Technology

Just because an ad is “in-view,” that doesn’t mean it’s effective. On the contrary, time spent is often a better indicator of ad effectiveness than percentage of pixels in-view on a page. That’s according to a new viewability study from Interpublic Group (IPG) and measurement firm Integral Ad Science. The report, “Putting Science Behind The […]

Server-side ad insertion (SSAI), also known as ad stitching, is emerging as a key method for video publishers to mitigate ad blocking and boost video playback across devices. Though the technique is not new, industry insiders say there is massive growth potential as consumers stream more video content and new over-the-top devices enter the fray. […]

Location analytics company Placed announced Wednesday its attribution service would connect billboards to in-store traffic. It will do this via a mix of partnerships with holding company agencies and out-of-home (OOH) inventory suppliers like Clear Channel Media and cinema ad network NCM. “OOH is shifting,” said Michael Lieberman, COO of tenthavenue, an OOH agency within […]

IBM’s purchase of three agencies in six days on behalf of its in-house agency Interactive Experience (iX) is uncharacteristic since iX hasn’t been acquisitive in its almost two-decade history. The first purchase, last Thursday, was Resource/Ammirati, known for brand building. IBM then acquired digital agency Aperto on Tuesday and design agency Ecx.io on Wednesday; both […]

  Header bidding has been such a runaway hit for publishers that it’s required the development of a new technology to manage all the partners they want to add. What seems a small change – the addition of a wrapper that organizes buyers as they enter the ad server – further solidifies header bidding’s place […]

Google had a strong showing in Q4, its first quarter airing results under an entirely new segment-based reporting structure. Google’s holding company Alphabet reported $21.3 billion in Q4 2015 revenue, an 18% increase YoY. Google itself saw $21.2 billion in quarterly revenue (an 18% YoY increase) and $74.5 billion for FY 2015. Read the release. Breaking down the […]

When IBM revealed Friday it had closed its deal (financial terms weren’t disclosed) for The Weather Co.’s product and tech business, it began setting expectations on how those assets will be used. There are two things to consider. First, The Weather Co. has digital publications that sell advertising. Second, it sits on a massive front […]

[pullquote][/pullquote]Telcos continue to be big ad tech acquirers. Norwegian mobile carrier Telenor on Monday snapped up cross-device company Tapad for $360 million. Tapad is one of the two largest cross-device vendors in the space; Drawbridge is the other. It’s a move somewhat reminiscent of the AOL/Verizon deal, but with more global scale, said Tapad CEO […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written for the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Andrew Casale, president and CEO at Index Exchange. When yield optimization strategies for publishers come up, real-time bidding and advertising automation technologies are the first things that come to mind. And rightfully so, because […]

To date, IBM’s internal digital agency Interactive Experience (iX) has flown under the radar, through quiet, organic growth – reaching a global headcount of 10,000 employees. That changed Thursday when IBM iX – not to be confused with IBM’s consulting unit Global Services – revealed its first-ever acquisition: the digital/creative agency Resource/Ammirati, which has 300 […]

“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 Mark Davenport, senior director of analytics at The Trade Desk. Ad tech can be an echo chamber. Only a small number of media outlets cover our industry, largely because it’s […]

Cardlytics, which, in its first iteration, fueled card-linked offers for banks and financial services firms, is opening up new ways to monetize around the private bank channel. The company, which sits on transactional data spanning 109 million accounts in the US alone, is eyeing longer-term deals with agency holding groups. It’s also beefing up demand […]

A singular issue is electrifying the publishers and tech companies attending the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Desert, Calif. IAB CEO Randy Rothenberg came out swinging at ad-blocking firms during his opening speech to members Monday, describing them as an “unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes.” Afterward he continued that discussion with AdExchanger. His […]

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) wants to help advertisers manage their quality assurance testing for mobile rich media ads. On Monday, the IAB Tech Lab released the MRAID Ads SDK Tester app at its at Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Desert, Calif. The app is a free open-source tool designed to validate the functionality of […]

AppNexus is hitting the market with its own version of mobile header bidding. Announced Monday, the tool – dubbed PriceCheck – aims to help app developers and publishers maximize their yield by accessing as many sources of demand as possible and revealing what each impression is worth. Then the impressions are routed to the advertisers willing […]

Ad blocking might be marketers’ current headache, but FTC Commissioner Julie Brill believes it’s up to the advertising industry to alleviate that pain. At AdExchanger’s Industry Preview event in New York on Thursday, she called on the audience of vendors, agencies and marketers to create “usable tools” so consumers can deal with their privacy concerns. […]

There’s a world of difference between achieving mass reach and engagement in multiplatform video. Just ask Stephanie Horbaczewski, CEO of the fashion and beauty multichannel video network (MCN) StyleHaul. StyleHaul was among the first YouTube MCNs to join larger companies (Maker/Disney, Fullscreen/AT&T and Chernin Group, Collective/ProSieben) when German broadcast giant RTL Group purchased a majority […]

Google sounds more and more like Twitter, heralding ways marketers can tap into live events for engagement. As such, the company on Wednesday rolled out a new ad product called Real-Time Ads at a press event in New York. With Real-Time Ads, Google aims to capitalize on the ripple effect of live events, such as […]

Publishers thinking about how to deal with the growing rates of ad-blocking users can start by doing something simple: Just ask them to unblock. Requests to turn off ad blocking resulted in 30-40% of users whitelisting the publisher, according to data shared by GQ (30%), IDG Communications (37% for B2B and 38% for B2C) and […]

AppNexus’ management and investors have spent the better part of a year preparing to take the company public. But the harsh (and getting harsher) IPO climate means they might not get to realize that ambition any time soon. As a result, even while AppNexus remains poised for a public offering – and could in fact […]

Some people might describe Foursquare’s shift from location-based social network to a purveyor of location data as a pivot. But Steven Rosenblatt, newly appointed president of Foursquare, prefers the term “evolution.” “We’ve been building the world’s largest location intelligence data company for some time,” said Rosenblatt, who came to Foursquare in 2012 after several years […]

Over two years, a lot has changed for online contact lens seller 1-800 Contacts. “In 2013, we didn’t even have a mobile app,” said its VP of digital commerce, Justin Olson. Contrast that with 2015: “Seventeen percent of our total orders came through the app and about 20-25% of orders come through mobile web.” Olson, […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in programmatic TV and video. Today’s column is written by Brian Stempeck, chief client officer at The Trade Desk. If you’re selling your home, the asking price is driven largely by multiple listing service data all real estate agents subscribe to. If you’re selling […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Will Doherty, VP of business development at Index Exchange. The digital advertising industry is rapidly reaching a maturation point, particularly in programmatic. The widespread development of native advertising and even the much-talked-about promise of […]

If Apple is indeed shifting its iAd platform to focus on direct deals, as BuzzFeed reported Wednesday, it means its experiment accepting programmatic demand has come to an end after little more than a year. Perhaps it was inevitable. While Rubicon Project, Accordant Media and MediaMath were among iAd’s programmatic partners, not much happened after […]

Some say the ad tech venture capital funding well may be running dry, but mobile-centric companies still seem to be doing all right. “Over the past couple of years, mobile’s been somewhat insulated from the general sentiment around ad tech, at least on the private side,” said Michael Katz, CEO and co-founder of mParticle. “Clearly […]

MediaMath on Wednesday announced a new business unit, named Helix, meant to translate the company’s existing retail data assets into a unified product offering. The move follows a string of MediaMath investments in consumer data, beginning with the acquisition of Adroit Interactive in 2010 and continuing with the purchase of Akamai’s Advertising Decision Solutions (later rebranded […]

MSN.com has gone through a lot of changes recently, switching to a syndication-only content model a year and a half ago and having its ad sales move to AOL. To personalize MSN.com’s content and ad experience, Microsoft revealed Tuesday it had signed on with Taboola to bring native ads and personalization to the MSN site […]

The guillotine has fallen for Been Choice, the embattled in-app ad blocker that was allowed back into the App Store after being unceremoniously turfed out in October. As of Jan. 8, almost three months to the day after its first run-in with Apple, Been Choice was notified that it’s going to be removed from the App […]

Following its $21.5 million funding round to close out 2015, the Danish ad tech company Adform will test the dense US market. The market entrance was confirmed by Julian Baring, Adform’s general manager of North American business, who was hired last August to build out operations in Canada and the US. European data and advertising […]