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  • TubeMogul Updates S-1, Valued At $372 Million

    Video demand-side platform (DSP) TubeMogul has updated the S-1 it filed in March, saying it will sell 7,187,500 shares at a suggested offering price of $13 per share. Read the S-1. TubeMogul hopes to raise $93 million and will now take this offer to potential IPO investors – “the roadshow” – prior to the company going public. […]

  • If A Video Ad Plays And No One Hears It, Does It Make An Impression?

    Missing in the Media Rating Council’s (MRC) definition of in-browser video viewability (50% in view, playing for two consecutive seconds) is any stipulation around audibility. This isn’t an oversight – the MRC chose not to institute an audibility requirement because the technology doesn’t exist to determine muting in all instances, said David Gunzerath, SVP and […]

  • Facebook To Acquire Video Ad Platform LiveRail

    Facebook has agreed to buy video ad platform LiveRail, the companies said today. The acquisition will build Facebook’s capabilities around video, both on its own platform and on those of other publishers. LiveRail customers include Major League Baseball (MLB.com), A&E Networks, Gannett and Dailymotion, giving Facebook its first video ad server integration with premium video owners.  Terms of the deal weren’t […]

  • PubMatic Builds Out Programmatic Direct

    PubMatic had a good spring. The company won top honors in Forrester’s sell-side platform shoot-out, acquired a mobile ad server (Mocean Mobile) and hired up to support its product initiatives around programmatic direct. The macro strategy, according to CEO Rajeev Goel, is to provide a full stack spanning all publisher ad revenue. That means guaranteed […]

  • Let’s Not Lose Sight Of The Real Power Of Programmatic

    “Marketer’s Note” is a regular column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. It is written by Joanna O’Connell, Director of Research, AdExchanger Research. Call me naïve but I believe in the open exchange model. I always have. Something about the battle of wits it promises always spoke to me: The buyer who actively […]

  • Twitter Takes The Wraps Off App Install Ads Product

    Three months after launching a pilot program for mobile app install ads, Twitter has made the offering available to all advertisers. The format is a bid to capture surging app promotion budgets that have been a boon to Facebook, Pandora and dozens of mobile-specific ad networks and demand-side platforms (DSPs) over the past two years. Ride-sharing service Lyft, EA […]

  • Video Viewability: The Standard That Isn’t A Standard

    On Monday, the Media Rating Council’s (MRC) advisory to avoid buying in-browser video impressions on the basis of viewability will end. Although the MRC defines in-browser video viewability as an ad that is at least 50% in view for at least two continuous seconds, there’s little agreement in the industry on what, exactly, constitutes video […]

  • The Fizz Behind Coca-Cola's Massive World Cup Campaign

    Before Brazil defeated Croatia at Arena de Sao Paulo to open the 2014 World Cup, the Coca-Cola Co. unfurled across the pitch the fruits of its biggest marketing campaign in its history: a giant mosaic called the “Happiness Flag.” But this campaign, which ended on the soccer field, began online. Activated across 175 countries, the Happiness Flag […]

  • Agencies Brace For Change As Brands Lean In To Programmatic

    When they write the history of programmatic advertising, June 2014 will go down as the month when you needed two hands to count the number of big advertisers running their machine-driven media buys in-house. Procter & Gamble, American Express and Mondelez all recently joined the small club of brands embracing exchange-traded media (existing members include Kellogg’s, […]

  • Who’s Really Winning If CPA Programs Rule?

    “Marketer’s Note” is a weekly column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. It is written by Joanna O’Connell, Director of Research, AdExchanger Research.   I was inspired by this week’s AdExchanger comic, which features “Mr. CPA” on the top of the mythic Mr. Universe winner’s podium, to comment on the market’s continued […]

  • IPG Mediabrands CEO Matt Seiler: Automation Trend Will Force New Agency Pay Models

    Matt Seiler is remarkably on-message. For the past five years, the CEO of Interpublic Group’s media investment arm, Mediabrands, has banged the drum about the need for performance-based compensation for agencies. More recently he also took up the banner of automation, proposing to automate 50% of all media investment by the end of 2015. Interestingly, the automation rallying […]

  • GroupM Quits Open Ad Exchanges? Not So Fast

    GroupM made waves last week when Ari Bluman, chief digital investment officer for North America, said WPP Group’s media agencies will stop buying impressions in open auctions by the end of 2014. It turns out that’s not quite the case, as Brian Lesser, CEO of WPP’s Xaxis programmatic platform, made clear in public comments Tuesday […]

  • Can LinkedIn Link Content With Business Results?

    Penry Price has a long legacy as an advertising exec. He went from Google to Dstillery and, as of eight months ago, assumed the role of VP of marketing solutions at LinkedIn. Compared to his previous roles, Price has a slightly different imperative at LinkedIn. Because of the social network’s audience of 300 million business-minded registrants, […]

  • Mondelez, Heineken Take The Programmatic Bull By The Horns

    The big brands have woken up to programmatic buying, and will not be going back to sleep. The gang of marketers directly controlling their exchange-traded media platforms keeps getting larger. Its membership now includes Kimberly-Clark, Kellogg’s, American Express, Procter & Gamble, Allstate Insurance, 1-800-Flowers and Unilever. Mondelez International is the latest to seize a more […]

  • Why I Worry for Agencies

    “Marketer’s Note” is a weekly column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. It is written by Joanna O’Connell, Director of Research, AdExchanger Research. Is it just me, or are there an awful lot of great folks leaving their agency jobs these days? I took notice when Matt Spiegel left Annalect, a division […]

  • IPG Mediabrands Programmatic Boss Michael Brunick Exits

    The steward of Interpublic Group’s trading desk strategy has left the holding company, AdExchanger has learned. Michael Brunick, SVP for programmatic within IPG Mediabrands’ Magna Global media investment unit, will join Unbound, a consulting firm focused on helping publishers and advertisers seize the programmatic opportunity. “One of the biggest trends since middle of last year […]

  • Facebook Lets Competing Advertisers Target Off Each Other's Site And App Data

    One of Facebook’s hidden assets is the waterfall of data signals it gets from other websites and apps. These signals wend their way to Facebook from social plugins, conversion pixels and retargeting cookies embedded on millions of websites and mobile apps. Facebook’s code snippets tell the social network whenever a user lands on a product […]

  • The Cautious Courtship Of Programmatic And Linear TV

    Procter & Gamble’s reported push to automate 70-75% of digital ad buys by year’s end underscores the convergence of TV, CPG marketing and programmatic media. “The closer we can tie shopper cart data to media, the stronger we get,” said Jen Mennes, director of media and public relations for Post Foods, during The Advertising Research […]

  • Customers First, Company Needs Next, Individual Agendas Last

    “Marketer’s Note” is a weekly column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. It is written by Joanna O’Connell, Director of Research, AdExchanger Research.   I had a wonderful conversation with Renee Horne, AVP, Social Business at USAA, at last week’s Merkle CRM Summit, in which she noted something that could make a […]

  • Apple Starts Blocking Some Apps For Rewarding Ad Views And Shares

    Monetizing apps in the iOS environment means playing by Apple’s rules, and occasionally adapting to changes in how those rules are enforced. Sometimes those changes can impact the way ads are served and tracked, as happened back in February when Apple (briefly) put a barbed wire fence around the use its Identifier For Advertising for […]

  • AppNexus Tries M&A, Mulls 2015 IPO

    The world’s largest independent ad tech company broke character this week. Before snatching up Paris-based ad viewability firm Alenty, as AdExchanger was first to report, AppNexus had been historically inclined to build rather than buy owing to its strong engineering culture. But that may be changing as bargains present themselves in the form of mature […]

  • SAP: ‘We Are Way Too Complex’

    The underlying theme of SAP’s massive annual show SapphireNow in Orlando, Fla. this week was simplicity, or SAP’s lack thereof. CEO Bill McDermott heralded the dream of enabling the enterprise software company to “Run Simple,” while acknowledging the company’s skeptics. “Yes, I do realize there will be some of you, especially the pundits, who say we can’t,” […]

  • AppNexus Buys Paris-Based Viewability Firm Alenty

    Two months after the Media Ratings Council (MRC) green-lighted viewable impressions as a viable metric for transacting display ads, real-time bidding platform AppNexus has acquired French viewability vendor Alenty for an undisclosed sum. The deal closed Monday, AppNexus confirmed to AdExchanger. Paris-based Alenty was founded in 2007 by CEO Laurent Nicolas and CTO Nicolas Thomas. It claims to […]

  • To Transform Into ‘Uncarrier,' T-Mobile Undid (And Retooled) Marketing

    When T-Mobile discarded two-year customer contracts one year ago as part of its “Uncarrier” initiative, the company had to retool its enterprise to match the new business model, starting first with the marketing organization. With less of a “lock in” with consumers, communication could no longer be few and far between. Messaging could no longer […]

  • Marin Software Acquires Perfect Audience For $23M

    Online advertising-management provider Marin Software has acquired retargeting platform Perfect Audience for $22.8 million. The deal adds to Marin’s social media and display advertising retargeting arsenal and to the flurry of funding rounds, IPOs and acquisitions in the retargeting space over the past year. San Francisco-based Perfect Audience was founded under the Y Combinator seed accelerator program […]

  • ExactTarget’s Future After Scott Dorsey: CEO To Step Down

    Story updated with comments from Jay MacDonald of Digital Capital Advisors Salesforce.com’s ExactTarget Marketing Cloud has lost its fourth C-level exec since the CRM giant acquired the marketing tech company last June. ExactTarget CEO and co-founder Scott Dorsey is exiting the company this summer (following former CMO Tim Kopp, CFO Steve Collins and Chief Administrative Officer […]

  • Another Boost For Offline-Online Linking As Datalogix Scores $45M

    Datalogix nabbed $45 million in Series C funding, led by Wellington Management Company. This latest round brings its total to $111.5 million, according to CrunchBase. The company intends to use the funds to build out its product and attract more clients. The company’s main business is linking online consumer activity with offline shopping behavior. It is one of […]

  • Publishers, Let’s Talk Programmatic CPMs

    “Marketer’s Note” is a weekly column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. It is written by Joanna O’Connell, Director of Research, AdExchanger Research.   I just had a very interesting conversation with a reporter who’s trying to understand why so many publishers link “programmatic” to declines in ad revenue and/or profitability in […]

  • FTC To Congress: Regulate Marketing Data Providers

    The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) welcomed direct marketers and data companies back from the holiday weekend with a 100-plus page report (called “Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability”) and a recommendation that Congress enact legislation to ensure industry transparency and customer control over how their data is used. The report singled out nine […]

  • FreeWheel Cofounder On The Profound Differences Between Programmatic TV And Display

    This upfront season, a number of media conglomerates flirted with programmatic TV. ABC, for instance, is beta testing data-driven ad sales via video ad server FreeWheel’s new FourFronts Programmatic tool. Likewise, NBCUniversal’s ad sales chief Linda Yaccarino has spoken of opening up portions of premium network inventory to programmatic sales. As marketer and media company interest […]