Technology

Agencies need access to unique data sources to bring strategic value to their clients. Publicis said Monday it is in talks to acquire Epsilon from parent Alliance Data Systems in an effort to beef up its own data assets. The agency network is bidding against Goldman Sachs and private equity firm Advent International for Epsilon, […]

If Google Chrome follows Apple’s ITP and Firefox’s ETP to create a cookie blocker that limits third-party tracking, what would it look like? Google is considering its options, according to an article by AdWeek that said multiple teams at the company – not just its advertising division – are contemplating how to limit third-party data […]

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Pluto TV is the anti-Netflix. It’s free and ad-supported. Users scroll through channels and watch whatever show is already playing, replicating the channel surfing that’s a hallmark of old-fashioned TV watching. Viacom spent $340 million in cash to acquire Pluto TV in January, validating the concept and its audience. The deal felt like “Cinderella getting […]

IAB Europe has notified vendors of changes to its consent management platform (CMP) program, which registers companies that collect and manage consent data for publishers, and is narrowing the gap between its GDPR framework and Google’s GDPR consent standards. These changes also come with a significant price increase. Last week, IAB Europe notified CMP vendors […]

McDonald’s is buying an Israeli startup called Dynamic Yield that provides personalization software to brands and publishers – but this acquisition is about a lot more than tailoring menus based on the weather or serving up customized content. The deal, announced late Monday, is the first major acquisition McDonald’s has made in around 20 years, and […]

Late last year, Havas Media began formalizing rules for how it works with SSPs and exchanges. The rules required them to shed light on previously non-transparent practices, like publisher fees, supply quality, access to log-level reporting and auction dynamics. Havas wasn’t an outlier. Hearts & Science also runs a 50-point certification process with SSPs and […]

Buying beer online may be uncommon, or downright illegal in some states, but that isn’t stopping Anheuser-Busch from investing heavily in ecommerce. Except since beer is such a poor ecommerce converter, the world’s largest beer brewer is focusing on merchandise and apparel to generate online sales and shopper data. Branded merch is insignificant compared to […]

Internet-age companies like Apple, Alphabet, Amazon and Netflix, not to mention Chinese technology giants, are spending more on advertising, catching verticals like CPG, automotive and financial companies that traditionally spend the most on ads. There are 10 new-age tech companies among Ad Age’s top 100 global advertisers. In 2017, the most recent full year data […]

Disney closed its $71 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox on Wednesday, more than a year after it signed a definitive agreement to acquire the entertainment company, which at the time was going to cost $52.4 billion. Disney’s initial agreement in December 2017 turned out to be less definitive than the term implies. Comcast stepped […]

AdExchanger Talks is a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. The godfather of programmatic has retired from advertising. Or has he? In his first interview since selling AppNexus to AT&T for an estimated $1.6 billion (and stepping down), former CEO Brian O’Kelley comes on the AdExchanger podcast for a nice long talk. O’Kelley, known to friends […]

Adobe is betting big on Experience Cloud, which houses all of its marketing, analytics and advertising solutions, as a major growth area for its business. “All the meetings that [we] have, whether it’s with CEOs, CMOs or CIOs, they’re absolutely reflecting the urgency of digital engagement and an appetite to work with Adobe,” CEO Shantanu […]

In its first-ever Wave evaluating media agencies with under $20 billion in billings, released Thursday, Forrester recognized agencies that leverage their buying clout and understanding of the media landscape in creative ways. Mediahub, Hearts & Science and Assembly were Leaders in the ranking. PHD, Spark Foundry, Horizon Media and Vizeum were Strong Performers, while Dentsu […]

FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned video ad tech company, hosted its first television upfront on Wednesday and is mounting a campaign to expand its buy-side business. The marketer outreach centers on new attribution features and the launch of FreeWheel Media, which formalizes its buy-side accounts and ad-serving business into a cohesive offering, CRO Brian Wallach told AdExchanger. […]

Machine learning is becoming central to user acquisition and app advertising at Google. On Wednesday, Google introduced five game developer-focused ads products, four of which are powered by some form of machine learning. The first new release, called pre-registration ads, for example, allows developers to reach Android users across the Play store, YouTube, search and […]

Big Tech can’t catch a break in DC … actually, scratch that. If Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, is elected to the White House in 2020, she’s got a plan to break up Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple. And her proposal specifically targets Google’s ad platform business. On Friday, the Democratic presidential candidate laid out how her […]

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

The phrase “bidstream data” is popping up more and more, but few understand what the bidstream is and what data is available. In the world of real-time ad auctions, bidstream data comes from a publisher or app and includes basic facts about the ad unit, like publisher and URL, device type, IP address and ad […]

Google will move to first-price auctions for Google Ad Manager, its publisher exchange and ad server, by the end of 2019. At that time, it will also run a single, unified auction and remove last look, ceding a key advantage Google held in a second-price world. Google Ad Manager will be the last major exchange […]

Xandr just can’t deal right now, according to sources. When AT&T hired Brian Lesser to run its new targeted advertising business and acquired AppNexus as its anchor asset, the company signaled it might move quickly on more acquisitions. But the appetite for mergers has faded since then, and the company now plans to hold off […]

The Trade Desk shocked many observers last May when shares jumped from around $50 to $90, and then again in August when the stock leapt to about $130. Now shares are trading at almost $200. But what’s behind The Trade Desk’s monumental growth in the past year? The company benefits from a smaller field of […]

Amazon is ratcheting up conquesting campaigns, both as an ad platform and as a private-label brand operator. Conquesting is when a brand tries to directly peel off a competitor’s customers or audience. It was a limited strategy in the old world of media and shopping, where there wasn’t much data to identify a rival’s loyal […]

If Xandr wants to live up to its promise and create a programmatic marketplace for the TV industry, it’s going to have to convince agencies to buy what it’s offering. The AT&T-owned company recently hired Jay Askinasi for the job, and he joined Xandr in early February as VP, head of digital and agency partnerships. […]

Marketers are reacting differently to YouTube’s latest brand safety flare-up compared to 2017, when scores of global brands suspended YouTube campaigns over ads monetizing violent or offensive videos. There’s certainly some déjà vu, with Disney, Nestlé’s and McDonald’s halting YouTube spending after YouTube creator Matt Watson showed them advertising on a video that had a […]

The Trade Desk’s growth streak shows no sign of diminishing, with revenue of $477 million in 2018, a 55% increase from the year before, according to the company’s earnings report on Thursday. Shares of The Trade Desk were up more than 10% in after-hours trading. The company raised eyebrows last year when its stock went […]

Oracle has uncovered an ad fraud operation it calls “DrainerBot,” which siphoned off ad dollars and monthly data packages. Oracle’s internet infrastructure business Dyn originally discovered the operation after it picked up suspicious activity among some mobile apps using an SDK from Tapcore, a Dutch mobile monetization company. The apps obscured web data with proxy […]

US digital ad spend in 2019 will surpass all traditional advertising for the first time, growing to $129.3 billion this year, according to eMarketer’s latest forecast. Digital advertising is being driven by mobile, which is now more than two-thirds of the digital category, and by TV dollars moving to streaming and online video. Oh, and […]

This article is sponsored by Prebid.org. 2018 wasn’t the year header bidding first began disrupting how exchanges and publishers thought about monetizing their inventory, but it may be remembered as the year it reached an inflection point. According to the ServerBid Header Bidding Industry Index, nearly 75% of the U.S.’s top 1,000 websites had adopted header […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Apple Goes Shopping A regulatory filing revealed that Apple has acquired DataTiger, a digital marketing company specializing in customer journey tracking. Apple has assembled an interesting portfolio of tech companies in recent years, including the audio recognition app Shazam and Texture, a digital magazine […]

Criteo brought in $670 million in Q4 2018, beating expectations but still 1% below its revenue from the year before, the French ad tech leader reported Tuesday. Criteo’s earnings for the year were flat at about $2.3 billion. But CFO Benoît Fouilland said the stability is a positive sign, considering Criteo was coming out of […]