When DigitasLBi appointed Emily Macdonald as its first head of programmatic on Thursday, it wanted to ensure all employees across planning, buying, data and analytics teams are trained on programmatic buying. The newly created international role comes from Publicis Groupe’s recent reshuffle to integrate programmatic as a service across all of its agencies, beginning last year […]
Native is a big deal to The Atlantic, where sponsored content will comprise 75% of digital revenue this year. It employs a 30-person team, dubbed Atlantic Re:think, to create campaigns for clients like Porsche, TIAA and Cathay Pacific. The team operates with the philosophy that “engagement is an art and science,” said Michael Monroe, the […]
African mobile network Econet Wireless will pre-install Shine’s ad-blocking tech for 40 million subscribers across Zimbabwe, South Africa, Burundi and Lesotho. The deal, revealed Thursday, represents the Israeli startup’s third public telco partner and its second full integration. Although Econet will pre-install Shine’s network-level ad-blocking technology for all of its subscribers, government regulations require Econet […]
As one of the largest ultra-low-cost carriers in the US, Spirit Airlines became synonymous with nickel and diming passengers for anything beyond a basic seat. But with a recent CEO change and a planned site relaunch this fall, Spirit is also trying to become more data-driven to improve customer retention and new passenger acquisition. “We’re […]
Antonio Garcia Martinez led the team that built Facebook Exchange, the company’s first foray into programmatic advertising. He also had a front-row seat when Facebook killed off the initiative, a decision that effectively aborted his future with the company, as he details in his tell-all book “Chaos Monkeys.” “I had bet my entire social capital […]
As publishers embraced header bidding, many programmatic buyers observed the trend from the sidelines. Since header bidding boosts yield for publishers by increasing competition, it follows that buyers may be paying more. But buyers wouldn’t necessarily know if that’s the case, since SSPs don’t note whether the impression comes through a header or not. If […]
While media bartering isn’t commonly discussed, the ANA’s two reports on agency transparency referenced the practice 49 times. Here’s how it works: A barter agency might agree to buy an advertiser’s surplus product, such as an airline’s unsold flight tickets at full price, which it would give to employees for business travel. In return, the […]
“Angry Birds” maker Rovio Entertainment knew the sheer size of its user acquisition tactics was making it a sitting duck for ad fraud. “With a name like Rovio, the ad exchanges see us as having big potential for them,” said An Vu, Rovio’s user acquisition lead. “They often want to sell us a lot and […]
Google’s Paul Pellman will speak at AdExchanger’s Omni.Digital conference in Chicago on September 8. Since Google acquired attribution company Adometry two years ago, it has sought to bridge the measurement gap between mobile, offline and digital conversions. Adometry gained more interoperability with other Google media and measurement products in March, when it was assimilated into Google’s new six-product […]
If Dentsu Aegis Network’s majority investment in Merkle goes through, the CRM and performance marketing agency will support Dentsu’s media-buying agencies. Those media agencies will gain access to Merkle’s proprietary tools, including a cross-device identity management system, a CRM-matching database for publishers and, most notably, the M1 audience platform. “The intent is that every agency […]
When Mark Read became Wunderman’s global CEO in January 2015, he brought with him a great deal of digital know-how gleaned from his time leading WPP Digital. Wunderman had been in a state of continuous transformation, changing from a direct marketing agency to a digital one. Over the past 10 years, it has tripled in […]
Video buy-side platform TubeMogul missed its Q2 revenue forecast by 3%, partly due to slower-than-expected shifts in advertiser spend from desktop to mobile. Revenue in the second quarter reached $55.4 million, a 22% increase from the year before but still shy of analysts’ expectations of about $58 million. The company lowered its FY2016 guidance on […]
Japanese holding company Dentsu Aegis Network will acquire a majority stake in Maryland-based Merkle – a CRM and performance marketing specialist – and one of the largest independent digital agencies. It did $436 million in revenue in 2015, a 14% increase over the year prior. While terms were not disclosed, the deal values Merkle at […]
Salesforce has named CRM technology pioneer Bob Stutz as CEO of its Marketing Cloud, replacing outgoing CEO Scott McCorkle. McCorkle, a soft-spoken and well-liked exec, has for the past two years driven the marketing tech bus at Salesforce, a bus that has arguably been stuck in a fast idle since the company paid $2.5 billion […]
Vivendi-owned Dailymotion is expanding its network of video demand sources and its programmatic presence in New York, despite reports of restructures and the closing of the French video platform’s Palo Alto, Calif., office. Dailymotion is partnering with the mobile DSP StrikeAd, owned by recently acquired Sizmek, to serve more rich media units and enable geo-based […]
Header bidding is changing the industry and creating a new set of winners and losers. After a dismal earnings call, Rubicon Project’s stock fell 32% and lost $200 million in value Wednesday. Rubicon CEO Frank Addante said the company failed to respond quickly to the header bidding trend, sending its desktop revenue into decline. […]
K2 Intelligence spent eight months investigating questionable agency business practices for the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), culminating in a critical, groundbreaking report. Now the firm will help advertisers enforce and monitor transparency with their media-buying agencies through a new business unit. The practice, first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, will use […]
Private equity firm Vector Capital has agreed to acquire ad tech company Sizmek. “Vector will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Sizmek common stock for $3.90 per share in an all-cash tender offer,” according to a release, which values the company at $122 million. Notably, Sizmek’s market cap, just prior to the acquisition announcement, […]
WPP-owned ad network-slash-tech shop Xaxis has its first-ever Latin America CEO. Lucas Mentasti was promoted from the unit’s Latin America managing director to its chief. It’s a big step up from where he started in 2013, moving from Publicis-owned Starcom to head up Xaxis’ Latin America business. At that time, “head up” meant doing everything, […]
Many in the US digital media industry have cherished hope of a day in court against ad blockers. It’s a movement that began with a series of IAB summits last summer and which today is slipping along the spectrum from possibility to fantasy. A year ago, the most likely legal route focused on copyright infringement. […]
Google parent Alphabet finished out Q2 2016 with $21.5 billion in overall revenue, a 21% jump from Q2 2015. It’s also a notable acceleration of growth rate from that year-ago quarter, when top line revenue grew 11%. [Read the earnings release.] The company chalked up the faster growth to investments in mobile and video. “The strength of the quarter […]
Despite similar origins as Web 1.0 content portals, Yahoo’s inability to shake its roots and AOL’s decisive transformation into an ad tech company sent the two down starkly different paths, even as they both landed beneath Verizon’s big red checkmark: the communications giant purchased AOL for $4.4 billion last May and revealed its intention to […]
Verizon won’t complete its $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo until next year, but that hasn’t stopped speculation about which pieces of ad tech will come along for the ride. As Yahoo and AOL built their respective ad stacks to serve publishers and advertisers over time, obvious crossovers have occurred. So what’s complementary, what’s redundant and […]
It’s easy to forget, but Yahoo was once the largest and most promising digital media company – its stock a bellwether for the internet sector as a whole. By Q1 2017, regulatory hurdles permitting, that stock will stop trading as the company’s people, its portfolio of brands and its technology assets are absorbed into Verizon. To honor Yahoo’s important role in […]
Facebook wants brands to know that its live-streaming platform is more than a free-for-all for unfettered personal broadcasts. Publisher partners are finding value when they augment Facebook Live within a larger content distribution strategy, even if monetization as a whole remains in test mode. “Facebook Live is a form of branded content for us, and […]
It’s probably not a good idea to use Google Translate on legal language. Roughly two weeks ago, the Chinese government released online regulations that include new rules governing paid search results, embedded links, video ads and email advertising. A buried clause within the edict also seems to outlaw ad blocking – and when Adblock Plus realized […]
To maintain transparent relationships with their agencies, brands must consider significantly investing in things like staffing, continuing media education and legal counsel, according to ANA and Ebiquity. In their most recent report, ANA and Ebiquity issued a long list of recommendations that also included hiring a “chief media officer” to manage agency relationships. It’s a […]
Like many companies, outdoor lifestyle brand Columbia Sportswear was no stranger to using 15- and 30-second YouTube videos as a complement to TV. Because consumers weren’t necessarily going to YouTube for “conversion-based” content like product reviews, Columbia experimented with 360-degree video to make its content more immersive. Columbia sent its production crew out with US […]
Deterministic data from set-top boxes is changing how linear TV is bought and valued. Like the Nielsen ratings panel, set-top box data connects to a physical address and household. But unlike Nielsen’s 40,000 families – which provide a “truth set” for TV viewership – set-top boxes reach millions of households, allowing marketers to overlay […]
Political ad dollars, even more so than brand budgets, have conglomerated around a handful of major players. Of the more than $1 billion analysts predict candidates and super PACs will spend online this election, “half will go to Facebook and Google, Pandora – those are the big ones – and Twitter,” said Jordan Lieberman, politics […]
