of nine “specialties” – including ad tech, content marketing, and […]
The turf war for programmatic video technologies wages on. Video distribution and analytics platform Ooyala, acquired by Australian telco Telstra in August, revealed Monday it would purchase London-based video supply-side platform Videoplaza for an undisclosed sum. Read the release. This is a critical move for Ooyala, which focuses on helping publishers run and operate their video business by managing content, metatags, […]
Besides its analytics announcement, Salesforce.com turned up the volume on mobility and its future in the wearables market during the Dreamforce conference. As if on cue, rapper Will.i.am paraded onstage Wednesday evening with a group of engineers where he revealed “PULS,” a smart wrist band he developed via fashion and technology firm i.am+, a business […]
Datalogix, which is known for connecting digital media with offline sales impact, will begin to tie ad viewability to in-store ROI via a partnership with comScore, unveiled Wednesday. Marketers will be able to combine comScore’s panel and Census-based data, as well as its impression-level reporting inclusive of “90 of the top 100 properties across the […]
Facebook’s Atlas ad server allows advertisers to target Facebook users not just on Facebook.com, but across the web and app ecosystem. Once a user has logged into Facebook on a device, Atlas can find the user and serve ads just for that person. When he or she acts on the ad, Atlas ties that back to […]
It’s been six months since Facebook unveiled a new mobile-centric ad network offering at its F8 developer conference. The message then and over the summer was clear: We’ll take our time ramping up the new Facebook Audience Network, from both a supply and demand standpoint. But as of Tuesday, Facebook said it’s ready to demonstrate the firepower of […]
No one’s going to say that walled gardens don’t have their perks. Just look at Facebook and the new and improved Atlas. Facebook’s long-awaited announcement of a cross-device user ID solution, made Monday as part of Advertising Week in New York City, invites advertisers into a putative Eden that gives them access to what could […]
Facebook has done something big with the relaunch of its Atlas ad server, acquired from Microsoft 16 months ago, but that something has little to do with serving ads. Rather it’s about replacing the beleaguered cookie with a new, more reliable ad-tracking mechanism for the mobile age. The new Atlas – expected to be unveiled […]
Hootsuite, which raised $60 million in new venture financing from an unnamed Boston asset manager Thursday (it has $250 million now in total financing), is at a major crossroads. As it branches into enterprise markets, the company is also planning a bigger push into advertising. As a consumer-facing platform, Hootsuite – a $1 billion company […]
