Technology

There’s an updated standard in town: OpenRTB 2.3. The latest version incorporates guidelines for native advertising creative within a real-time bidding environment, accounting for metadata like headline, content URL, description text and images. The standard should mean more native advertising will flow through more exchanges with fewer hiccups, right? Well, not exactly. AdExchanger asked industry […]

MDC Partners had a record-high number of client wins in 2014, includeing Diageo’s Johnnie Walker, Unilever’s Magnum Ice Cream and InBev’s Corona in Brazil. As a result, its Q4 revenue increased 17.5% YoY (from $289.2 million to $339.9 million). Organic revenue also increased $12.5%, with new business wins totaling $56.7 million. FY 2014 revenue increased […]

Yahoo is buoying its push to be a mobile player with a mobile dev suite, revealed Thursday at the company’s first-ever mobile developer conference – but the products, and Yahoo’s plans, are highly contingent on an important factor. Will developers see the value in Yahoo’s app-monetization tools? Flurry’s SDK now includes demand from both Gemini, […]

“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, co-founder and CEO at TripleLift.  The idea that most consumers directly engage with digital advertising – even if it resonates with them – is a fiction built purely […]

LiveFyre revealed Thursday it had raised $32 million in strategic investments from Salesforce Ventures and Adobe as part of a Series D round, in addition to $15 million in C2 financing in 2014. LiveFyre, which started out as a commenting platform, now markets itself as a hub of user-generated content for brands and publishers. The […]

Facebook has decertified more than half the seat holders on its Facebook Exchange (FBX) as part of a revamp of its marketing partner program, unveiled Tuesday. Among the partners no longer badge-certified to buy on FBX are some very big ad platform players, including Adobe, Advertising.com (AOL), Rocket Fuel, IgnitionOne and Dotomi/Conversant (Epsilon). In total, […]

Criteo, which began as a retargeter of online display, expanded on its product roadmap during the company’s Q4 and FY 2014 earnings call Wednesday. Criteo’s focus is “leveraging the huge momentum in mobile commerce,” said CEO Jean-Baptiste Rudelle by emphasizing its multi-screen solution and cross-device ID. “Converting customers across multiple marketing channels is critical for CMOs. […]

One hundred percent desktop ad viewability sounds like the simplest thing and an easy standard to meet. But advertisers still are in want, publishers wish they could provide it and this demand has generated frothy press releases from the ad tech community with “100% viewable” bolded in the header. The problem is that “100% viewable” […]

During Interpublic Group’s (IPG) Q4 and year-end earnings call on Friday, chief Michael Roth emphasized – as he did after Q3 – the holding company’s barter-based programmatic model that discloses margins. This isn’t the only difference from the black-box models of IPG’s competitors, which deploy programmatic on an agency-by-agency basis. “We continue to believe that […]

Mobile is the mother of all invention at BabyCenter, an online content hub for pregnancy and parenting-related content. Founded in 1997, BabyCenter has always maintained a digital-first mindset – but the changing consumption habits of its more than 40 million global monthly users, mainly current and expectant mothers, means that mobile is fertile ground for […]

Advertisers’ demand for viewability is frustrating for publishers, who must contend with new contracts, new billing structures and new ways to value inventory, all while ensuring meeting viewability standards doesn’t erode ad revenue. During a town hall at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting in Phoenix, about half the publishers in the packed room said they had […]

The crowd at the IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting looked about the same as ever – composed of many publishers and tech companies – but with one big difference from last year. As of September, tech companies are now voting members of the IAB. Some at the meeting barely registered the change, since tech companies have […]

As publishers respond to requests for private marketplace and automated guaranteed deals, logistical challenges mount. Publishers must bring in an advertiser’s data and package inventory, and make it discoverable to buyers. Which is why PubMatic on Monday rolled out a buyer-side portal where an advertiser can shop for automated guaranteed inventory. PubMatic founder and CEO Rajeev […]

Five months after taking the wraps off its revamped ad management product, Facebook is slowly but steadily chalking up new Atlas customers. In the wake of its splashy deals with Omnicom Group and Havas, the company has unveiled agreements with database marketer Merkle and Mediaocean, the dominant provider of RFP and workflow management software geared […]

While SAP has been generally absent from the marketing cloud conversation (save for last year’s announcement it would resell Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions), the company on Tuesday rolled out of a contextual marketing platform dubbed the SAP hybris Marketing Solution. “SAP hasn’t traditionally been known in the marketing space, but we are rapidly building out […]

The company formerly known as Yellow Pages has worked hard in recent years to transfer its historical strength – helping consumers find local businesses via large printed books – into a business that’s now booking more than $1 billion in digital revenue. YP acquired mobile ad firm Sense Networks one year ago and continues to refine and experiment with […]

WPP Digital President and Xaxis Chairman David Moore stepped up as chairman of the IAB Tech Lab Board of Directors on Monday. His goal is to help the IAB establish standards to promote interoperability within the ad tech diaspora. Efforts will include creating a code base to make it easier for tech companies to implement […]

Pandora will leverage its data assets and introduce mobile programmatic capabilities later this quarter for its iOS and Android platforms, CEO Brian McAndrews said during the company’s Q4 and year-end earnings call Thursday. “Advertisers are looking for high engagement on mobile,” McAndrews said. “In terms of digital revenue opportunities, we are positioning Pandora to lead the […]

“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 Picard, vice president of strategic partnerships at MediaMath. Five years ago, if I told anyone in our industry that I wanted to buy or sell “premium” inventory, we’d all […]

For Acxiom’s 2015 Q3 earnings, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Or, in the words of CEO Scott Howe, “Spectacular growth in AOS and LiveRamp has been mirrored by declines in our core business.” Read the press release. Howe, speaking during the company’s earnings call Wednesday, was referring to the data connectivity […]

Taboola has raised $117 million to fuel its turf war against chief rival Outbrain and smaller competitors. The money will support the company’s global expansion, product development and future acquisitions during a period when content recommendation companies are paying large sums for exclusive publisher deals. Fidelity Management and Research Company led the round, which brings […]

Google has a long history of working with agencies, but its push for premium video – resulting in more direct relationships with publishers – may alienate it from its longtime partners. A seeming point of contention is Google Partner Select, a video exchange established in 2014, promising exclusive access to 30 premium publishers. Typically, Google […]

The New York Times reported relatively modest fourth-quarter and full-year earnings on Tuesday, but chief Mark Thompson hailed it as “the most encouraging year-over-year trend” for total advertising revenue since 2005. To that end, he touted strong growth in digital advertising, sponsored content and subscription-based revenue. “We were particularly pleased with the strong growth in digital […]

The recent history of digital advertising is full of ad networks that have pivoted, or are trying to pivot, away from the withering RFP trade. Some have become demand-side platforms or analytics tools geared to advertisers and agencies. Fewer have positioned around the publisher. Family run Casale Media is in that smaller group. Founded in […]

Verizon’s zombie cookie is now killable. In a development initially reported by The New York Times, the telco will allow its users to opt out from what the privacy community and a censorious media referred to as a “zombie cookie.” Previously, there was no way to opt out of Verizon’s persistent tracking mechanism. Users could opt out of having […]

If you happen to have $4.5 million burning a hole in your pocket, congratulations! You can afford a 30-second Super Bowl TV spot. Of course, for most big game advertisers it’s not enough to have 30 seconds of spectacular creative – you also have to support it via online and social channels. “Social is huge […]

If you’re looking for a deep dive into Google’s advertising business, you’re not getting it in an earnings call. Google reported FY 2014 revenue of $66 billion, up 19% YoY. Its Q4 revenue was $18.1 billion, all inclusive of traffic acquisition costs (TAC), which were $3.6 billion in Q4 (22% of ad revenue). Read the […]

App attribution company TUNE is dog-earing a significant chunk of a new funding round to go on a hiring spree. Announced Thursday, the Series B cash injection was led by Icon Ventures (which happened to have rebranded from Jafco Ventures on Monday), with contributions from Performance Equity Management and Accel Partners, the latter which also […]

DC-based XAPPmedia builds voice-activated mobile ads, and the company wants to use these units to bridge traditional and digital broadcasting. To advance that goal, XAPPmedia on Wednesday debuted a mobile audience ad service called JAX in partnership with mobile app developer jacAPPS. JAX is designed to let commercial and public radio stations monetize their mobile […]

With all the recent talk about automating the ad-buying process, it’s easy to forget about content. But Drew Panayiotou, president and CEO of BBDO’s Atlanta division, thinks agencies will sink or swim depending on their ability to produce the “next generation of content.” “Content is dramatically changing as media is changing,” Panayiotou told AdExchanger. Panayiotou […]