The SundaySky has shifted. Since the video ad company launched its SmartVideo platform in 2011, it has ramped up its focus on personalized ads and video content. It’s an evolution for a company whose platform was first used by brands like AT&T to create videos for customer messaging. SundaySky has raised $40 million in funding to date from investors […]
Amazon’s not lifting its foot off the gas pedal in the drive for more developer ad dollars. After revealing the Fire Phone only weeks ago, the ecommerce company tried to incent new app creation via a two-month promotion offering $6 CPMs on the Amazon Mobile Ad Network. The company is also making a European push, […]
Remember the scene in the movie “Kill Bill, Vol. 2“ where the vengeful heroine, the Bride, is buried alive in a coffin and has to pound her way out with her bare fists? That’s your video ad. It’s essentially trapped in a box and buried in the publisher’s web page, and whether it can get out […]
Missing in the Media Rating Council’s (MRC) definition of in-browser video viewability (50% in view, playing for two consecutive seconds) is any stipulation around audibility. This isn’t an oversight – the MRC chose not to institute an audibility requirement because the technology doesn’t exist to determine muting in all instances, said David Gunzerath, SVP and […]
Facebook’s purchase of video supply-side platform (SSP) LiveRail for $500 million underpins its deeper foray into video advertising and positions the social network as a major force in premium publisher monetization. While some experts argue the purchase is a direct response to Google’s recent launch of its programmatic video marketplace Google Partner Select, the sum […]
Before Brazil defeated Croatia at Arena de Sao Paulo to open the 2014 World Cup, the Coca-Cola Co. unfurled across the pitch the fruits of its biggest marketing campaign in its history: a giant mosaic called the “Happiness Flag.” But this campaign, which ended on the soccer field, began online. Activated across 175 countries, the Happiness Flag […]
Why did Singapore Telecommunications’ ad tech subsidiary Amobee buy Adconion and Kontera for a combined $385 million? For Amobee CEO Mark Strecker, it was a matter of moving Amobee’s focus from mobile advertising to digital advertising. And the company needed Kontera’s technological assets and Adconion’s business organization to accomplish that. Once integrated, Amobee will have […]
Millennial Media is beefing up its location data prowess. The mobile ad network is rolling out an audience location ad suite dubbed “Point” and is teaming up with mapping and geo-analytics mainstay Esri. Point unifies three location-based products: Point Audience Frames, powered by Esri, which lets advertisers use hyper-local data to build campaigns; Point-Fencing Route, […]
When Google poached former L’Oréal CMO Marc Speichert last month, the advertising world wondered about the search giant’s evolving branding goals. Over the last few years, many of Google’s recruits came from brands. It’s likely not a coincidence that Google is advertising itself in more traditional forums. It’s running a campaign that places its YouTube […]
The road to “programmatic premium,” once a cow path, has become a highway (OK, maybe a county road) cutting through the heart of ad land. And Google can’t take its foot off the gas pedal. The company on Wednesday rolled out a programmatic video marketplace called Google Partner Select and announced support for direct deals through the DoubleClick platform. The […]
As AdExchanger reported Friday, Google is working on a CMS, likely with its own ad server baked in. The solution is expected to unify the functions of a content management system with the DoubleClick for Publishers toolset – ad serving, sales management, yield optimization, and so on. Google has declined to comment on or confirm the […]
There’s a new guy in charge at Essence, the 9-year-old agency best known as a key partner to Google on its programmatic and other marketing activities. London-based Essence has promoted Christian Juhl, previously in charge of its North American operations, to run the company as global CEO. With his promotion, founder and previous CEO Matt […]
Google is developing a content management system (CMS) that would unify editorial, advertising and perhaps commerce activities for media companies, AdExchanger has learned. Beginning in 2013 Google started talks with some big publishers about offering software to help manage content and advertising in a holistic way, multiple sources said. Among the executives involved in some of those early discussions […]
Forrester Research’s Wave report on Web analytics providers positioned Adobe Analytics Premium as the clear winner. The report prioritized vendors’ ability to serve enterprise clients. Lagging just behind Adobe in the “leader” category were IBM, Webtrends and AT Internet. Google was a “strong performer” and SAS Institute was a “contender.” No vendors were classified as […]
After AOL’s and Google’s respective acquisitions of Convertro and Adometry, the space held by independent marketing attribution vendors immediately shrank. Remaining companies include Visual IQ, C3 Metrics, DataSong, DC Storm, and Encore Metrics. But what is the future of these attribution pure-plays as enterprise stacks invest in cross-channel technologies? “I see a complete collision course with […]
Following Google and AOL’s acquisitions of multitouch attribution vendors Adometry and Convertro Tuesday, several questions arose. The first, and perhaps easiest to answer: What was the driving force for the purchasers and how will the technologies plug into their existing platforms? “The macro rationale for both of the acquisitions seems to be the growing need […]
Marketing attribution and device fragmentation continue to prevent advertisers from further investing in mobile advertising, said MasterCard and Chrysler executives in a panel discussion at the Mobile Marketing Association’s New York Forum on Tuesday. Bob Arnold, digital strategy and media lead of North America at Google, moderated a discussion with Benjamin Jankowski, group head of […]
Digital marketing attribution is in vogue. AOL will acquire attribution vendor Convertro for approximately $101 million, the company announced Tuesday afternoon. This comes on the heels of Google’s move earlier in the day to snap up competing attribution pure play vendor Adometry for an undisclosed sum. Customers will have access to Convertro in a couple […]
Google will scoop up Adometry, a marketing attribution firm whose product is designed to assign value to incremental media impressions. Some industry watchers, like research firm Forrester, consider Adometry’s solution superior to Google’s home-grown technology. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Austin, Texas-based Adometry and its approximately 130 employees will eventually be incorporated into the Google Analytics […]
Big box retailer Walmart’s software and technology accelerator @WalmartLabs has acquired Adchemy, the developer of a SaaS platform that essentially makes retail product search smarter. Silicon Valley-based @WalmartLabs, which employs 2,100 people, was founded three years ago as a way to develop and scale technology to tap into online buying patterns of the store’s 245 […]
Google is walking the walk when it comes to promoting YouTube personalities. After hearing from agencies that it was not acting swiftly enough to tout its own programming, the video platform embarked this month on a “massive” TV, print and out-of-home campaign starring several of its high-profile personalities (YouTube calls them creators) that target Millennial […]
Google’s search engine may eventually reward Web sites that use encryption and if it does, advertisers may find themselves cut off from useful data. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team, hinted at the recent SMX West conference hosted by Search Engine Watch editor Danny Sullivan that Google is indeed considering revising its search […]
Facebook’s unveiling last week of a mobile feature called Nearby Friends, through which it might enable location-targeted ads, places the company in a highly competitive segment of tech vendors offering similar products. The company that will develop the best location-targeted ad product, however, is the one that will couple it with the most relevant consumer […]
First Facebook, then Twitter and now Google. The search giant unveiled plans Tuesday to offer app install ads on mobile search and YouTube (where they’ll be presented like TrueView ads), similar to the units that have been a cash cow for Facebook. The company said it plans to launch this new product over the next […]
Google posted a solid quarter, as total revenues for Q1 2014 jumped to $15.42 billion, a 19% increase compared to this time last year. During its earnings call, Google emphasized its ambitions to extend its value as a brand builder and to close the price gap between mobile and desktop display advertising. Google also stated […]
As the digital video ecosystem gets more crowded, players that plan for cross-device content delivery and who can partner with multiple platforms will win. Both Amazon and Yahoo have been working toward this by mastering their respective delivery methods, increasing audience scale and developing premium inventory. Consider Amazon’s Wednesday launch of its Fire TV set-top […]
During his three years at Kellogg Company, Bob Arnold became a poster child for programmatic buying at the brand marketer level. Arnold, who recently quit cereal to join Google, presented his rules for programmatic at the Association of National Advertisers’ Media Leadership Conference in Boca Raton, Fla., on Tuesday. His key message: Don’t let complexity […]
As consumer apps companies ramp up efforts in geo-targeted ads and hyper-local search, Foursquare has responded by turning check-in data into marketing services opportunities. Following a February announcement that Microsoft would invest $15 million in the location-savvy startup after its $35 million Series D in December, Foursquare’s revenue stream – and data reach – may get […]
Amazon’s rumored development of an ad-supported, free streaming media service, reported first by the Wall Street Journal Thursday, but subsequently denied by a company spokesperson, could solidify its relationship with FreeWheel. FreeWheel is a video ad platform used by Comcast and Amazon among others. When Comcast announced its intent to acquire FreeWheel earlier this month, […]
Self-serve programmatic media buying is gaining favor with the in-house marketing set. That was a key trend that emerged at AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O conference in San Francisco Monday, where approximately 500 marketers and data-driven tech companies convened to share how programmatic media buying is changing advertising. At the outset of the show, AdExchanger Director of […]
