Technology

IBM-owned pub The Weather Co. is working to tap into people-based marketing budgets that would normally go to Facebook or Google by using LiveRamp’s IdentityLink product. Marketers and publishers alike onboard their data to LiveRamp’s huge online identity graph to kick off the process. Because LiveRamp can identify many more users than a marketer or […]

As NBCUniversal’s portfolio has evolved, so has its sales pitch to brand marketers. When NBCU merged its linear and digital sales teams in 2015 and combined all its content groups, its client partnerships team assumed a greater role within its sales organization. That team, led by client partnerships EVP Ali Tarrant, became the broadcaster’s conduit […]

Updated with Q&A with Eric Eichmann, CEO of Criteo Criteo continues to soar high above the scrum of ad tech stocks. The company had a characteristically strong Q2, growing revenue ex-TAC by 32% to $220 million. Yet, “uncertainties” lie ahead, notably around Apple’s recent reveal that, come September, an update to its OS will include […]

Mapp Digital, the Marlin Equity-backed holding company housing the remnants of Teradata’s marketing tech stack, wants to take some business from the larger marketing clouds. One way it hopes to get there is by attracting upper mid-market and enterprise buyers like KFC and Infiniti that are looking for a modular marketing cloud with managed services […]

Ad blocking is generally associated with early browser extensions like AdBlock and eyeo’s Adblock Plus (ABP), which both make their money through the Acceptable Ads whitelisting platform designed by ABP to monetize ad-block users. But the consumer market for ad blocking has branched into apps, mobile browsers and antivirus software all peddling ad blocking wrapped […]

Amazon is bulking up on headcount to service its Amazon Web Services (AWS) and ad sales divisions, as revenue for the “other” category – which combines advertising with all supplementary revenue like co-branded credit cards – increased 51% to $945 million YoY in Q2. [Here’s Amazon’s Q2 results overall]. Amazon noted accelerated growth in hiring […]

Welcome to AdExchanger Talks, a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. The emergence of header bidding three years ago came close on the heels of Index Exchange’s pivot from traditional media sales into programmatic publisher enablement. In this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks, CEO Andrew Casale describes the reinvention header bidding enabled for his 16-year-old family-operated […]

Nielsen’s specialty is media measurement, not mar tech. But a slew of new Nielsen Marketing Cloud wins may help change that perception. Despite the presence of data management platforms from Salesforce, Adobe and Oracle, Nielsen Marketing Cloud just had its largest-ever quarter for new DMP client wins since it acquired eXelate in 2015. CPG marketers […]

The ad tech rollup is real, and its name is Sizmek. On Tuesday, the 18-year-old company revealed its intent to buy public ad tech company Rocket Fuel for $145 million. If the purchase finalizes, Sizmek’s acquisition spree (excluding the earliest iterations of its evolving stack) will round out to about five companies acquired in less […]

Digital offers more precise measurement than most channels, which has helped move the industry from an art to a science, according to Brian Andersen of Luma Partners. “And as part of that [transition], they need to know: How do we manage our data? How do we use our data for targeting? How do you understand […]

OTT is a catch-22 for advertisers. While it reaches the cord cutters traditional TV advertisers want to target, that audience is still difficult to track in an OTT environment. Although the channel is capturing more attention (and dollars) from the traditional TV camp, digital buyers say connected TV needs to address the issue of identity […]

Seven-year-old mar tech startup Integrate has raised $8 million in a Series D growth round, bringing its total financing to $35 million. New investor Iron Gate Capital led the equity round with participation from existing investors Foundry Group and Forte Ventures. Other investors include mar tech luminaries like Scott Dorsey, founder and CEO of ExactTarget […]

Sizmek said Tuesday it intends to buy ad tech company Rocket Fuel for $2.60 per share in cash, valuing Rocket Fuel at $145 million. That’s a long way from where Rocket Fuel was valued when it IPOed in 2013 – going public at $29 per share at a roughly $1 billion value. Read the release. […]

Ask Facebook for access to its data and the official answer is going to be, “Nope.” But under certain circumstances, a limited number of advertisers and agencies are tapping into impression-level Facebook campaign delivery data, AdExchanger has learned. The data-sharing arrangements are euphemistically referred to as “clean rooms.” These clean rooms are safe spaces where […]

Story updated at 1:40 p.m.  Rubicon Project has acquired nToggle, a startup that builds infrastructure to streamline bid requests, for $38.5 million, the companies revealed Monday. NToggle’s technology uses machine learning to weed out impressions a DSP is better off not bidding on through a process known as “traffic shaping.” This capability is increasingly important […]

While broadcaster ProSieben owns about a 30% share of the German TV market, it’s looking to expand its influence in new channels – using its investment arm, SevenVentures, to scout startups. “We look to invest into promising startups on the B2C side of the business, which is different than the investment we make into our […]

Welcome to AdExchanger Talks, a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. Google and Facebook have no problem compelling advertisers to create ads that visually conform to their huge platforms. Smaller publishers? Not so much. This week’s podcast guest, TripleLift CEO Eric Berry, built his company five years ago based on that fundamental reality. “We wanted to […]

Podcast advertising is getting a bit more measurable. The IAB Tech Lab updated its Podcast Measurement Guidelines on Wednesday to include definitions and best practices for measuring audience reach and downloads. The original guidelines, released in September, focused on defining ad delivery and how to count it consistently. “But podcast measurement is for more than […]

If you’re an organization in dire need of digital transformation, who ya gonna call? While an enterprise software company might not initially come to mind, that’s exactly who brands like Coca-Cola and Philips turned to. For Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox Film, it’s moved from primarily a B2B company focused on partners like broadcasters, retailers, […]

You’ve got to be a tough cookie and have good fortune to crack the China market. And success in other regions is not a guarantee of success in the People’s Republic. Such was the case with Criteo, which, after investing heavily in the domestic China market, discreetly pulled out in late May, nearly three years […]

Blockchain, an unmodifiable and unbreachable digital ledger, was conceived 10 years ago to support the cryptocurrency bitcoin. But it has since seeped into new categories, jumping from finance to health care and, more recently, digital advertising. It’s doing so with the backing of big companies like IBM and Comcast, as well as smaller startups like […]

DoubleVerify is looking for a home. AdExchanger has learned that the independent verification company recently hired a banker from tech-focused investment firm Pacific Crest Securities. Final bids were due Tuesday, and sources tell AdExchanger the deal price could be somewhere in the $350 million range – a lofty bid, though considerably less than the reported […]

Addressable TV has earned a rep for being expensive and not all that scalable. But for early adopters like Conagra Brands, the channel does have its perks. Advertisers that invest in addressable TV alongside their larger broadcast buys view the format as a vessel for reducing waste by being able to more effectively zero in […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Chris Hock, head of business strategy and development, media and entertainment, at Adobe. EMarketer pegs the US addressable TV ad spend at $1.56 billion for 2017. That’s double the rate of 2016, which was double […]

RTB whiz Neal Richter is the new CTO at Rakuten Marketing, the marketing solutions subsidiary of Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten. Richter, who serves as a technical adviser to a number of ad tech startups, including Metamarkets and nToggle, joins the company after more than seven years with Rubicon Project, most recently as CTO. At Rakuten, […]

Jet.com has been quietly pitching publishers on changes to its payment structure related to affiliate commissions. The message is clear: Work with Jet and it’s prepared to pay you for the privilege. Affiliate bucks often go to the more established players like Amazon or eBay. But in order to incentivize publishers to send traffic its […]

The drumbeat of blockchain industry news continues this week with the launch of AdLedger Consortium, a blockchain-enabled online advertising group backed by MadHive, a blockchain ad tech startup, IBM, Integral Ad Science and Tegna’s OTT ad subsidiary Premion. As with other initiatives, like Comcast’s fledgling Blockchain Insights Platform, the AdLedger Consortium is still in the […]

Adobe is looking to get schooled on AI and data science. While many technology giants foster relationships with academics by offering them lucrative part-time consultancy positions. Adobe is pursuing a different tack: dishing out $50,000 no-strings-attached grants to professors and doctoral students working on projects of joint interest. “What academia provides is more the advanced […]

Microsoft is looking to claim itself a spot beside the top dogs competing on the video and cloud front. It says data is the differentiator. “Unlike other providers who use your data to sell groceries or other services that compete [with your business], your data belongs to you,” Martin Wahl, principal program manager for Microsoft, […]

Welcome to AdExchanger Talks, a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. Mediaocean is boring – in a good way. The 50-year-old marketing workflow and billing provider offers a relatively mundane set of marketing and advertising enablement tools. Its customer base is stable, its revenue predictable. In a few years, God willing, the rest of the […]