Technology

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 […]

Berlin-based Fyber is on a tear. On Friday, Fyber, an SSP for mobile app developers, and its parent company RNTS Media announced that they’ve acquired mobile ad network Heyzap for as much as $45 million. RNTS Media will pay $20 million in cash upfront, with an additional $25 million in cash and shares available down the […]

Q4 ecommerce sales were marked by a strong increase in transaction volume and a spike in mobile conversions, a smattering of retail reports shows. Among specific retailers, Amazon was the runaway winner (no surprise there) and brick-and-mortar players may emerge as losers, if an early glum report from Macy’s is any indicator. Amazon reported dramatic […]

Updated Oracle has signed an agreement to acquire AddThis, a social bookmarking startup that has since transitioned into a publisher audience platform, for an undisclosed sum. Oracle’s Data Cloud, which combines Oracle’s earlier acquisitions of BlueKai and Datalogix, will benefit the most. Making an acquisition has become a holiday-time tradition for the enterprise giant. “Oracle Data Cloud is the […]

Acxiom has released an addressable TV product, built from a segmentation platform it acquired in early December from the Allant Group. The tool, announced this week at CES, leverages Acxiom’s workflow automation software and its relationships with multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). It’s not meant to execute on media buys. “We’re on a mission to […]

If 2014 was a year of big buys in ad tech, 2015 seemed more muted. While 2014 saw a run on attribution companies from big players like Google and AOL, massive consolidation among data management platforms and some big splashes from Oracle and Alliance Data Services, 2015 was about the quiet private equity exit. Sure, […]

For several months, IPG Mediabrands’ ad tech unit Cadreon has been testing Google’s cross-device measurement system, baked into DoubleClick advertiser products as of June. Krish Sailam, senior product manager of mobile for Cadreon, said the trading desk has run a few beta tests with advertisers, and noted conversion uplift has consistently reached the double digits. Cadreon […]

Advertisers, ad tech companies and publishers pay heed: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released an enforcement policy Tuesday that outlines which forms of native advertising it deems acceptable and which it deems deceptive. A key thread in the guidelines is that the user needs to know if content is an ad before she clicks and/or consumes content. […]

“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 Jason Morse, vice president of mobile products at Criteo. Consumers spend an enormous amount of time on mobile, particularly with chat and messenger apps, such as Line, WhatsApp and Facebook […]

French performance marketing giant Criteo’s promotion of its president and COO Eric Eichmann to CEO, effective Jan. 1, recalls Rocket Fuel’s recent leadership change. Eichmann succeeds JB Rudelle, Criteo’s founder and longtime chief, who will move into an executive chairman role. So why is this happening? Generally speaking, Criteo is worth more than every ad […]

“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 Patrick Tripp, senior product marketing manager at Adobe. It’s easy to see why marketers would be enthusiastic about the ways data can be used to enrich the customer experience for […]

GroupM’s purchase of The Exchange Lab, a provider of marketing services and technology that connects multiple DSPs, comes at a time when agencies must tackle digital media fragmentation. While GroupM – WPP’s media-buying umbrella – faces walled gardens and siloed platforms, the Exchange Lab has a tool called Proteus, designed to provide a single interface […]

Ad-tech companies shed hundreds of employees from their payrolls in recent weeks. Turn, PubMatic, Collective and Centro all laid off workers, adding to the toll of Rocket Fuel’s large job cuts earlier this year. The cited reasons vary but often boil down to simple survival as ad tech companies position themselves for profitability in a tough market. […]

Christopher Wong is VP of strategy and product management for IBM Commerce Marketing Solutions. He will discuss IBM’s digital marketing strategy at the upcoming Industry Preview 2016 conference in January. The old adage of “If you build it, they will come” has been replaced with newer notions around “empathy mapping” and anticipating customer needs prior […]

The native ad specialist TripleLift recently finished testing and hit the market with a cinemagraph format, in which there’s an instant of motion within a static image. The cinemagraph format has existed for years, but its utility as an online advertising vehicle is just starting to permeate from social media platforms to the broader publishing community. […]

In campaign speeches, TV appearances and public statements, Donald Trump frequently boasts about his campaign’s low ad spending. “I’ve spent no money and I’m No. 1,” he said recently on the “Today” show. “Other people have spent tens of millions of dollars and they’re floundering and doing poorly.” Unfortunately for his opponents, this statement – […]

True[X], the video ad platform Fox acquired last December, partnered Tuesday with Comcast’s TV ad-serving platform FreeWheel to bring more “engagement-based” video ads to broadcasters. The deal will give True[X] greater sell-in among FreeWheel’s base of media and entertainment brands, which include NBCUniversal, Turner Broadcasting, Viacom, Sky, DirecTV and ABC. True[X] creates interactive video ad […]