Technology

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 […]

OTT audiences are prevalent and engaged. But while advertisers are buying, they’re not exactly beating down the doors. Watch any premium long-form show on an internet connection and you’ll see the same irrelevant message played so frequently it’ll haunt your dreams. What gives? The main issue is buyer confusion about how to transact on OTT […]

Paris-based app retargeting platform Adikteev – think Criteo for apps – snagged $12 million in Series B on Tuesday. The company plans to spend it on research and development and on expanding its 100-person headcount with around 40 new engineer hires over the next month. The round, which brings Adikteev’s total funding to $14.2 million since it […]

Adobe has placed a new exec in charge of its advertising cloud. TubeMogul’s longtime CMO and head of strategy, Keith Eadie, now oversees product, engineering and overall go-to-market for Adobe’s media and advertising business. His title is VP and GM of Adobe Advertising Cloud. Meanwhile his predecessor, TubeMogul CEO and founder Brett Wilson, is now […]

In an early draft of his prepared remarks at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting on Monday, Unilever CMO Keith Weed threatened to stop advertising on digital platforms that “do not make a positive contribution to society.” But when he actually took the stage in Palm Desert, Calif., a few hours later, Weed struck a softer […]

Penske Media, the publisher of WWD, Variety and IndieWire and majority owner of Wenner Media, is doubling down on video across its portfolio. Its formats range from snackable, short-form clips and pre-roll to text-based video and more cinematic, long-form series. Although Penske’s video mix is diversified, monetizing that inventory to its fullest potential can be […]

It’s IPO day for Cardlytics, the maker of an analytics platform that leverages purchase data sourced directly from bank partners. Cardlytics began trading at about $12, below its target share price of $13-$15, when Nasdaq opened Friday, before climbing modestly to $13 in afternoon trading. Cardlytics aims to raise about $70 million in the offering. […]

If 2017 was the year of brand safety and transparency, 2018 is set to be the year GDPR reshapes programmatic marketing. That’s the sentiment of 28 brand marketers and media directors surveyed by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) trade group for its “Future of Programmatic Media” report published Friday. The brands represented collectively spend […]

Acxiom stock ticked up Tuesday despite missing revenue estimates and lowering revenue guidance. A likely reason: The company announced a strategic review of its Marketing Services business and some of its Audience Solutions assets to consider a potential sale, merger, spin-off or other exit. CEO Scott Howe told investors the plan is to consolidate Acxiom’s […]

At M&C Saatchi Mobile, a senior media planner who once created up to 25 reports per week coded a solution to generate those reports from Excel with just a click. The move saved the planner about an hour and a half per week, and now the code is scaled for others to use. The planner […]

Google will turn on its built-in Chrome ad blocker on Feb. 15, meaning ad tech companies must hustle to get their products in compliance as publishers fear lost revenue. Beginning that day, Chrome will begin auto-blocking ad formats that obstruct access to content. Chrome has more than 62% of the mobile browser market share and […]

Amazon has become part of virtually every media plan and it’s only going to continue to grow. Yet, Amazon’s advertising business remains an enigma. Even its closest partners aren’t exposed to the inner workings of its ad stack. It’s also not clear how much spend flows through Amazon’s ad platform, though the investment bank BMO […]

Criteo has always been something of an ad tech enigma. That French retargeting virtuoso, the golden child of Wall St. as the markets soured on advertising technology. But nothing gold can stay. And now Criteo has its work cut out to convince investors that the company can grow in the face of browser anti-tracking updates, namely […]

Alphabet posted revenues of $32.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017, up 24% compared to the same period last year. The earnings showed a spike in traffic acquisition costs [TAC] as Google paid more to publishers in its Google Network Members’ properties revenue segment. The segment also includes revenue from Google’s DoubleClick Bid Manager, […]

Rich-media ad server Flashtalking has merged with the dynamic creative optimization (DCO) specialist Spongecell. Terms of the deal, announced Monday, were not disclosed. As a combined entity, the two companies should gain more dominance in the US and internationally. Flashtalking is based in the United Kingdom, and works with blue chip brand clients like Lowe’s, […]

Paris-based ecommerce analytics platform ContentSquare has raised a $42 million Series B round from a series of investors including US VC firm Canaan and Highland Europe. ContentSquare previously had raised $20 million, bringing it to a total of $62 million after this round. The company will use the financing to support research and development of […]

Media and telco M&A volume in the US increased 29% year over year in 2017 to nearly $140 billion, driven mostly by megadeals like Disney’s $68.4 billion bid for 21st Century Fox, according to new data from PwC. More specifically, there were 18 megadeals in 2017, including Discovery’s $11.8 billion merger with Scripps. Although large […]

Although video header bidding is still nascent, early adopters are starting to see results. Social-heavy publisher Diply has been using AppNexus’ video header bidding solution Prebid Video since the end of last year to allow programmatic auctions to compete alongside its ad server –  Google’s DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP). Customizing its header bidding wrapper helps […]

With Time Warner on board or not, AT&T is pushing forward with its vision for the next potential addressable ad platform giant. CMOs or holding company agencies might pour money into Google and Facebook, but “they’re nervous about the content they’ve produced living in environments they can’t control,” said Brian Lesser, AT&T’s CEO of advertising […]

The advertising industry has been plagued by a lack of trust, with vendors, agencies and marketers looking at each other askance. Ad fraud, bad traffic and hidden fees have taken their toll, and while industry players have taken measures to reinstitute their good standing, their work isn’t nearly complete. During a panel Thursday at AdExchanger’s […]

Adobe and AppNexus plan to give marketers supply-chain transparency from the DSP to the SSP by partnering on a pilot program. Adobe Advertising Cloud will reveal all fees taken by the DSP, including the platform fee and any add-ons, as well as AppNexus’ bill to the publisher, which will help marketers track media dollars through […]

In-app header bidding is coming to MoPub. On Tuesday, the Twitter-owned mobile ad exchange started testing an advanced bidding solution to replace the app ads waterfall with a unified auction. Roughly a dozen publishers are testing the solution. The closed alpha test does not have a set end date. Until now, advertisers could buy MoPub […]

Ad targeting company Magnetic has a new CEO: ad tech vet Corey Ferengul. He replaces James Green, who served as CEO for the past six years. It’s time for the company to evolve and grow beyond its retargeting roots, said Ferengul, who previously sat on Magnetic’s board and also served as chief exec of programmatic […]

Online retailers are losing revenue right under their noses thanks to a devious form of ad injection only visible to infected site visitors. “I didn’t even know we had a problem,” said Jason LeBoeuf, director of ecommerce at athletics footwear brand Asics. The Asics website was the victim of customer-journey hijacking, a sneaky practice by […]

Mobile ad network and Indian unicorn InMobi paid $90 million for mobile video monetization platform AerServ in a bid to build a header bidding solution for apps. The deal, announced Wednesday, will bring together their respective programmatic exchanges to create “fair auction dynamics for in the in-app space,” said Abhay Singhal, InMobi’s CRO and co-founder. […]

Demand-side platforms (DSPs) make money by taking a percentage of the media buys that flow through their technology – and from lots of other hidden extras they charge for. Interviews with more than a dozen sources reveal that even as marketers make progress in understanding what they’re paying for, nontransparent fees abound in the DSP […]

Brad Bender will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference on Jan. 17-18, 2018, at the Grand Hyatt New York. Google’s rallying cry for 2018? Better and possibly fewer ads. While that theory may seem counterintuitive for a company whose revenues come almost exclusively from advertising, rethinking the ad experience may mean recutting standard formats or reducing […]

In recent years, enterprise giants like Salesforce, Oracle, IBM and Adobe monopolized M&A activity as each marketing cloud raced to buy their way into ad tech. That tide has turned. These days, strategic acquisitions are more about expanding access to content, audiences and new means of distribution. Just look to media company team-ups like Disney-21st […]

2017 was a busy year of M&A for the digital media and marketing sector, according to reports released by investment banks JEGI and Luma Partners this week. Last year included 2,000 transactions in the sector hitting $272 billion in deal value, according to JEGI. It was the fourth consecutive year of increasing transaction value in […]

While ad tech companies have been accumulating VC funds and growing their stacks – and sales orgs – for a while, many took pains to rightsize over the past year or so. For some, the intent was to recapitalize or to prep for a sale if an IPO was a no-go. For others, it was […]