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  • As India's Online Market Matures, RTB And Programmatic Enter The Equation

    This story continues our series on programmatic media in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Check out our earlier pieces on Brazil and Russia. The final installation, on China, will publish in the coming weeks. India’s growing Internet population would seem to make it a prime market for RTB and programmatic buying. But the […]

  • AOL Moves On, Allows Brody To Join Yahoo As Americas' Head

    Ned Brody can officially join Yahoo as SVP for the Americas, five months after resigning his post as CEO of AOL Networks, the unit that houses the company’s ad-tech properties. Brody had been constrained from heading to Yahoo by a noncompete clause, which could have kept him from starting the job until April 2014. But […]

  • GroupM Performance Agency Quisma Eyes CEE Expansion

    With agencies continuing to voice concern about their battles with clients’ procurement officers, some high-profile agency executives have called to pay for performance. Perhaps they should look no further than today’s direct-response business — traditionally driven by search advertising — where agencies like WPP GroupM’s Quisma have been operating for more than a decade. Quisma continues […]

  • Germany Catches On: Ad Exchange Sees Uptick In RTB Ad Buys

    A new report from Germany-based ad exchange AdScale shows that US advertisers, agencies and vendors are not the only ones seeing rapid growth in real-time bidding (RTB). The average cost per thousand (CPM) for standard ad space purchased via RTB now averages close to 35% more than the average CPM of campaigns booked without RTB […]

  • Amid Twitter’s TV Gains, Could The Social TV Market Be Losing Its Luster?

    Twitter’s wading deeper into the TV pool. The end goal? Unlock more viewer data to balance the scale on social engagement and determine the opportune time to push paid media promotions. With its latest acquisition of real-time social data analytics platform Trendrr, which is used by a range of media companies and TV networks such […]

  • Peter Swire, Brought In To Save ‘Do Not Track’ Working Group, Resigns From It

    After announcing that he had been appointed to an intelligence review panel, Peter Swire, co-chair of the Tracking Protection Working Group (TPWG), which is tasked with creating a universal standard for the “Do Not Track” browser feature, has resigned from the TPWG. A seasoned negotiator, Swire was brought in last November to salvage the DNT […]

  • OpenX Faces The Music On Traffic Quality

    The rise of programmatic buying has been a boon for some unscrupulous publishers that have learned to game the system by unloading junk ad impressions on exchanges. Now the money grab may be ending as exchange operators respond to improvements in fraud detection and to buyer demands for legit inventory. At least one such player, […]

  • Colleges, Ad Firms Hustle To Fill Talent Void In Data Science

    Data scientists are fueling the growth of the ad-tech industry, as well as many other industries. Straddling art and science, data science requires a solid understanding of machine learning, computing and algorithms, in addition to strong problem-solving and communication skills. The other thing about data scientists: There’s not enough of them. In order to meet […]

  • Aerospike Enabling The Real-Time, Layered "Stack" Says New CEO Gottlieb

    Doing the real-time dirty work for online advertising may not be as sexy as buy side platforms and your favorite late model DMP, but 50-person strong Aerospike doesn’t mind. In fact, many ad tech companies including AppNexus, BlueKai and eXelate use Aerospike’s database product to fuel real-time, big data interactions. Today, the company announced (see […]

  • Could A Nasdaq-Style Glitch Bring Ad Trading To Its Knees?

    Now and then the question comes up. How vulnerable is the digital ad ecosystem to the technical problems that occasionally knock out trading in the major financial markets? One such glitch hit Nasdaq on Thursday, freezing out investors for three hours. Time to revisit! Once the preferred way of explaining RTB to one’s relatives, the “financial […]

  • Facebook’s Fred Leach Talks Campaign Measurement, Datalogix Partnership

    Facebook is investing heavily in measurement products to help prove out the value of its ads. Its offline conversion tracking on behalf of CPG marketers is perhaps the key example of this. In one indicator of that program’s importance, the company recently promoted Fred Leach, who helped develop it, to head R&D measurement and partnerships across verticals. […]

  • Pinning Intent: Why A Pinterest Ads API Makes Sense For Marketers

    Pinterest has always been a little different than the rest of the social pack –primarily because pinned products means pinned intent. The platform is inherently commercial. When Pinterest debuted price alerts in early August, it appeared to be a move on the visual social network’s part to help retailers reactivate purchase intent based on items […]

  • Bots Win! Nonhuman Ad Impressions Still Selling Like Hotcakes

    It’s been six months since botnets entered the advertising lexicon in a big way, thanks to research and publicity efforts by self-styled fraud fighters and firms that specialize in detecting nonhuman traffic. March stories in Adweek, AdExchanger and other publications shined a spotlight on the pervasiveness of nonhuman Internet traffic and its threat to the value […]

  • At Neo@Ogilvy's Mobile Day, Panelists Talk Targeting Challenges

    Mobile advertisers must get better at understanding their customers or risk repeating the mistakes made in traditional display advertising, according to panelists at Neo@Ogilvy’s client event, Mobile Day, which took place yesterday in New York City. “The challenge for many brands is that the user experience breaks down when consumers go from one device to […]

  • Dissecting Google’s Dive Into Data-Driven Attribution

    Google’s launch Tuesday of Data-Driven Attribution for Google Analytics Premium users left some questions on the table, including how pertinent offline data would be to the product, where “earned” media fits into the mix and what implications there are for “non-Google” marketers and the entire attribution ecosystem. Forrester Research, which released a Forrester Wave Report […]

  • AOL's Adap.tv Is At The Heart Of IPG's TV Automation Deal

    With its new partnership with a number of TV media sellers, announced yesterday, Interpublic Group has begun to make good on its pledge earlier this year to “automate” 50% of media. The use of “automation” here is perhaps a bit misleading however, since what IPG is really trying to solve is a workflow problem – […]

  • Inc. Revenue Survey: BlueKai Sees $26.8M in 2012, DataXu $87M

    Given the recent IPO and M&A frenzy, it should come as no surprise that some ad-tech players saw strong revenue growth in 2012, as reported today in the Inc. 500/5000 list. But even keen observers might be impressed by the surges at some data-management providers, in particular DataXu (ranked No. 5 among the entire list with […]

  • Google Goes After Data-Driven Attribution To Upend “Last-Click” Modeling

    Marketers are looking for better methods to assign value across the entire customer journey and Google appears to be answering the call. Today, building on its Multichannel Funnels and Attribution Model Comparison tools for Google Analytics, Google has rolled out Data-Driven Attribution globally for Google Analytics Premium customers. Bill Kee, product manager for attribution at […]

  • Architects Of IPG's Trading Desk Create Programmatic Consulting Firm

    The guys who came up with Interpublic Group’s display ad-trading strategy have embarked together on a joint consulting venture. Their new company, Unbound, will serve as a systems integrator to brands and publishers as they make decisions about programmatic ad technologies. “We saw a pretty big gap in the marketplace. There’s no real technology-and-service systems […]

  • Big Test For TV And Radio Automation, As IPG Preps New Pipes For Broadcast Buys

    Interpublic Group is making good on recent pledge to automate 50% of its cross-channel buying activity by 2016. The holding company’s Mediabrands division has signed up a group of broadcast partners to install an automated media buying system that will span TV, radio, and digital out-of-home ads. The list of the IPG Mediabrands’ initial partners […]

  • ANA Agency Compensation Survey: Performance Incentives On The Rise

    Fees remain the most common way for marketers to compensate advertising agencies, according to the 2013 Trends in Agency Compensation survey released by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). Out of 98 client-side marketers, 81% indicated that they continue to use some type of fee compensation for various agency types and services. Labor-based fees, which […]

  • Publicis Aligns Engauge With Zenith, Another Sign Of Media Agency Clout

    Media agencies have more influence than ever, thanks to the runaway train of audience fragmentation and the infrastructure/manpower needed to address it. This trend is nicely articulated by Publicis Groupe’s acquisition of digital agency Engauge Marketing – not because Engauge is a digital media agency (it’s not) but rather because it’s a creative and content-centric […]

  • Washington Post's Jeff Burkett On The Big Publisher's Data-Driven Ad Strategy

    With 12 years experience in digital, Jeff Burkett has seen his share of sell-side ad tech at The Washington Post.  His latest role, senior director of sales operations, is perhaps a sign of the times for the publishing world in general, as Burkett is now building his reach to the print side of “ops” while […]

  • Why Amazon, Facebook Are In Hot Pursuit Of Digital Identity

    It all comes down to who owns the digital identity and the addressability that follows. Late this spring when Amazon launched the Login with Amazon service, it gave access to 200 million-plus active Amazon users to app developers and site owners. “Login with Amazon is the latest offering in an array of services that make […]

  • LinkSmart Digs Deeper Into In-Text Links With New Bidding Exchange

    Links may be the workhorses of a publisher’s marketing strategy, but to Pete Sheinbaum, former CEO of the online newsletter Daily Candy, they represent a multitude of opportunities. After the publisher was acquired by Comcast in 2008, Sheinbaum founded LinkSmart, which offers tools to help publishers manage and monetize their links. AdExchanger sat down with […]

  • Google 'Gaze Tracking' Patent Points To Ad Viewability For The Real World

    A new Google patent for a wearable “gaze tracking” technology (US patent #8,510,166) has fantastical implications for how advertising could evolve in a world full of head-mounted interfaces such as, oh, Google Glass. The possibilities include far-out concepts such as billboard viewability reporting and “pay-per-gaze” billing for ads. In its patent claim, Google describes a […]

  • Art & Science: Behind PopSugar.com’s New Programmatic Strategy

    PopSugar, the online media platform blending everything from celebrity content covering Prince Williams’ new baby to a hand-selected beauty and fashion subscription service, is in the process of creating a full-scale digital outfit to bring content and commerce to a new level. Colette Dill-Lerner, who recently joined PopSugar as EVP of Performance Marketing, spent close […]

  • Margins And The First Inning

    Somehwhere there may be a business school class enjoying this. It’s a pretty simple construct – when commoditization occurs, the increased competition leads to eroding margins for an entire swath of companies. And then the games begin. Business case in point is today’s nexus of media and ad tech businesses – whether it’s Omnicom-Publicis, Tremor […]

  • To Comp Or Not To Comp (For Programmatic)

    “Data Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Jay Seideman, US director of the targeting and exchange team at Microsoft. At the end of every year, publishers enjoy many wild debates about budgeting, forecasting and sales compensation. […]

  • What Agencies Think Of The Millennial-Jumptap Acquisition

    Millennial Media’s acquisition of competitor Jumptap has shed new light on the mobile arena. Despite being the country’s second-largest provider of mobile display advertising, behind Google, Millennial has struggled to recapture the momentum it enjoyed when it went public last year. The $193 million acquisition will inject new vitality into the Baltimore-based company, claimed Millennial CEO […]