Technology

Mobile ad blocking is a disaster for the ad industry. Content blocking is not the harbinger of advertising doom that some speculate it is. So, which is it? If the adoption numbers for mobile content blocking apps the day after Apple’s iOS 9 release on Wednesday are any indication, skeptics might have to change their […]

Ad tech company MediaMath has integrated with Oracle Marketing Cloud’s email marketing systems, specifically Oracle’s B2B solution Eloqua and the B2C solution Responsys, the companies revealed Thursday. The ad tech integration is the first of its kind for Oracle, said Alex Hooshmand, Oracle’s VP of product. Typically, clients log into the Oracle data-management platform (formerly […]

At Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce celebration, Rick Ruskin, who heads marketing and product management for General Motors’ OnStar service, sits in a parked Buick that’s serving as a makeshift conference room. He points to his phone, where there are offers from Best Buy and Audiobooks.com. “These two spots here are like Google AdWords, where people are […]

“Marketer’s Note” is a regular column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. This week it is written by Melissa Parrish, Executive Director, AdExchanger Research. Earlier this week there was an article in Ad Age about the “hidden” costs of programmatic. I don’t intend for the quotes to indicate that the fees don’t exist, just […]

In a move that illustrates the fast-growing importance of programmatic video, News Corp. will acquire UK-based Unruly for $90 million, the companies revealed Wednesday. News Corp. will pay as much as $86 million more for Unruly’s social video advertising platform, contingent on meeting certain performance goals. The deal gives News Corp. access to Unruly’s data […]

The realm of brick-and-mortar retail data has been steadily absorbed by digital technology in recent years, and that trend took another step forward on Wednesday with the launch of the Cross Device Marketplace by Placed, an in-store attribution firm. While Facebook and Google have put considerable effort into developing retail-specific solutions, Placed founder and CEO […]

Adobe’s initial move to upgrade its demand-side platform (DSP), Adobe Media Optimizer, culminated Wednesday in the launch of its new programmatic self-serve platform. The first wave of integrations to Adobe Marketing Cloud applications include data-management platform Adobe AudienceManager, Adobe Analytics and personalization tool Adobe Target. Buyers who use Adobe’s DSP can source search, social and […]

Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi will officially release a tool called Quality Index (QI) at the end of this month, designed to streamline inventory sources, manage multiple KPIs and cross-check viewability. QI has been in Beta since late 2014, and will be part of an internal UI called the VivaKi Operating System (VOS) Platform that VivaKi is building […]

AOL has packaged a number of its creative point solutions into a single platform called ONE by AOL: Creative, which the company revealed Tuesday. The self-serve banner, video and mobile ad creator was built on the back of Pictela, a rich media tool AOL acquired in 2010, which provided templates for marketers to create custom, […]

The technological problem with the Internet of Things (IoT) is that various connected devices, household appliances and vehicles all have different operating systems with different communication or data collection methods. This means they can’t talk to each other because they don’t speak the same language. “Information isn’t valuable without an infrastructure to make it actionable […]

More than 32,000 will congregate in Cologne, Germany, this week to spark a dialogue about the connected consumer and the state of the digital media economy. Among those gathered here will be MasterCard’s chief marketing officer, Raja Rajamannar, who will join a bevy of global agency and platform execs at the yearly Digital Marketing Exposition […]

“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 Adam Foroughi, co-founder and CEO at AppLovin. Virtual reality technology is far from mainstream, but carries incredible implications for advertising. There are already 175,000 development kits for Oculus Rift in […]

HookLogic raised $15.5 million in Series C funding and will sell AutoHook, a suite of lead-gen and marketing tools designed for automotive companies, the company announced Thursday. Terms of the AutoHook sale to auto consultancy firm Urban Science were not disclosed. In addition to previous investors Bain Capital and Intel Capital, this funding round included […]

Developers are up to their ears in mobile SDKs – and they’re not going to take it anymore. The trend toward consolidated mobile solutions is real, said Omer Kaplan, deputy CEO and co-founder of app discovery platform ironSource, which has acquired mobile monetization platform Supersonic. The deal was officially announced Thursday following a leak in mid-July when […]

It was an orgy of new products. At its “Hey Siri” event on Wednesday, Apple unveiled enhancements to the Apple Watch and launched the iPad Pro and something called the Apple Pencil, which is basically a super fancy stylus for the new, bigger iPad. The company also rolled out the next generation of iPhone 6 […]

The ongoing media reviews have created inroads for agencies to use creative, informed by data, as a strategy to win new business. In a bid to take advantage of this growing opportunity, Initiative, the IPG Mediabrands-owned agency, hired Nick Childs as its first-ever global chief creative officer on Sept. 1. “As a lot of media […]

“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 Eric Berry, CEO at TripleLift. There’s a profound and seemingly inexorable movement in which each year we see a higher percent of media traded via real-time bidding (RTB). At face […]

There’s no need to freak out, but content blocking in iOS 9 goes beyond the mobile web and in some cases will also apply to in-app advertising. And that’s because of an in-app browsing mechanism in iOS 9 called Safari View Controller. It’s basically a more streamlined version of Apple’s current webview framework that developers […]

Mobile numbers are moving up and to the right – and social is along for the ride. Taptica is looking to take advantage of that trend. The mobile DSP announced Tuesday that it would fork over $17 million to acquire programmatic social marketing tech company AreaOne, formerly known as SocialClicks. Both companies maintain their headquarters in […]

“On TV and Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in programmatic TV and video. Today’s column is written by Jason Miller, director of product management, brand measurement at Google. I’m often deeply impressed by the creativity of TV ads. I loved the sentimentality of P&G’s “Thank You, Mom” ads, the humor of Dodge […]

AOL’s acquisition of Millennial Media for $238 million was a coup for its purchaser, if not for its investors. The mobile ad platform went from an opening-day share price of $23.50 to $1.75 when AOL announced its intent to purchase Thursday. But Elgin Thompson, managing director at investment firm Digital Capital Advisors, cautioned not to […]

Does Verizon have access to rich user data? Undeniably. Will Verizon successfully capitalize on that opportunity? Questionable. After all, Verizon’s user data is only as valuable as its data practices. Verizon could certainly benefit in the wake of an acquisition spree that somewhat resembled a line of falling dominos – AOL into Verizon, Millennial Media […]

“Marketer’s Note” is a weekly column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving digital marketing technology ecosystem. This week it is written by Joanna O’Connell, Lead Analyst forAdExchanger Research. As a research analyst, I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about the big challenges and opportunities we in the digital advertising industry face. But […]

Attribution companies Adometry and Convertro are frequently linked because they were acquired in quick succession (by Google and AOL, respectively). And the functionality they provide is increasingly important, as marketers want to justify their digital ad spend across channels and devices. Buyers are wary when attribution technologies – which should be agnostic – are integrated […]

Prague-based Socialbakers added Robert Lang as its new CEO on Wednesday. The social media metrics firm described Lang as a key Criteo executive who helped the French ad tech company expand internationally. Lang replaces Jan Rezab, a founder of the company. Rezab will stay on as executive chairman. Coming from Criteo, Lang said he saw […]

NewsCred, a maker of content marketing software for enterprise brands like Barclays, Toyota and Conair, has raised $42 million in growth equity led by FTV Capital – bringing its total to $88.8 million. NewsCred’s co-founder and CEO, Shafqat Islam, has voiced concerns in the past regarding oversaturation in the content marketing technology category, citing $100 million […]

Cross-device data company Crosswise wants to broaden its horizons. The Tel Aviv-based startup, which announced $3 million in Series A funding on Tuesday, will use most of it on sales, marketing and breaking into new markets beyond the US and UK, with China and Western Europe at the top of its list. The round, which […]

There’s no larger driver of brand awareness than a 30×60-foot cinema screen. At least, that’s the logic for Swedish auto manufacturer Volvo, which is test driving 90-second interactive cinema ads targeting 18- to 34-year-olds across 100 Screenvision theaters in the US. The effort involves partnerships with cinema advertising company Screenvision and interactive, motion-detection company Audience […]

The debate around privacy – and where Google stands – is kicking up on the eve of Apple’s upcoming September launch of iOS 9. Why? Because though advertising revenue hardly tickles the bottom line at Apple, its decision to enable content blocking in iOS 9 affects how Google’s developers monetize. Apple’s content-blocking feature allows developers to create […]

Last week’s stock market dip and subsequent recovery could have particularly troublesome consequence for ad tech firms looking to play on public markets. Though market volatility is a constant, last week’s flux put a spotlight on a handful of ad tech firms often mentioned as IPO candidates, among them AppNexus, Quantcast, Collective, Dstillery, PubMatic, Integral Ad Science, […]