Technology

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Money On My Mind Recent data scandals haven’t stopped Facebook from asking US banks for information about their customers, The Wall Street Journal reports. Over the past year, Facebook has approached Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and US Bancorp for data, including user credit […]

Blockchain advertising technology has been surfing a hype cycle that’s brought blockchain and cryptocurrencies to mainstream attention. But are blockchain companies ready for the spotlight? And what work needs to be done before marketers or publishers can begin buying and selling media on blockchain-based platforms? “It reminds me of early days of programmatic when different […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Hey, Big Spender Amazon may be raking in billions from its ad business, but it’s also spending a ton on programmatic advertising. The ecommerce giant was the biggest programmatic spender during the first quarter of this year, according to a report from MediaRadar. Amazon […]

Google is going full-court press on universal app campaigns (UAC) through a partnership with Unity Technologies, a company that makes development tools for game creators. Starting Thursday, Unity’s more than 10 million developers have access to advertiser demand from AdMob via a direct integration. It’s the first partnership of this nature between Google and a […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Frank Sinton, founder and CEO at Beachfront Media. AT&T’s move to acquire AppNexus is a strategic one to position the company within its growing digital footprint. While AT&T has long been one of the […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Good While It Lasted Facebook’s data partner program will shut down on Aug. 15, a result of policy changes following the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, and some marketers dread the impending loss. The program included data brokers like Acxiom, Oracle Data Cloud, Epsilon […]

Rubicon Project beat its Q2 revenue expectations, sending the stock up 15% in after-hours trading Wednesday. Rubicon Project is still in the middle of steering a huge ship out of danger: It’s burning cash faster than it can increase ad spend on its platform, the result of cutting buyer fees from the platform in November. […]

Criteo has lowered its full-year revenue guidance as it seeks to evolve its pricing model, the company said during its Q2 earnings call Wednesday. Other headwinds, like mobile privacy policies and GDPR regulations, did affect Criteo’s revenues as dramatically. The company initially anticipated growth between 3% to 8% and now expects growth to be flat. […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written for the sell side of the digital media community.  Today’s column is written by Michael Lehman, vice president of supply at TripleLift. The original promise of PMPs was impossibly compelling: Marry the high CPMs, large revenues and control of direct sales with the efficiency and data of programmatic […]

Many in the ad tech industry view demand-side platforms (DSPs) as commodities. Sizmek is hoping to prove otherwise, as it took the wraps off a revamped buying platform Tuesday. Made from the old Rocket Fuel DSP, the new offering, according to Sizmek CEO Mark Grether, has a more streamlined user interface than its previous iteration, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Read Favored To Run WPP Speculation has swirled for months about who will succeed Martin Sorrell as CEO of WPP, and we may finally have an answer. Mark Read, CEO of Wunderman and co-COO at WPP since Sorrell’s departure, has emerged as the top […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Opera, The Other Operator The Norwegian software company Opera, maker of eponymous web browsers and mobile apps, IPO’d on the Nasdaq stock exchange last Friday, raising about $115 million. Opera has a 2% sliver of the global browser market but hopes to grow along […]

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

Amazon’s ad business continued to throttle up in the second quarter. The ecommerce giant’s “other” revenue category, where it houses advertising sales and services such as marketing measurement, cleared almost $2.2 billion, more than double the $945 million earned during the same period last year, according to the company’s earnings report, released Thursday. Amazon’s gross […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Race For 5G Verizon is in talks to partner with Google and Apple to provide online television when it releases its first 5G network in select cities later this year. Verizon fell short in developing an online TV service and wrote off its […]

AT&T reported Q2 earnings Tuesday for the first time since its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, which it has renamed WarnerMedia, closed in June. Revenue for AT&T’s Advertising and Analytics unit, which includes the AdWorks addressable TV group, grew 16% sequentially to $1.8 billion, CFO John Stephens said during Tuesday’s earnings call. Advertising and […]

Verizon revealed Tuesday that it is taking a $658 million writedown for “product realignment” that is “mainly related” to Go90, which it shut down in late July. Verizon also had $339 million in severance charges and $120 million in charges related to its Oath integration, the company said during an earnings call. Taken together, the […]

The revised OpenRTB 3.0 spec released Tuesday makes major changes to the programmatic standard to stamp out bad ads and fraud. The IAB Tech Lab’s new spec is now open for public comment for 60 days. The eight-year-old OpenRTB standard governs how demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs) communicate with each other to buy […]

Alphabet’s second quarter revenue hit $32.7 billion, a 26% jump from the same period last year, according to its earnings report on Monday. The advertising platform is “firing all cylinders,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai told investors, with ad revenue reaching $28.1 billion in Q2 2018, compared to $22.7 billion in Q2 2017. This is the […]

What’s the point of integrating data sources if you can’t activate on them? That’s the rationale behind the Salesforce Ventures-led $23.8 million Series E investment in SessionM, announced Monday. SessionM helps companies consolidate first- and third-party data sources and activate them around the customer journey. While it has elements of a customer data platform, its […]

Disney is about to get its own happily ever after with Hulu. Comcast has dropped out of its bidding war for most of Fox’s assets, conceding it to Disney. Disney and Fox shareholders are expected to approve the deal on July 27, USA Today reported. Disney will also gain access to Fox’s Star India network […]

Amazon Prime Day is the ecommerce leader’s biggest shopping day ever as well as an opportunity to see how the company strategically deploys its advertising and promotional products. Many retailers responded to Prime Day this year with their own deluge of special discount deals, but Amazon uniquely uses its arsenal of products, from Alexa-based voice […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Ian Davidson, vice president of platform demand at OpenX. Why would exchanges add to their enormous server-farm costs by sending multiple bid requests to a single demand-side platform (DSP) for the same impression opportunity? […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Claws Down The bidding war between Comcast and Disney for 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets has finally come to an end, with Comcast backing down after Disney’s $71.3 billion counterbid. Comcast will focus instead on beating Fox to acquire Sky, the British satellite TV […]

AppNexus launched the first video advertising product for its demand-side platform (DSP) in late 2015. Over the next two years it built out its video offering to include a supply-side platform (SSP) solution, a video ad server, a video header bidding product and a connected-TV marketplace. With its acquisition by AT&T expected to close later […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Direct Control Direct-to-consumer upstarts are giving established brands a run for their money, and are also wreaking some havoc in the agency world. That’s because DTC brands are for the most part digitally native and do their advertising in-house. Despite its $1 billion acquisition […]

Google was hit with a $5.1 billion fine by the European Union on Wednesday for antitrust practices around the Android mobile operating system – a move that underscores Europe’s willingness to issue steep financial penalties for bad behavior. And there’s another bludgeon in the EU’s cache that Google – and the advertising world in general […]

Less than two years after Vector Capital sealed its $122 million deal to acquire Sizmek, the private equity firm is already looking to divest. Multiple sources with direct knowledge told AdExchanger that Vector has been shopping Sizmek, possibly as early as April, and just a year and a half after the deal closed. Vector denied […]

It seems everyone wants a piece of AppLovin. Private equity firm KKR bought a $400 million minority stake in the app marketing and discovery platform on Tuesday, lifting AppLovin’s valuation to around $2 billion from $1.4 billion just eight months ago. Bank of America Merrill Lynch advised AppLovin on the investment, adding a new wrinkle […]

Ad tech is a buyer’s market right now, and MediaMath just got $180 million in cash to fund acquisitions. Could one of those targets be Rubicon Project? “That’s an interesting idea,” MediaMath CEO Joe Zawadzki told AdExchanger Thursday. “No, we are not buying them at this time.” The idea of a top-tier DSP and SSP […]