Technology

Monetizing an app is never child’s play, but it becomes even more difficult if the app in question is aimed at children. Clark Stacey, CEO of game publisher WildWorks, knows about those challenges firsthand. Wildworks, which recently rebranded from Smart Bomb Interactive, has been working in close collaboration with the National Geographic Society since 2010 […]

As more networks like HBO and WWE Network develop a la carte streaming services, competing streaming video or TV providers (and some e-commerce companies, for that matter) are pressed to develop good content that resonates with subscribers. Hulu, which pulled in about $1 billion in revenue in 2013 and has over 6 million Hulu Plus members, airs […]

Although native advertising is typically used for branding, it can provide results for direct-response campaigns. That was the goal for Microsoft Store – the software giant’s answer to the Apple Store – when it launched a test in early July along with Seattle-based agency Point It and native ad-tech platform TripleLift. The native ad-tech company […]

Smartphone penetration in Asia-Pacific is on the lower end, especially compared to the United States and North America, but it is growing. A new report from Forrester Research predicts that mobile marketing strategies will play a major role in the region in 2015. According to Forrester, smartphone penetration across the Asia Pacific region will be […]

“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. For years, there has been a series of bad memes spreading throughout our industry. Some of the big ones have caused […]

You’ve come a long way, baby. Product listing ads (PLA), which some consider the crown jewel in Google’s commerce crown, didn’t cost a thing in 2012. Today the paid search product, now referred to as Google Shopping Ads, may be bringing in as much as $8 billion for Google, according to Evercore Partners estimates. Based […]

While Apple arguably can do whatever it puts its hand to, its recent move to bring programmatic to iAd doesn’t have everyone impressed. JUICE Mobile president and CEO Neil Sweeney didn’t mince words: “They should have done this five years ago.” And that, Sweeney said, begs two related questions. One, Is Apple going to be […]

Mobile carrier data is rich data – it’s deterministic, it’s first-party and it has cross-screen potential. Berlin-based data company zeotap is looking to help mobile carriers capitalize on that richness. Founded earlier this year, zeotap has secured $1.3 million in seed funding from HitFox Group and several angel investors, which it plans to use to […]

When Apple announced last week it was dipping its toe into programmatic via partnerships with ad tech companies, it cited retailer L.L. Bean as an early purchaser of iAds inventory via MediaMath. It’s the first time the outdoor-focused retailer has bought through Apple’s iAds, though it’s gradually devoted more marketing spend to mobile initiatives. “We […]

It’s been nine months since Susan Wojcicki was named CEO at YouTube, clearing the path for Sridhar Ramaswamy to take full control of Google’s $50 billion-plus advertising business. As org changes go, it was a doozy. YouTube would get a proven leader to take it to the next level – by investing in talent and courting new […]

PocketMath cofounder and CRO Casey Grooms just started making a salary in July. The Singapore-based mobile DSP, which began life as AdMunch back in 2011, had been completely bootstrapped until now. On Monday, PocketMath announced the close of its first funding round, $10 million in Series A cash from the VC arm of Japanese ecommerce […]

Amazon’s rumored development of an ad-supported video-streaming service was resurrected Friday when the New York Post reported the ecommerce company’s launch of a “Netflix killer” is, indeed, nigh. Although Amazon says it often experiments with new offers and experiences for customers, it has not announced plans for an ad-supported video-streaming service. According to The Post’s […]

Apple CEO Tim Cook might have called iAd a “very small part” of the company’s business in the past, but Apple is starting to take programmatic seriously and the partners are piling up. Following Wednesday’s announcement of Rubicon partnering with iAd on the demand side, seven more names are officially on the list: Tapsense, The Trade Desk, […]

App developers are test-obsessed. They don’t spend a dime without knowing how it’ll turn out. That could be part of the reason why they haven’t done much spending on in-app mobile YouTube pre-roll. Until recently, Google Analytics provided developers with feedback on things like rate of install, AdWords performance, how often an app is opened, […]

When Undertone released its programmatic platform Virtuoso in September, the goal, according to co-founder Eric Franchi, was for it to eventually become the primary console of brands and agencies that want to purchase high-impact ad units, or ads that use unique formats designed to snag the audience’s attention. The onetime ad network has hired George […]

This is how to make a beer commercial. Combine gorgeous women, average-looking men, laughter, extreme close-ups of flowing beer, long shots of snow-capped mountains (optional). Shake it up and toss it onto an NFL game, preferably sometime during the first quarter when people are still watching. This is also the antithesis of how Heineken-owned Newcastle […]

Adobe’s having a good couple of months. Following Forrester’s high ranking of Adobe’s enterprise marketing suite last month, the software company unveiled a series of mobile enhancements to the Adobe Marketing Cloud on Tuesday. Adobe customers can now tap into in-app messaging capabilities and send personalized follow-up emails and other messages based on a consumer’s […]

What do telcos and YouTube talent have in common? Not a lot right now, but that will change once video and TV ad budgets converge. Consider the YouTube multichannel network (MCN), Google content partners that are responsible for both production and audience monetization and which get 55% of banner and pre-roll ad revenue. The digital […]

Mozilla, which makes the Firefox web browser, officially released on Thursday its in-browser ad product, which the company first announced in February. Early adopters include media agency Mindshare North America, online booking site Booking.com, and The Weinstein Company’s video-on-demand portal Radius-TWC. How it works: Individuals opening Firefox for the first time will see tiles filled […]

Media buyers and suppliers are now authorized to transact on viewable impressions, but how many are even using this form of tracking? To measure the adoption of viewability tracking and other forms of verification among national and global advertisers, AdExchanger recently worked with ad analytics firm Moat. We supplied Moat with a list of 100 […]

As fraudsters swarm like so many bees at the display advertising picnic, the industry is trying to blunt their stings with a combination of automated and manual solutions. Google has been among the most proactive ad platform players, hiring legions of real humans to review websites submitted to DoubleClick Ad Exchange. It recently acquired Spider.io, a […]

Independent full-service agency MARC USA is beefing up its digital planning and buying prowess following its acquisition of Boston-based media agency Results:Digital in September. The Pittsburgh agency has 270 employees and $370 million in annual billings, according to Jason Russo, who founded Results:Digital in 2011 and now serves as president of MARC’s Boston office. MARC’s […]

The mobile value proposition of a company like Facebook or Google is fairly straightforward: Download the free app and it’ll let you converse with your friends or give you directions to help you get where you’re going. In return, you allow yourself to be tracked for advertising purposes. “For carriers, the story is not as […]

“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 Dan Hill, senior data scientist at Integral Ad Science. How effective was the last ad campaign you worked on? What was the return on investment? Chances are you don’t know. […]

MediaMath has snapped up Rare Crowds, a small, 2-year-old startup founded by ad tech trailblazer Eric Picard, AdExchanger has learned. Under the all-stock transaction, Picard will join MediaMath as VP of strategic partnerships as the media-buying platform builds out products around private marketplaces and “automated guaranteed” inventory (i.e., direct site buys). The deal has the […]

Considering two of the usual pure-play suspects in Forrester’s Cross-Channel Attribution Wave (Convertro and Adometry) were snapped up by AOL and Google on the very same day in May, its latest release Friday had all kinds of new implications – media neutrality and a platform mentality among them. The report, authored by Forrester analyst Tina […]

Matt Mobley has spent more than 14 years tinkering with databases. He served as Acxiom’s VP of European consulting, followed by a stint as SVP of solutions consulting at Epsilon, and is now chief marketing technology officer (CMTO) for CRM and database marketing agency Merkle. Under CEO David Williams, Merkle has moved in on search, mobile and […]

Last month AdExchanger reported on plans by AppNexus to roll out a “Certified Supply” stamp of approval for demonstrably valid impressions, and thereby cut off the flow of spend to impressions that are fraudulent, nonviewable or otherwise undesirable. The certified program came amid growing industry concerns about the persistence of fraud in the AppNexus supply. […]

What’s better than first-party shopper data? First-party shopper data paired with predictive analytics. That’s the thinking behind Adroit Digital’s acquisition of Arcametrics, a small North Carolina-based company whose technology uses predictive modeling to create lookalike audiences based on high-quality customers. Adroit declined to share details of the deal, including price, although company president Jacob Ross […]

KBM Group might be the data services unit of WPP agency Wunderman, but don’t think of it as just a database manager. “Our job is to provide strategic leadership, not simply be a database vendor when clients need one,” said William Burkart, who became KBM Group’s president and COO in late September. So if you […]