This is a new podcast from AdExchanger. It will be available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. In the wake of Facebook’s suspension of social listening tool Crimson Hexagon from its platform late last week, it’s easy to trace the reason for the crackdown to residual squeamishness from its Cambridge Analytica nightmare. In the latest episode […]
Trusted Media Brands is continuing its turnaround and building a revenue team to take advantage of its digital audience growth. Over the past year, the company, formerly known as the Reader’s Digest Association, grew readership on RD.com 76% to 8.3 million unique visitors. Taste of Home’s audience grew 39% to 12.7 million unique visitors. Overall […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. An Otter Acquisition Most people are still busy digesting news of AT&T’s $1.6 billion acquisition of AppNexus – but the telco already has another little deal up its sleeve. AT&T is in the process of securing full ownership of Otter Media, the streaming media company […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The House Always Wins As YouTube keeps dialing up brand safety protections, creators in marginal or disreputable categories are feeling the brunt. A relatively small but active group of creators who stream from inside casinos (because people like to watch others gambling) have found […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Yaser Bishr, executive vice president of digital at Al Jazeera Media Network. Facebook’s days as a major disseminator of hard news are coming to a close. And while that puts the traffic of many […]
When the sports news startup Minute Media was founded seven years ago, Bleacher Report, Huffington Post and other publishers already had demonstrated user-generated content and social traffic growth strategies before ditching the model for more traditional newsrooms. Minute Media wants to prove a new media company can stick with its contributors and generate returns by […]
After purchasing programmatic audio platform AdsWizz in March, Pandora has become a force in the market. In February, Pandora began beta testing a private marketplace for video and audio. It also offers display inventory on the open exchange. As it jumps into programmatic, it’s training and staffing its 300-plus sales employees to become experts across […]
Publishers like to pretend that consumers can’t live without content – but if 95% of media brands disappeared tomorrow, no one would care, said Rafat Ali, CEO and founder of travel publisher Skift, at LUMA’s Digital Media Summit in New York City on Tuesday. Despite the value media people ascribe to the importance of what they […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Erik Requidan, vice president of programmatic strategy at Intermarkets. In advertising, we just love the death watch. Publishers often hear rumors like “Desktops are dead!” How many times have we heard the bell toll […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written for the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Alessandro De Zanche, an independent audience strategy consultant. In a world of “popcorn data,” quantity and reach are more important than quality and depth, and users are seen as “data cows” rather than customers. […]
There’s no love for annoying ads on Chrome this Valentine’s Day. Google will release a new version of its browser on Thursday with a built-in ad blocker. Here’s how it works. Chrome will now block all ads on sites that don’t adhere to the ad quality standards set by the Coalition for Better Ads, an […]
Every publisher wants to harness its data – but you can’t climb a mountain without a lot of pain. At the Google Publisher Leadership Summit in Chicago, ad execs from The New York Times, Vice Media and the Local Media Consortium (LMC) discussed their often-arduous quests to reach the peak. The New York Times, for […]
Facebook’s making it harder for fly-by-night publishers to monetize low-value websites. On Wednesday, Facebook said it’s starting to use artificial intelligence to lay down the law on links that shunt users to websites with too many ads, as well as ads of a “disruptive, malicious and shocking” nature. Frowned-upon ad types include excessively disruptive units […]
Some publishers are raking in the traffic courtesy of Apple News, but not everyone on the buy side is impressed. “I want to be able to upload my own audience, match it to theirs and know what’s running where so I can customize the ad,” said Angelina Eng, VP of media platforms and operations at […]
The Knot’s audience is engaged – literally. Eight out of 10 couples in the US – around 12 million monthly uniques – visit the wedding planning site for advice while getting ready for the big day. But The Knot has transformed itself over the last three years from an online publication to what Mike Steib, CEO and president […]
Independent mobile supply-side platforms (SSPs) are going extinct, the result of commoditization and natural evolution. “It’s been really hard to be a single-point solution player in the ad tech space for a long time, but now it’s almost impossible,” said Christopher Hansen, chief product officer at IgnitionOne. “Just take a look at the Terry Kawaja […]
Mobile viewability is going through its awkward adolescent phase. There’s no official standard yet – the Media Rating Council (MRC) is planning to circulate a document for public comment in the next few weeks – and vendors are still tinkering with their methods. Which can lead to confusion around implementation, measurement-induced headaches and wonky reporting. “Everyone is […]
MWC drinking game: Take a drink every time someone says “value exchange” in reference to the ad-blocking issue. You won’t stand a chance. “We believe in the fair value exchange. If someone wants content from CBS Interactive, we will deliver it to them happily for free in exchange for them watching an ad,” said CBS […]
Pubs and brands have complained about programmatic inventory on open exchanges for years, but a renewed focus on inventory quality is gaining traction. AppNexus has long positioned itself as the platform for ad networks, but it reversed its policy in recent weeks by removing ad networks that don’t provide direct publisher or seller relationships. Shortly […]
AdExchanger Research analyst Catherine Oddenino reports on publisher trends in the programmatic advertising ecosystem in her recently-released report, “The State of Programmatic Selling 2015.” Among Ms. Oddenino’s findings:
If ad blocking is war, long-tail publishers will likely be its earliest casualties. “Ad blocking is a threat to the whole industry, but it has an especially high impact for the small publishers who make up so much of the rich fabric that is the digital experience,” said Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising […]
Publishers are concerned about content blocking in iOS 9 – but how concerned should they be? At first glance, the single brief reference to content blocking in Apple’s iOS 9 release notes seems innocuous enough. “Use the Content Blocking extension point to give Safari a block list describing the content that you want to block while […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by James Curran, CEO and founder at Staq. Publishers, including Refinery29 and BuzzFeed, represent hot digital content brands that have recently decided to opt out of the real-time bidding (RTB) ecosystem. Some, like BuzzFeed, don’t […]
“Marketer’s Note” is a regular column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. This week it is written by Catherine Oddenino, Analyst, AdExchanger Research. I’m currently finalizing a report focused on the state of programmatic media from the publisher perspective. As part of the research I’ve been asking publishers what they see […]
Ben Barokas – whose company AdMeld was purchased by Google in 2011 – unveiled his latest venture Thursday: Sourcepoint. The company, through which publishers can ask their audience to support the content either through general advertising, interest-based advertising or subscription, also raised a $10 Million Series A round Thursday, led by Spark Capital and Foundry […]
Publishers taking the role of an ad agency by creating content for marketers should make sure they’re not creating misleading native advertising: The Federal Trade Commission will hold publishers responsible. “For us, the concern is whether consumers recognize what they’re seeing is advertising or not,” Mary Engle, the FTC’s associate director of advertising practices, told […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Reed Barker, vice president of cable ad products at The Weather Company. Remember when you were a kid and you finally realized that there was no Santa Claus? There was a decision on the […]
John Montgomery, COO of GroupM Interaction, North America will appear at AdExchanger’s upcoming CleanAds I/O conference on June 3, an event addressing inventory quality and supply chain issues in the digital advertising ecosystem. GroupM’s stance on viewability is clear: “If an ad can’t be seen, then we can’t expect clients to pay for it,” said […]
On April 21, Google will begin instituting a change to its mobile search algorithm that will take a site’s mobile-friendliness into account when ranking results. Indexed apps will also start showing up among organic search results. The update applies to mobile search only. In somewhat un-Google-like fashion, Google, which normally makes its search algorithm changes […]
Many publishers don’t know – or don’t want to know – what kind of fraud occurs on their sites. But it’s a reaction not dissimilar to how brands approached fraud before shocking numbers – like the 17% of programmatic ads and 23% of video ads determined fraudulent in the ANA/White Ops study last year – […]
