This is the first in a series of deep dives from AdExchanger on mobile fraud and mobile data quality, including guides to fraud tactics and threat vectors and practical solutions from advertisers in the growth and user acquisition trenches. Read the second story (“Mobile Data Has A Quality Control Problem“) and the third (“Anatomy Of […]
Rich-media ad server Flashtalking has merged with the dynamic creative optimization (DCO) specialist Spongecell. Terms of the deal, announced Monday, were not disclosed. As a combined entity, the two companies should gain more dominance in the US and internationally. Flashtalking is based in the United Kingdom, and works with blue chip brand clients like Lowe’s, […]
Albertsons has unleashed shopper data from its network of 2,300 stores to help CPG advertisers determine whether their digital ad spend drove sales. When the grocery chain, whose numerous brands include Safeway, launched Albertsons Performance Media last week, it joined retailers like Target, Kroger and Walmart, which have each invested in building an audience activation […]
TBS and TNT’s new CMO, Michael Engleman, is on a mission to make the networks’ brand marketing engine much more agile. Engleman, who helped rebrand the Sci Fi Channel as SyFy during his time at NBCUniversal, thinks broadcasters will be forced to adapt as new content producers and channels compete for consumer attention. For years, […]
Within the context of Publicis Groupe’s broader restructure, Publicis Media was born to simplify the group’s media offering while leveraging a more modern definition of scale. “Although it’s become so much more complex, media has always been about scale and insight,” said Steve King, CEO of Publicis Media. “We weren’t leveraging that scale effectively.” Publicis […]
The advertising industry has been plagued by a lack of trust, with vendors, agencies and marketers looking at each other askance. Ad fraud, bad traffic and hidden fees have taken their toll, and while industry players have taken measures to reinstitute their good standing, their work isn’t nearly complete. During a panel Thursday at AdExchanger’s […]
When Facebook said it would change its news feed algorithm to prioritize users’ families’ and friends’ posts, advertisers worried it would also affect how paid placements are bought and sold. Would this reduce the amount of available inventory? Would it drive up costs? Facebook’s VP of global marketing solutions, Carolyn Everson, sought to assuage the […]
Although connected TV buyers have become pretty sophisticated at targeting and delivering an ad to individual users, managing frequency across video providers is a work in progress. But despite the industry’s recognition that consumers demand better ad experiences, many viewers find themselves bombarded with the same ad. Worse, those ads sometimes run within the same […]
Although GroupM has invested aggressively in programmatic and data-driven marketing technology, Chairman Irwin Gotlieb still adheres to the importance of top funnel marketing. “I believe strongly in a marketing funnel, and that broad targeting will continue to remain an essential part of marketing,” he told AdExchanger. “If I focus my effort on picking the lowest […]
GroupM Chairman Irwin Gotlieb has always had an intuitive eye for technology. He’s been applying it to the CES show floor since the 1970s, when it was called the Comdex computer expo show and disc drives sold for $400,000. Gotlieb began offering his knowledge to clients, vendors and other partners on his legendary floor […]
The center of media activity at CES is the C Space in the Aria hotel. Here you will find the private meeting spaces booked by Turner, Spotify, Twitter, Oath, CBS, NBCU and Samsung Ads. As in the past, the C Space showroom floor – ostensibly an ad tech vendor showcase – was pretty barren this […]
Demand-side platforms (DSPs) make money by taking a percentage of the media buys that flow through their technology – and from lots of other hidden extras they charge for. Interviews with more than a dozen sources reveal that even as marketers make progress in understanding what they’re paying for, nontransparent fees abound in the DSP […]
WPP is embracing the forces of change – both internally and externally. Internally, CEO Sir Martin Sorrell knows WPP’s clients want simplification, which will lead to more consolidation. “We’ve seen it amongst clients and media,” he told AdExchanger. “We’re quite likely to see a similar set of circumstances in the agency business.” And externally, he’s […]
Brad Bender will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference on Jan. 17-18, 2018, at the Grand Hyatt New York. Google’s rallying cry for 2018? Better and possibly fewer ads. While that theory may seem counterintuitive for a company whose revenues come almost exclusively from advertising, rethinking the ad experience may mean recutting standard formats or reducing […]
The independent measurement space was once Nielsen’s to lose – and now it’s taking pains to make sure that doesn’t happen. Nielsen is in a delicate position. Although its long-established panel-based business is primarily what pays the bills, TV ratings aren’t the future. The company’s success depends on moving away from classic TV ratings, while […]
In recent years, enterprise giants like Salesforce, Oracle, IBM and Adobe monopolized M&A activity as each marketing cloud raced to buy their way into ad tech. That tide has turned. These days, strategic acquisitions are more about expanding access to content, audiences and new means of distribution. Just look to media company team-ups like Disney-21st […]
2017 was a busy year of M&A for the digital media and marketing sector, according to reports released by investment banks JEGI and Luma Partners this week. Last year included 2,000 transactions in the sector hitting $272 billion in deal value, according to JEGI. It was the fourth consecutive year of increasing transaction value in […]
While ad tech companies have been accumulating VC funds and growing their stacks – and sales orgs – for a while, many took pains to rightsize over the past year or so. For some, the intent was to recapitalize or to prep for a sale if an IPO was a no-go. For others, it was […]
With Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set to take effect in a few short months, smart publishers are leaving nothing to chance. Everyone in the supply chain could be held accountable if they aren’t compliant by May 25, and stakeholders at every level are in a frenzy to renegotiate contracts that protect themselves in […]
The past year was a tough one for agency holding companies. WPP, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe, IPG, Dentsu Aegis Network and Havas posted little to no growth in 2017. The agency business has been in flux for years, but 2017 offered the “perfect storm” of challenges that caused growth to stutter, said Greg Paull, principal analyst […]
In 2017, five industry developments caused the ad tech industry to rethink how auction dynamics and quality controls should work in programmatic. These factors, detailed below, stem partly from header bidding, which made it harder for exchanges to win auctions and created a huge burden on DSPs to listen to more impressions. Supply chain issues […]
With the explosion of cross-screen TV, publishers and advertisers are clamoring for better discovery, personalization and cataloging of video content, and metadata is answering that call. Metadata, put simply, adds more context to data. Metadata in video can range from the contents of that video (e.g., colors, products, characters) to the way it’s classified (e.g., […]
Brand safety and transparency were top-of-the-agenda items for advertisers in 2017. But if this was the year of faux pas, mea culpas and the start of a move toward better controls, 2018 will be about buckling down. “The billions of ad dollars pulled off platforms in 2017 was a clarion wake-up call,” said Bill Marino, […]
In India, the media company behind its biggest news websites – Times of India, The Economic Times and the Mumbai Mirror – also offers apps and sites where users can make restaurant reservations, study for a test, stream music, buy stocks or track cricket scores. By building its own ad tech stack and developing mobile-heavy […]
Facebook and Google are no longer the ad tech acquirers they once were, and yet, the M&A landscape of 2017 is littered with their fingerprints. Media companies swallowed one other to add scale and massive amounts of content to stave off the duopoly’s dominance. Just look at Meredith-Time, AT&T-Time Warner and Disney-Fox. AT&T’s bid for […]
What interested AdExchanger readers most in 2017? The most popular stories of the year show that header bidding’s evolution remained a hot topic – server-to-server integrations, in-app header bidding and supply-path optimization. But 2017 was also a year of upheaval. Fallout from Apple’s Safari changes and Google’s YouTube changes concerned many readers. And there was […]
In 2017, many online publications realized that data and revenue diversification could drive success. And not being diversified enough could hurt their business. While many publishers tout their branded content businesses, programmatic provides a reliable, easily scalable revenue stream. Publishers that were programmatic holdouts, avoiding the main way advertisers do data-driven buying, course-corrected this year […]
AdColony’s Q4 revenue is expected to drop 5-10% more than it did last quarter and CEO Will Kassoy is out, effective immediately. The news caps off a “disappointing” year for AdColony, according to a release late Thursday from parent company Otello Corp. (formerly Opera Software, which rebranded to Otello on Monday). Kassoy, who joined Otello/Opera […]
Luma Partners’ Brian Andersen will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference on Jan. 17 – 18, 2018 at the Grand Hyatt New York. 2018 will see the same amount of deal activity as 2017 as the field of potential buyers expands, predicts Luma Partners’ Brian Andersen. The ad tech acquirers are much different from when Andersen joined […]
Twitter is gunning to become publishers’ platform partner of choice, and it’s leveraging live video as a way to capture content – and dollars – currently flowing to the duopoly. This week, Bloomberg debuted its 24/7 global news network TicToc on Twitter after reaching nearly 8 million people during Bloomberg TV’s live stream of three […]
