Technology

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Jourdain-Alexander Casale, VP of strategy at Index Exchange. 2016 saw header bidding begin to move from display and mobile into video. On the buy side, the demand for premium content escalated, and publishers continued to […]

In 2016, Mashable got its programmatic house in order. When Chief Revenue Officer Ed Wise joined Mashable last spring, he immediately noticed that the tech publisher was missing out on a lot of programmatic revenue. Its viewability scores topped out below industry averages. Mashable sold inventory on the open exchanges blindly, hampering CPMs. And sales […]

Header bidding, make way: In the next year, more publishers will switch to server-side header bidding. The solution offers clear advantages – while introducing other disadvantages – with which the industry will grapple as publishers update their tech. Like with header bidding, publishers run a pre-auction before the ad server to create a level playing […]

Welcome to episode No. 9 of AdExchanger Talks, a podcast focused on data-driven marketing. Subscribe here. Since PubMatic President Kirk McDonald joined the company from Time Inc. five years ago, publishers have had to continuously react to market changes. Mobile, video, fraud and viewability have each disrupted and transformed the media seller’s calculus. But none of […]

This is the latest installment in “PII,” a series featuring the talent that makes the wheels turn in our data-driven advertising world. Read previous interviews with talent from Mindshare, Mediavest | Spark, Razorfish, Essence, INNOCEAN, Clear Channel Outdoor and Placed. Patricio Jaramillo is in a serious relationship with data. “My relationship with my wife is first, and then with data,” the […]

Like its competitors, IBM is acquiring and building a video stack. Instead of focusing on media execution, however, IBM is using Watson and data analytics to improve the relevancy of video content, ads and delivery models. “In ad-supported video, how do you make ultra-targeted ads tailored down to the individual for customer acquisition?” said David Mowrey, […]

Digital ad players from AOL to Facebook have given lead-gen ads a try, but one company built an entire business around it. Fluent has remained relatively quiet since it was acquired by information services company IDI, now Cogint, for $100 million in cash. The company was on a $140 million (gross revenue) run rate at […]

“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 by Stacey Hawes, president of data practice at Epsilon. No doubt, 2016 was the year of data. There was the good: Data-driven principles were at the forefront of conversations across industries, versus […]

Publishers like Bloomberg and The Washington Post have raced to roll out non-intrusive ad formats priced on attention and engagement metrics. The IAB’s efforts to curb disruptive ad experiences also reinvigorated the dialogue. Verizon-owned AOL is the latest to join the conversation. On Thursday, it dished up several new ad formats designed around consumer engagement […]

TV buyers are used to transacting on GRPs and Nielsen ratings, while digital buyers purchase targeted impressions. That has complicated the way advertisers plan, buy and measure their emerging cross-screen campaigns. Several companies have built tools to address the problem, but many have sold brand-direct or by way of the trading desk. RTL Group–backed VideoAmp […]

In a bizarre, unruly year for political advertising, an analysis of 2016 campaign, party and super PAC spending does reveal one consistent theme: the rise of targetable media. “It turned the page on what will happen in political spending moving forward, because targeted marketing absolutely replaced mass media,” said Kip Cassino, the executive VP of […]

Advertising trade groups are seizing the political moment in a bid to dismantle the Federal Communications Commission’s recently passed broadband consumer privacy laws. With the commission on the cusp of a Republican majority – Chairman Tom Wheeler has said he’ll step down on inauguration day – the writing could be on the wall for the FCC’s […]

When Bankrate decided to add header bidding late last year, it chose a server-side solution. “When we did our RFI [request for information], it became clear to me that server-to-server is a much better and more enhanced version of header bidding,” said Irene Kwak, VP of revenue operations for Bankrate. The financial publisher plans to […]

Joe Stanhope, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, will discuss the state of the marketing technology ecosystem – and what marketers need to do about it – at Industry Preview on January 18th, 2017, in New York City. Marketers face a complex ecosystem filled with thousands of vendors and redundancies. “There are way too many vendors doing […]

Addressable TV significantly expanded in 2016, both in terms of ad spend and the total size of the addressable market. In 2015, addressable TV ad spend reached $400 million in the US and grew to $890 million in 2016, according to eMarketer. That’s quadruple the spend flowing into the marketplace in 2014. Last year, more […]

Ad tech mergers and acquisitions (M&A) has been a roller coaster in recent years, and 2016 certainly didn’t let up. In 2015, public and private marketplace sentiment cooled, but 2016 saw a resurgence – albeit a much more cautious one than in years past. “Good businesses in ad tech will find owners,” said Tolman Geffs, […]

For the big six holding companies, 2016 was a year of acquisitions, restructures, reviews and leadership shakeups, centering expertise around data and digital. But they also engaged in strategies at odds with best practices and client interests. Faced with shrinking margins and rising technology costs, holding companies found new ways to eke revenue – methods […]

  2016 was the year that header bidding crossed over and became a disruptive force in the ad industry. The wave of publisher adoption spurred tech companies to create header bidding solutions. Vendors that were slow to adopt, like Rubicon Project, saw their stock crash as their rivals scooped up market share in a world […]

On Tuesday, White Ops exposed a sophisticated browser-based botnet called Methbot that was reportedly stealing somewhere between $3 million and $5 million of US-based video ad spend a day. The story developed quickly after that. Some large, well-known exchanges have come out to say they’ve had little or no exposure to Methbot. And a few […]

This is the latest installment in “PII,” a series featuring the talent that makes the wheels turn in our data-driven advertising world. Read previous interviews with talent from Mindshare, Mediavest | Spark, Razorfish, Essence, INNOCEAN and Clear Channel Outdoor. Former Brightroll and Amazon exec Craig Whitmer recently joined location data company Placed as VP of programmatic. Placed “measures what people do […]

A few years ago, when Twitch CRO Jonathan Simpson-Bint would walk into meetings with agencies and advertisers, they’d cock a dubious eyebrow. “That many people engage on Twitch? You’ve got to be kidding.’ That was the reaction,” said Simpson-Bint, who’s been with Twitch since 2011, three years before Amazon acquired the social gaming and live […]

After being acquired by Epsilon, Conversant had two big challenges. First, continue combining its own disparate technologies into a single stack. Second, get the whole caboodle working smoothly with Epsilon. Conversant claims it has accomplished the former, as it’s rolled its CRM assets into CORE (Conversant One-to-One Relationship Engine). “CORE takes advantage of our match, […]

Tolman Geffs of global investment bank Jordan, Edmiston Group, along with Bill Wise, the CEO of Mediaocean, will speak about the “private equity path” at Industry Preview on Jan. 19 in New York City. What really happens during – and after – a private equity (PE) investment? While the experiences of different companies vary, one thing […]

When should an ad count? Traditionally, the IAB and Media Ratings Council (MRC) has recommended measuring desktop or mobile ads based on served impressions. So that means the ad only counted after the ad server responded. But now, the IAB and MRC, in conjunction with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), want to change these standards, […]

For YouTube, the recent election cycle was the best of times and the worst of times. Multiple campaign sources think the Google-owned video network remained the single largest platform for political video dollars (aside from TV networks), despite Facebook’s meteoric rise. “YouTube is the second most trafficked site in the US, so it played a […]

Amazon’s ad business is gaining steam. In 2016, the company ramped up its DSP, Amazon Ad Platform, and began to market it more aggressively to holding companies and independent agencies. Then it made a big move this month with the launch of server-side bidding for publishers, a major evolution of its header bidding product that reduces […]

“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 Scott Knoll, CEO and president at Integral Ad Science. When you look at the evolution of digital advertising, it makes sense that viewability has become a leading metric and top […]

Adobe made a big upgrade to its multidevice ad-delivery system Adobe Primetime on Wednesday. The platform, TV Media Management, improves the way Primetime users package and price TV audiences and content. “TV Media Management allows you to see where there may be contention for impressions if certain TV deals close and the best place to […]

Bitly was known as the de facto Twitter link shortener back in 2008. As that business commoditized – and Twitter, Google and other platforms released their own versions – Bitly recognized its real value was in the data exhaust left behind by its links. That spurred the enterprise platform Bitly OneView, a tool it launched […]

While the online advertising trade groups have created anti-fraud programs and exchanges have instituted inventory standards, fraud is still on the rise. AdExchanger reached out to some of the people in the trenches about where the digital ad tech and media ecosystem stands now and how progress can be made. Click below for their responses. […]