Technology

Facebook violates EU law by tracking users for targeted advertising, a European privacy panel said Tuesday. The report was commissioned by the Belgian Privacy Commission, which sits under the EU’s European Commission, and is an updated version of an initial draft that surfaced in February. A key development of the update claims that Facebook cookies […]

After Oracle bought data-management platform and exchange BlueKai last February, it essentially split the company in two. The Oracle Marketing Cloud reaped the benefits of BlueKai’s DMP while BlueKai’s Audience Data Marketplace formed the basis of the Oracle Data Cloud. Still, there’s overlap. “We have a very rich history with these two lines of business working […]

For a holding company, WPP is an aggressive buyer of ad tech – most of which winds up within its GroupM unit Xaxis. Since Xaxis absorbed 24/7 Media in December 2013, the programmatic media company’s investments in tech, most of which are acquisitions, have been methodical. The most recent occurred Monday, when Xaxis revealed it […]

“Limited opportunities for creativity” – 44% of marketers surveyed by the IAB and research firm Ovum cite it as one of the key challenges they face when it comes to mobile advertising. That may be the perception, but it’s not the reality, as Showtime demonstrated at the IAB’s Mobile Marketplace conference in New York City on Monday. […]

With digital audio consumption on the rise, advertiser expectations about targeting and buying advertisements are also growing fast. These concerns surfaced Thursday during Mediaocean’s “Radio Reinvented” panel in Manhattan. Panelists included executives from Pandora, Spotify and Triton Digital. The panelists revealed there are 143 million monthly online radio listeners in the US, representing 53% of […]

Rubicon Project hopes a partnership with video ad platform Virool, unveiled Wednesday, will help shore up more video supply. Rubicon will exclusively sell Virool’s new InLine format through all business lines, including auction-based and guaranteed and non-guaranteed orders. It’s difficult for third-party sellers and marketplaces like Rubicon to access more video inventory, since most premium […]

Facebook is working with a dozen mobile ad networks to better track installs beyond mobile media it directly controls. Millennial Media, InMobi and AppLovin are among the networks to sign on for the beta program, but Facebook’s biggest competitors predictably aren’t playing along. The feature is part of a product called Analytics for Apps that […]

Facebook ad partner Nanigans is lining its coffers with $24 million in fresh funding. The Series B round, announced Wednesday, is being led by Chinese software company Cheetah Mobile, with participation from Avalon Ventures and Wellington Management Company LLP. Nanigans’ total funding now stands at just under $33 million. A good portion of the money, […]

If you’re looking for a last-minute hotel in Times Square, who ya gonna call? Google hopes you’ll simply do a quick search. The company has updated its Google Hotel Ads format, an AdWords product first launched in 2011, to include greater searchability on price and location, user reviews, mobile compatibility and high-res images. Hospitality giant […]

Is traditional advertising dying in the US? Not for midsize advertisers, according to research from Kantar Media. However, while smaller and midsize advertisers are spending more on “traditional linear media,” the largest US advertisers are redirecting those budgets to digital forums. “The growth of the ad market is on two different tracks right now,” said […]

There are a number of reasons programmatic buying has yet to permeate the digital audio space, a growing area that would seem ripe for automation. Among those reasons is a lack of standards. The IAB’s first stab at standardization was the Digital Audio Ad Serving Template (DAAST), which surfaced some six months ago. But according […]

AppNexus has acquired Yieldex, whose platform provides publishers with analytics, forecasting and sales management tools. The deal might help strengthen AppNexus’ relationships with media sellers at a time when direct deals between marketers and publishers represent a growing portion of the programmatic ad pie. The Wall Street Journal placed the deal’s value at approximately $100 million in cash and […]

As it nears its fifth birthday, Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS), a joint venture between Nielsen and Catalina, is making moves to marry shopper marketing data with mobile ads to determine the sales impact. “Mobile is a huge area for us and we expect it to be 50% plus of digital media buys in the future, […]

Podcast consumption swelled from 29 million monthly users in 2014 to 46 million in 2015, according to findings from an ongoing study by Edison Research and Triton Digital. The popular podcast “WTF? With Marc Maron” is happily riding the wave. “We’re benefiting from the shifting media landscape,” said the podcast’s producer, Brendan McDonald. “There is […]

In 2008, NBC Universal released a system called TAMI – the Total Audience Measurement Index. Despite the promise of its name, it did not revolutionize TV measurement. In fact, it wasn’t even a system. “It was a spreadsheet that someone updated manually,” recalled Julie DeTraglia, the network’s SVP of digital research, during a Thursday panel […]

Jet.com, the stealth upstart from Marc Lore, the man who sold vertical ecommerce company Quidsi – parent of Diapers.com, Soap.com and BeautyBar.com – to Amazon for $545 million in 2010, wants to remake the commerce model. Primed to launch in late spring, Jet.com seeks to democratize the Amazon marketplace model. Buyers who subscribe for $49.99 […]

The only certainties in life are death, taxes and multiple definitions of “viewability.” The Media Rating Council (MRC) defines a video ad as viewable if half of that ad is in-view for a minimum of two consecutive seconds, but others, like media agency GroupM, are demanding all pixels be in-view with the sound on for at least 50% […]

To power native placements, Condé Nast’s Food Innovation Group selected TripleLift as a technology provider. It will sell native placements directly and through private native marketplaces. In-feed article previews for branded content, such as a recipe, will appear across the Food Innovation Group’s sites. The group reaches 50 million uniques a month across its portfolio, […]

All of La Quinta Inns & Suites’ 2015 insertion orders specify that it will pay for human traffic only. “As a brand that strives to do the most with our resources, and as a challenger brand in the space, it matters when our media dollars aren’t going to real people,” La Quinta director of media […]

So-called marketing clouds have commonly focused on enabling outreach to known customers, which is why they lean heavily on email marketing, CRM and campaign management – while paid media remains an afterthought. But Adobe, whose annual summit began Monday in Salt Lake City, is diving into ad tech with an upgrade to its Media Optimizer […]

“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. Many wines taste delicious despite only making a quick trip from barrel to bottle to glass. Others, however, need time. A really fine wine improves with […]

Ad verifier Integral Ad Science has acquired video analytics startup Veenome in a deal the two companies claim will kick video measurement up a notch. Veenome’s product premise is that advertisers should know the context of the video content around their placement, not simply that they hit their demo targets. Advertisers undoubtedly want to know […]

Facebook made waves two weeks ago when it delisted more than 15 companies from its Facebook Exchange (AdExchanger story). Going forward, only 12 companies will be allowed to trumpet their access to the desktop news feed and right rail ad space that comprises the FBX inventory pool. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Even […]

iSocket’s former CTO, Karl Bunch, will help focus Xaxis’ discipline around its demand-side products. Bunch, an ad tech vet who also worked at Time Warner Music, CPXi and AppNexus, started as Xaxis’ VP of global product development last week. The WPP-owned programmatic media company revealed the hire Tuesday. Bunch’s immediate prerogative is learning Xaxis’ business and […]

Linking up internal data assets is a great start – but while this can lead to nifty business results, it also has the potential to disrupt numerous employees and departments within a company. Brand marketers from Macy’s, Sephora and Walmart told their stories about combining customer and marketing data sets during a panel at LiveRamp’s […]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single company in possession of a good amount of data must be in want of an onboarder. Such was the case with LiveRamp, the onboarder who recently consummated its $310 million marriage to data services giant Acxiom, resulting in last week’s birth of LiveRamp Connect. This gene […]

Criteo is retiring its AD-X attribution product and replacing it with a new partner-based approach to mobile tracking, the French company revealed Thursday. Criteo, a retargeting company that works with Internet retailers, brands and agencies, first acquired AD-X in July 2013. AD-X remained a standalone business within Criteo, offering advertisers and app developers in-app measurement […]

Sharing financial performance figures for the first time Thursday, PubMatic said its annualized net revenue run rate is now above $130 million, based on year-end figures. From 2013 to 2014, the publisher platform company said GAAP net revenue grew 90%. PubMatic did not disclose net income, but revealed it had turned a small profit for the past […]

IronSource is counting its cash. The Israeli ad distribution and app monetization company, which announced an $85 million round in September, said Wednesday that it’s brought in an additional $20 million from a group of unnamed investors led by Access Industries. These two funding events represent the first time ironSource, which works with Yahoo, Google, […]

Google has snapped up Toro, a tool that helps developers market their apps on the Facebook platform. The deal appears to be an acquihire, since Toro employs fewer than 10 and has begun urging customers to seek out alternative partners to support their Facebook install campaigns. (Read the blog post.) Google declined to comment other than to […]