Technology

IBM will acquire email and marketing automation vendor Silverpop, the companies said Thursday. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but a story last month in the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported the value of a rumored acquisition at $270 million. IBM, like Adobe and Oracle, has remained steady on the acquisitions front. “They got massive marketing […]

What’s up with The New York Times Co. and programmatic? We’ve pondered that question before, but the publishing giant declined to speak at the time. Since then, Times SVP of Ad Products and R&D Michael Zimbalist has revealed to AdExchanger that the company intends to release more inventory cautiously into the RTB space. It also is planning an […]

When the Media Rating Council (MRC) recently lifted its advisory against factoring viewability measurement into display ad transactions, one crucial format did not get the green light. The accreditation vendor has urged advertisers to avoid trading on video viewability metrics – at least until the end of June. Question is, will that be enough time? […]

Data solutions provider and Oracle acquisition target BlueKai has released an update designed to expedite a very unsexy but nevertheless crucial element of data-driven marketing: the onboarding process. Continuous Fast Ramp updates the company’s Fast Ramp product released last summer. Fast Ramp was designed to improve the data onboarding timeframe to weeks from the industry-average […]

Often framed as an M&A target to enterprise acquirers, marketing automation company Marketo on Tuesday released a Customer Engagement Platform – the result of the company’s own acquisitions spree. The platform, which Marketo positions as a full marketing campaign management stack, unifies several of its acquisitions including machine-learning personalization tool Insightera and social campaign management […]

“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 Jon Heller, co-CEO and co-founder at FreeWheel. When the MRC recently announced it had lifted its advisory on viewable impressions for display advertising, it noted that enhancements to standards on […]

With the rise of video and native ad formats, traditional display ads don’t get a lot of love in media buyer circles. But they do get plenty of money, as a new ZenithOptimedia forecast makes clear. Spending on standard display ads (i.e. desktop banners) will rise 16% in 2014, “boosted by the revolution in programmatic […]

Microsoft and Yahoo are loosening their stranglehold on their premium display inventory. MediaMath has set up a buying program that includes guaranteed direct buys in a programmatic environment. The program is enabled through partnerships with publishers Yahoo and Microsoft, along with technology partners Shiny Ads, iSocket and Yieldex. The partnership represents the latest industry attempt […]

“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 Jay Seideman, US director of the targeting and exchange team at Microsoft. Programmatic has been never simple. But back in 2010, programmatic only meant one thing: the auctioning off […]

Ad-targeting company Netseer is one of the pioneers in contextual ad targeting, but as advertisers changed their focus from placements to audiences, the 8-year-old company knew it had to keep up with the times. Netseer’s products include media-buying services and a contextual links ad network. And this week it launched a viewability solution called the […]

A report by IDC, commissioned by demand-side platform The Trade Desk, said real-time bidding (RTB)-based “forward markets” will see massive spending increases over the next five years. The report said RTB-based premium display ad spending is expected to grow globally from $230.3 million in 2013 to $14.2 billion by 2018. The United States, which is […]

Call 2011 and 2012 the first wave of social CRM, when companies like Salesforce.com and Oracle snapped up social media analytics and marketing companies. Little more than one year later, all signs point toward paid media becoming a part of the enterprise social stack with more M&A and partnerships likely to come. Although CRM, in […]

Israel-based performance network Matomy has scrapped plans to raise about $100 million in a London Stock Exchange public offering that would have valued the company at around $400 million. The withdrawal was motivated in part by a “technicality” of London IPOs that requires at least a quarter of shares to be claimed by investors in the […]

Jelli, a programmatic ad platform for radio, and radio ad software provider Marketron are partnering up on an automated supply-side service for radio stations, the companies said Thursday. “Billions of dollars in radio inventory are still being traded in an analog way,” said Marketron CEO Jeff Haley. “We’re taking the innovation that happened on the […]

Supply-side platform (SSP) AdsNative received Thursday a $2 million injection of funding led by Interwest Partners, raising about $750K in convertible debt prior to this series. The company also released a mechanism called Mediation/SSP, designed to maximize publisher fill rates for in-stream native ads. AdsNative will devote the majority of the funds to getting more publishers […]

As the digital video ecosystem gets more crowded, players that plan for cross-device content delivery and who can partner with multiple platforms will win. Both Amazon and Yahoo have been working toward this by mastering their respective delivery methods, increasing audience scale and developing premium inventory. Consider Amazon’s Wednesday launch of its Fire TV set-top […]

Rubicon Project began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday at $15, the low end of its previously stated $15 to $17 range range. Updated: As of 10:45 a.m. EDT, the stock was trading up 34% at $2o.10 per share. CEO Frank Addante and fellow C-Suite founders Greg Raifman (president) and Todd Tappin (COO/CFO) were […]

The brand-agency relationship used to be relatively simple. True, brands would have multiple agencies – social, digital, media-buying, for instance – but most of the spend would focus on a single area, usually television. But as other digital channels become more important to consumers, brands are beginning to realize that stuffing too much money in […]

Google Plus is often compared unfavorably to Facebook when it comes to drawing up a social media advertising strategy. But a recent study by Forrester concludes that when compared to other social media outlets, notably Twitter, Google Plus promotes stronger brand engagement. Forrester tracked 284 profile pages of 50 top brands and more than 3 […]

Are programmatic media companies about to hit the wall? Ken Sena, managing director and Internet analyst at investment banking analyst firm Evercore Partners, is wary. Despite the exuberant expectations around companies like Criteo and Rocket Fuel, Sena sees a possible multifront threat on the horizon. In an Evercore report called “Questioning Competitive Barriers In Programmatic,” […]

During his three years at Kellogg Company, Bob Arnold became a poster child for programmatic buying at the brand marketer level. Arnold, who recently quit cereal to join Google, presented his rules for programmatic at the Association of National Advertisers’ Media Leadership Conference in Boca Raton, Fla., on Tuesday. His key message: Don’t let complexity […]

As consumer apps companies ramp up efforts in geo-targeted ads and hyper-local search, Foursquare has responded by turning check-in data into marketing services opportunities. Following a February announcement that Microsoft would invest $15 million in the location-savvy startup after its $35 million Series D in December, Foursquare’s revenue stream – and data reach – may get […]

Amazon’s rumored development of an ad-supported, free streaming media service, reported first by the Wall Street Journal Thursday, but subsequently denied by a company spokesperson, could solidify its relationship with FreeWheel. FreeWheel is a video ad platform used by Comcast and Amazon among others. When Comcast announced its intent to acquire FreeWheel earlier this month, […]

Despite the recent headlines generated around Newegg.com’s battles with patent trolls, the company is best known as an ecommerce retailer of computer hardware and software. The company is privately held, and has an estimated revenue of $2.8 billion. A large part of Newegg’s growth has to do with its continuous customer acquisition. At Adobe Summit 2014 the […]

Digital ad fraud has lately gained mainstream awareness, and many marketers at leading brands now realize the threat that fraud poses to their ability to track online advertising. A Wall Street Journal piece last week chronicled concerns at organizations like L’Oreal, General Motors and Verizon Communications. Fortunately for marketers, as the bad guys are shifting their […]

Video demand-side platform TubeMogul on Wednesday filed its S-1 registration document with the US Securities Exchange Commission, signaling its intention to raise $75 million in an initial public offering. Read the S-1. In the filing, TubeMogul stated, “For 2011, 2012 and 2013, our total revenue was $15.7 million, $34.2 million and $57.2 million, respectively, representing […]

With Tuesday’s announcement that SAP will resell Adobe Marketing Cloud, packaged with the analytics platform HANA and the ecommerce solution hybris, it’s fair to wonder what SAP’s role in digital marketing will be going forward. Will it, for instance, ever develop its own marketing cloud to compete with Oracle, Salesforce.com or IBM? Brian Walker, chief […]

Every couple of months, Adobe announces a new element of integration with its marketing automation and email product Campaign, the sixth and most recent addition to the Marketing Cloud. Last September, Campaign rebranded from Neolane, its maiden name before Adobe acquired the marketing automation company. In January, Adobe stated its intention to integrate Campaign with […]

MyBuys, a provider of personalized recommendations solutions for retailers, has rolled out a display ad offering called MyAds and rewired its product suite. CEO Bob Cell said the changes let marketers more easily measure across the full consumer journey. And just as larger vendors like Adobe have moved toward “customer profile” pricing schemas, so too […]

For anyone wondering what SAP AG is up to these days in digital marketing, an answer was provided at the Adobe Summit in Salt Lake City. SAP has a global partnership with Adobe to resell the latter’s Marketing Cloud along with SAP’s HANA platform and its hybris Commerce Suite. Read the release. Let’s back up […]