A dozen local news publishers participating in Facebook’s Local News Subscription Accelerator, including The Denver Post and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, flew to New York, Austin and San Francisco this spring for a 12-week program to learn the intricacies of running a digital subscription business. Facebook has had strained relationships with publishers, which hit a […]
Google and Amazon still dominate the demand-side platform category, but next-tier players have opportunities to win market share and for the first time there are signs that Google’s iron grip may be softening, according to the half-yearly Advertiser Perceptions DSP Wave released Wednesday. The report is based on surveys of almost 500 brand and agency […]
What’s it like to integrate a $2.8 billion acquisition? After closing its purchase of Time Inc. almost nine months ago, Meredith National Media President Jon Werther is in good spirits about how the deal has deepened and broadened its coverage for female audiences. “When it comes to women and understanding their intent – what they’re […]
With every successful direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand launch, a tiny bite is taken out of a legacy brand’s market share. Once those bites start adding up, DTC brands can become a major threat to business, said Clorox CMO Eric Reynolds at the ANA Masters of Marketing last week. “[DTC brands] are very nimble and capable competitors,” […]
LiveRamp began trading as $RAMP on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday and hosted investors and analysts when the company reintroduced itself to the market following the sale of Acxiom Marketing Solutions to IPG for $2.3 billion in July. LiveRamp is embracing its position as a subscription-based middleware technology, a category that comes with […]
Amazon is testing a program that lets advertisers use search queries to retarget across the web, according to agency executives briefed about the pilot program. This capability is only available through Amazon’s DSP and it is the first time that Amazon search data is being used off of Amazon’s owned and operated platform. While Amazon […]
After years of banging the drum about gaining more control, transparency and efficiencies from service providers, marketers are doing it themselves. Cost and speed to market are necessities for marketers struggling to drive growth, but too many third-party relationships often slow things down. “Our current situation is unproductive, unsustainable, undesirable and untenable,” ANA CEO Bob […]
Snap may have invented the Stories format, but Instagram Stories are attracting most of the ad spend. The two main reasons why sits at the heart of an existential dilemma for Snap: its audience and its scale. Snap’s youthful users are one of the platform’s primary selling points at the same time they’re a potential […]
Something is wrong with WPP Group – or, perhaps, many somethings. On its Q3 call with investors Thursday, management detailed a list of ailments longer than that of a septuagenarian overdue for his physical. North America? “Further weakening.” Creative agencies? “Doing poorly.” Account losses? As bad as you’ve heard. Revenue was down .8%, and the […]
The marketers at T-Mobile and Anheuser-Busch InBev have to support very different businesses. T-Mobile competes in the hotly contested world of US telcos, while AB InBev sells beer around the world. But both have started bringing aspects of their marketing initiatives in-house, and their respective strategies differ based on their unique marketing needs and where […]
Online spending records have shattered across the country during this year’s midterm election cycle, but no campaign has brought more attention to digital media than that of Democrat Beto O’Rourke, a Texas congressman running for Republican Ted Cruz’s Senate seat. No candidate this year has raised more money online or spent more on Google, Facebook […]
Consumer health and pharmaceutical giant Bayer is taking programmatic in-house. Bayer will partner with MightyHive to in-source its digital and programmatic media planning, buying, execution, strategy and analytics as well as search over the next two years. MightyHive will handle execution for the first year and phase out during 2020, Josh Palau, VP of digital […]
After stagnant growth in 2017, holding companies are getting rid of assets that aren’t related to their core focus on digital transformation, programmatic, data and technology. Omnicom, Publicis Groupe and WPP have significantly pruned their portfolios this quarter. IPG and Havas, on the other hand, have disposed of smaller and less strategic agencies in the […]
Martin Sorrell is bullish on Amazon. The platform will eventually reach $100 billion in ad spend, Sorrell, the CEO of S4 Capital and former WPP honcho, predicted Tuesday at AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO in New York City. He did not mention a timeline. In Amazon’s Q3 earnings in July, the company said it brought in $2.5 […]
The switch to first-price auctions last year is causing programmatic buyers to pay more, according to research from media agency Hearts & Science. In one test, a first-price auction drove CPMs up by more than 50%. The Omnicom agency wants programmatic to create “clean” second-price auctions to remove the premium that buyers pay. It doesn’t […]
When Adobe acquired the B2B marketing company Marketo for $4.8 billion last week, investors pressed CEO Shantanu Narayen to explain the gulf between Adobe’s price tag and Wall Street’s valuation of Marketo two years ago, when Vista Equity Partners snapped it off the stock market for $1.8 billion. Private equity investors have shown they have […]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has contacted the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), requesting cooperation from the trade group and its members in a criminal investigation into US media buying practices. The ANA detailed the FBI’s probe in a statement to members and validated recent unsourced reports from The Wall Street Journal and The […]
The first rule of ad fraud: If it can be spoofed, it will be spoofed. Bad actors are pretending to be legit, demand-side platforms to try and fool partners and blend in with real ad calls as a way to purvey malware and litter the web with forced redirects. “They weasel their way onto the […]
There is life after a GDPR enforcement warning. Location data ad tech startup Teemo, one of the first companies admonished under the General Data Protection Regulation for gathering and processing data without informed consent, was given the all clear on Thursday. Teemo, headquartered in Paris, received an ultimatum from France’s data protection authority, the Commission […]
Brian O’Kelley’s departure as CEO of AppNexus surprised few in the industry who know him. His sharp opinions and independent mindset made him an ad tech provocateur and a fearless leader. But that same personality seemed incompatible with taking a subservient role to Xandr CEO Brian Lesser within the AT&T mega-corporation. After all, this is […]
It’s the end of an era. AppNexus co-founder and CEO Brian O’Kelley has stepped down from his operational role and will serve in an advisory capacity at Xandr, the AT&T-owned ad unit that acquired AppNexus in June. An internal memo, published below in its entirety, Xandr CEO Brian Lesser wrote: “As Brian and I discussed […]
When The Trade Desk IPO’d in September 2016, it nearly doubled its own value projection and quickly became a $1 billion company. Fast-forward two years and the company’s market cap sits at around $6 billion. The question for many analysts and ad tech observers is: How long can this ride last? Investors have pumped a […]
Why is the industry still talking about linear vs. digital when to consumers, it’s all just content? That’s the question Donna Speciale, president of ad sales at Turner, is asking to galvanize long-awaited changes to how network TV transacts media. “At some point, we’re not going to say linear or digital,” she told AdExchanger. “We’ll […]
MediaMath will stop buying from supply partners that play auction games, preferring to create an economic incentive for fair, transparent programmatic auctions and put an end to auction manipulation. The DSP sent an open letter Wednesday morning to its 50 directly integrated suppliers. The full letter is reproduced at the end of this article. “Auction […]
Nielsen is reviewing “strategic alternatives” to selling its entire company, the company told investors this month. The TV ratings giant is reportedly under pressure from hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. “All options are being weighed,” a Nielsen spokesperson told AdExchanger. “The company has hired external advisers to conduct a full review and the board is […]
Ryan Joe contributed One of Google’s key ad executives is riding off into the VC sunset. Sridhar Ramaswamy, SVP for ads and commerce, will depart the Googleplex for a role with Greylock Ventures, Forbes reports. Prabhakar Raghavan, VP of Google cloud apps, will become the new ads honcho. “I’ve long admired how Sridhar and his team have […]
Six exchanges and a handful of top publishers who work with Index Exchange’s wrapper say they consistently notice anomalies indicating the exchange prioritizes itself. At least two of those exchanges are composing a letter to Index Exchange CEO Andrew Casale threatening to withdraw from its wrapper unless it takes steps to ensure neutrality, AdExchanger has […]
AT&T’s promise to connect data, technology, distribution and content to make advertising better for all constituents is exciting. So exciting, in fact, that industry executives from both the buy and sell sides gathered in support of the idea at the Relevance conference in Santa Barbara, Calif., this week, willing to help make it happen. But […]
Since Oracle Data Cloud’s creation four years ago, following the acquisitions of data sellers Datalogix and BlueKai, it has taken a central role in powering Oracle’s core products. Oracle Data Cloud further enhanced its ability to measure the digital media supply chain with its $850 million acquisition of Moat and the $400 million acquisition of […]
As the traditional holding company model declines, new models are rising as competition. While the “big six” – WPP, Publicis Groupe, IPG, Dentsu Aegis, Havas and Omnicom – still rule, legacy structures and poor financial performance are causing their dominance to wane. In March, WPP lost $2.6 billion from its market cap. Omnicom has been […]
