Technology

Tailoring individual messages to someone based on past behavior is easier said than done, since media and creative usually operate independently. Spongecell wants to fix some of the issues stymying dynamic creative optimization (DCO) at scale in the programmatic space, and has raised a $10.5 million growth round in combined debt and equity financing from […]

This is the fourth installment in “PII,” a series featuring the talent that makes the wheels turn in our data-driven advertising world. Read previous interviews with Nazanin Jazayeri, Andrew Klein and Ella Chinitz. When Freddie Liversidge joined Essence in 2013, the agency’s programmatic practice he was tasked with building out had just three people. Now it has […]

Google is seeing strong growth in its dynamic allocation exchange bidding, countering the advantages gained by other exchanges via header bidding. Six months ago, Google reversed its DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) policy when it opened the server up to third-party exchanges. Since then, it’s more than doubled the number of outside exchange partners, adding Smaato, […]

When Publicis Groupe shed its trading desk model, the holding company had to train employees across its media and digital agencies to execute programmatic campaigns. The transition was led by Carol Sinko, VP of global learning strategy at Publicis Media, and Rick Ransome, associate director of global learning strategy. On Wednesday, they told attendees at […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed a stringent set of online privacy regulations on Thursday. The law, expected to go into effect next year, expands the FCC’s mandate over internet service providers (ISPs), which will soon have to obtain individual consent to use data drawn from a subscriber’s activity, such as web browsing, app usage […]

Workflow management software provider Mediaocean will integrate with four demand-side platforms (DSPs) to automate programmatic account management and billing for its agency partners, the company announced Wednesday. The program, announced at AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O conference in New York City and called Connect Programmatic, launches with DSPs TubeMogul, The Trade Desk, Rocket Fuel and MediaMath on […]

Welcome to episode No. 4 of AdExchanger Talks, a new podcast on data-driven marketing. Let us know if you like it, and please subscribe via your preferred channel. Use the player below to listen now.   Joe Zawadzki is an original gangster of ad tech, having founded multiple companies, including [x+1] and MediaMath, and angel-backed some 40 others. […]

Just weeks after acquiring HookLogic for $250 million in an all-cash deal, Criteo is pushing into paid search. Criteo played primarily in performance display until now, but its Predictive Search product marks its first major move into a different part of the marketing funnel. It’s a $33.2 billion market that’s dominated by Google, whose Shopping […]

  Artificial intelligence (AI) is surging in ad/mar tech land. Or resurging, depending on how good your memory is. IBM continues to push Watson, and, in the run-up to their respective conferences, Salesforce and Oracle talked up their own AI initiatives. Also, Google, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft and Amazon banded together to create best practices around […]

When online infrastructure company Dyn got hit by three DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks Friday, it shut down major sites using Dyn, including Twitter, SoundCloud, Spotify and The New York Times. The attack also disrupted the ad industry. Even if a publisher wasn’t affected, the attack impacted many of the tech partners delivering and […]

To even the most casual observer, AT&T’s $85.4 billion bid for Time Warner appears to accelerate the multiyear land grab between telcos like Verizon and the media and ad tech hybrids like AOL. Although the deals have obvious similarities – both AT&T and Verizon are mobile carriers seeking to grow subscribers and diversify their infrastructure […]

The ability to buy directly from a publisher, both programmatically and through direct integrations, is transforming agency media-buying practices. Premium inventory is going programmatic thanks to private marketplaces (PMPs) and programmatic guaranteed deals. Meanwhile, header technology has reinvented the way buyers connect with some media sellers. These converging trends have empowered more agencies to go […]

By Kelly Liyakasa, Sarah Sluis and Allison Schiff Update: AT&T has reached a deal to acquire Time Warner for $85.4 billion. The move gives the telco some seriously premium media assets, including HBO, Warner Bros., CNN, Turner Broadcasting and DC Comics. Yes, AT&T will own Batman. While the telco got a distribution outlet when it merged with DirecTV […]

Programmatic is growing, and it’s also growing up. That’s the message from the Magna Programmatic Growth Report released Friday. Magna projects global programmatic spend to grow from $19 billion this year to $42 billion in 2020. Non-programmatic spend is expected to grow from $27 billion this year to $31 billion, with programmatic becoming the default […]

IPG plans to boost investments in data analytics and coordinate its database across all its agencies, CEO Michael Roth said Friday during the holding company’s Q3 earnings call. Read the release. “That will be a key focus for us in 2017 – to make sure all the agencies at IPG have a consistent offering in […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Diaz Nesamoney, CEO at Jivox and co-chair of the IAB Tech Lab Dynamic Content Ad Standard Working Group. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) this week introduced the industry’s first standard for […]

The IAB unveiled a dynamic content ad standard that will move forward programmatic creative, which is open for public comment for the next month. Instead of churning out ads with dozens of different messages for different channels, advertisers simply define all the creative components and variations. Once served, the ads will dynamically assemble to adapt […]

Julie Clark will speak at AdExchanger’s PROGRAMMATIC I/O Conference in New York on Oct. 26. Hearst had deployed header bidding for years before it became one of the industry’s hot topics. As a veteran user of header bidding, Hearst focuses on adapting it to make programmatic buying more efficient for marketers and publishers. “The old way would […]

Ever since Publicis Groupe disaggregated its trading desk, VivaKi, programmatic has been searching for a new home within the holding company. DigitasLBi is taking an integrated approach by embedding programmatic experts into account teams. “I’m not looking to create a long-term programmatic team silo,” said Carol Chung, who became head of programmatic, North America, at […]

There’s no point in being a me-too solution. That notion is what prompted ConvertMedia to evolve itself from a display network to a supply-side platform focused on outstream video about two years ago. It was also a main driver behind ConvertMedia’s decision to sell to content rec engine Taboola this summer. Once the ink was […]

When SAP first dove into ad tech, it was under the guise of a standalone incubator – an “intrapreneurship,” as the company calls it – called SAP Exchange Media (XM). The launch raised questions about where ad tech fit within SAP’s broader stack. SAP’s commerce and marketing prowess has historically fallen under the SAP Hybris portfolio […]

AppNexus laid off 150 of its 1,125 employees on Thursday and Friday, a 13% reduction of its workforce. Internally, the company is telling employees the cuts are part of a reorg that will unify its buy-side and sell-side product groups, which have operated separately until now with distinct engineering, sales and service teams. The company’s […]

As WPP’s direct marketing agency, Wunderman began collecting data about individual consumers before it was the currency of the digital world. “Data was the lifeline of this place to begin with,” said Wunderman’s New York president, Jamie Gallo. “It was very pedestrian and primal data, but it was what the agency was built on.” As […]

The Weather Co. is no novice at linking weather patterns to consumer actions like in-store purchases, but IBM is giving it some more juice. The Weather Co. rolled out a tool called Journey FX on Thursday. The platform aims to help marketers move beyond one-off media buys to target more predictively against weather attributes and […]

MParticle is in growth mode. The mobile data platform, which helps collect and connect mobile data across platforms, has added $17.5 million in new funding, just nine months after its $15 million Series A in January. The round was led by Bain Capital Ventures, a new investor, with participation from existing investor Social Capital, bringing […]

AT&T, which completed a $49 billion merger with DirecTV last July, is relatively behind competitive carrier Verizon in acquiring (or building) an ad stack and monetizing its mobile data set. AT&T has been largely silent on the mobile data front following its shift away from building a mobile ad network in 2013 in order to prioritize […]

People-based marketing is the natural evolution of data onboarding, according to LiveRamp, the data onboarder owned by Acxiom. On Wednesday, LiveRamp launched IdentityLink, which aims to resolve a single identity across different online and offline touch points. It’s an extension of what LiveRamp already does, said CEO Travis May. LiveRamp’s bread and butter has always been […]

Cross-device identity match rates have shot up in recent years, but brands and agencies remain skeptical of the results. “We were consistently disappointed with cross-device identity matches,” said David Kohl, CEO of the digital media advisory firm Morgan Digital Ventures. “There’s a gap in understanding of what’s possible between vendors and the buy side, [which […]

On Thursday – amid strengthening rumors of an IPO – Snapchat finally released its anticipated ads API to enable better automation, targeting and measurement. It is running with nine partners. Advertisers can buy Snap Ads – full-screen, sound-on, vertical video ad units – programmatically on the platform. “Advertisers [can now] glean insights and better optimize […]

The Marketing Cloud keynote address at Dreamforce included a phrase never before uttered publicly by a Salesforce exec: “You can’t be a marketing cloud without a DMP.” That was SVP and chief product officer Bryan Wade, speaking to around 3,200 Marketing Cloud partners and clients about Salesforce’s intent to acquire Krux. “Think of us as […]