As we first reported in November, digital marketing software firm Turn has reeled in a new Series E investment. The $80 million raise was distributed among eight venture capital firms and brings Turn’s total funding to about $138 million to date. (For comparison, direct competitor MediaMath has raised a mere $24.4 million, according to CrunchBase). […]
You might not call it an epic fail, but Vail Resorts’ first stab at developing its EpicMix social ski app forced the brand to reconsider its original digital approach. First launched by the ski resort in the 2010-2011 season, EpicMix tapped RFID-enabled lift passes and gantries to track where and how skiers soared its slopes. […]
As the mobile app market matures, vendors are taking note and offering tools to help app developers drive more engagement among their existing users. One such company is mobile app marketing firm Fiksu, which unveiled its retargeting tool on Thursday. Fiksu identifies groups of users to target ads using data sources such as Apple’s IDFA […]
In a rare instance, Yahoo’s advertising products shared the limelight with the company’s consumer-facing ones when Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer unveiled the company’s new ad products among other new offerings at the Consumer Electronics Show. Ad agency execs responded to Yahoo’s new ad products optimistically, however, some areas remain unclear, such as the development of […]
When discussing the advances of programmatic media buying outside the US, the stock answer the past few years has been, “It’s catching up.” But at some point in 2013, the investment that marketers, agencies and ad-tech companies have made in Europe and Asia began to appear more concrete and significant. Some companies, like New York-based […]
Pandora’s evolution bodes well for advertisers looking for enhanced targeting opportunities in a multiscreen world. At CES 2014, Pandora and WPP Group media agency Mindshare toured how the online radio service is acclimating to an omnichannel environment, in the process developing enhanced personalization capabilities that both Pandora’s users and advertisers can leverage. At the core […]
Evidon wants to better monetize the data waterfall pouring from its network of 20 million Ghostery users, and will look to new Chief Operating Officer Emily Riley to help it pull that off. Riley, a longtime Forrester analyst who spent the last year driving Audience Science’s pivot from an ad network into a data intelligence […]
“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 read this recent article on what I call the “privacy versus relevancy” conversation with some interest – it’s a topic that’s been on my radar, as it […]
Oracle’s deal to acquire Responsys comes with a key question: What will Oracle’s future hold for digital advertisers? When Oracle snapped up Eloqua for $810 million last December, a chain reaction of subsequent purchases followed, from Salesforce.com’s acquisition of ExactTarget to Adobe’s Neolane buy mere months later. As competitors rush to build or acquire digital […]
BrightTag’s name reflects its origins as a provider of tag-management technology, a tool that allows businesses to collect information within a Web browser. The issue today, of course, is that the flow of data transcends browsers, flooding across mobile handsets, tablets and increasingly connected devices like gaming consoles and smart TVs. This puts standalone tag-management […]
Beginning about a decade ago, Seattle-based Marchex made a flurry of acquisitions in several digital marketing categories, and then floundered. The company was diversified but undifferentiated, as President Peter Christothoulou describes it. It ran side businesses selling domains, driving leads and publishing a tech vertical through the 2005 acquisition of Industry Brains (recently sold to […]
Although marketing industry deal activity was flat in 2013, the sector saw some eye-popping deal sizes, according to boutique investment bank Jordan, Edmiston Group Inc.’s (JEGI) annual review of mergers and acquisitions. In 2012, many of the biggest deals in 2012 tracked by JEGI involved consumer brands (Yahoo, Kayak), with only two marketing industry mergers coming in […]
“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 read the recent news about Yahoo!’s opening up guaranteed inventory to Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs), including MediaMath, Doubleclick Bid Manager and The Trade Desk, with enormous interest, but […]
Ever more companies on the buy side want to partner directly with publishers. Sell-side platforms (SSPs), ad networks, agencies, demand-side platforms (DSPs), retargeting networks and others have over the last year increased their efforts to gain visibility and direct inventory access. In a recent telling example, WPP Group’s Xaxis programmatic platform absorbed 24/7 Media to […]
It’s that time of year. To get a sense of what’s coming in 2014, we reached out to some senior marketers with a single, open-ended question about the coming year. “What new consumer or technology trend do you expect to see in 2014 that will change your marketing strategy?” The below response is from Scott […]
It’s that time of year. To get a sense of what’s coming in 2014, we asked some senior marketers to answer a single, open-ended question about the coming year: “What new consumer or technology trend do you expect to see in 2014 that will change your marketing strategy?” The below response is from Tamara Gruzbarg, […]
A Wednesday hearing held by the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation about the operations of so-called “data brokers” highlighted the disconnect between data marketers and consumer advocates. The hearing followed the release of a report detailing the findings of a yearlong investigation into data marketers. The core disagreement revolves around the extent to which businesses […]
Beijing-based BlueFocus Communications has bought a majority stake in We Are Social, strengthening its Western presence and gaining a global social marketing capability. Under the deal terms, BlueFocus paid an initial $30 million for an 82.8 percent position in We Are Social, with additional incentive-based compensation doled out over the next three years. London-based We Are […]
‘Tis the season for predictions, so AdExchanger reached out to members of the venture capital community for their opinions on what’s in store for 2014. Click below to read “the bets” or scroll for more: Jeff Crowe, managing partner, Norwest Venture Partners Seth Levine, co-founder and managing director, Foundry Group Roger Ehrenberg, founder and managing […]
It took the better part of a year, but Facebook has overcome its internal angst about “motion” in the News Feed with the debut of cross-channel, auto-play video ads. The offering (officially in beta) instantly creates the largest digital video buy ever, with potential daily reach covering nearly half the U.S. population. Mindshare purchased the […]
“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. As I was interviewing a senior level marketer in the beverage industry the other day for my customer lifecycle management research (which I’ll be presenting at the Industry […]
WPP Group’s digital and direct marketing agency Wunderman and its media-buying agency MEC have launched a joint venture called CHOREOGRAPH to address converging client demands in paid, earned and owned media. The proliferation of cross-channel marketing campaigns and the subsequent need to marry transactional, customer and demographic data with audience-level information drove CHOREOGRAPH’s creation. “Over […]
Last January, T-Mobile declared itself the “Uncarrier.” It was part of a massive brand revamp, one that involved a new network, new devices (including iPhones) and new phone plans (and the carrier might be in line for yet another overhaul, if rumors about a possible acquisition by rival carrier Sprint bear fruit). T-Mobile’s “Uncarrier” messaging […]
Late last year, we asked a handful of senior execs at platform companies to answer the question, “What will happen next year in marketing and advertising that hasn’t happened before?” This year we invited some of those same contributors to evaluate their earlier forecasts and update them for 2014. The below is from Mark Grether, chief […]
As the programmatic and real-time bidding (RTB) market in the Asia-Pacific region heats up, local inventory is starting to prove its worth and attract interest from advertisers. Demand-side platform (DSP) Brandscreen released its second Real Time Media Insights Report Monday, highlighting the battle between global and local inventories. “The trends that continued from the previous […]
As enterprise technology companies race to make their respective suites the digital marketer’s platform of choice, building or acquiring to fill product portfolio holes becomes near protocol. Global German software giant SAP, which recorded $5.4 billion in revenue last quarter, is no different – the company’s been active on the commerce (Hybris) and advanced analytics […]
Last year we asked a handful of senior execs at platform companies to answer the question, “What will happen next year in marketing and advertising that hasn’t happened before?” This year we invited some of those contributors to evaluate their earlier forecasts and update them for 2014. The below is from Michael Lazerow, chief marketing […]
The belief that cookies don’t work on handhelds or tablets, requiring an alternative tracking mechanism, oversimplifies the complex problem of mobile tracking. While advertisers cannot use third-party cookies to track mobile users the same way they would a desktop user, cookies can indeed be applied to an extent in a mobile environment. And while many […]
The retail industry, unlike verticals where data compliance is a major issue, appear more in the thought-leadership phase of advanced data analysis than actual execution, despite isolated gains by some their progressive counterparts in building their own marketing-tech stacks. Eighty-three percent of retailers profiled in EKN Research’s “Big Data in Retail” study said they are […]
Both agencies and ad partners draw comparisons between Twitter’s launch on Thursday of retargeting product Tailored Audiences and Facebook Exchange (FBX). Just how technically similar they are remains to be seen, but the industry is buzzing about the ad product’s cross-channel targeting potential. We asked some Tailored Audience partners, media agencies and a beta tester to […]
