Technology

The growing demand for personalized, “real-time marketing” (think: the doings of Oreo and its digital agency 360i that resulted in “Dunk in the Dark” during the Super Bowl), is one of the forces underpinning the push toward unifying the “human” and “technological” elements of the programmatic equation. AOL’s earlier announcement of a new strategic partnership […]

After the stock market closed today, Google reported its results for the second quarter ending June 30, 2013. The revenue numbers: “Google Revenues (advertising and other) – Google revenues were $13.11 billion, or 93% of consolidated revenues, in the second quarter of 2013, representing a 20% increase over second quarter 2012 revenues of $10.96 billion.” […]

On agency holding company Omnicom’s Q2 2013 earnings call today with Wall Street analysts, CEO John Wren and CFO Randall Weisenburger talked “programmatic strategy” as Omnicom’s net income for the most recent quarter increased 2.4% to  $289.5 million from $282.7 million in Q2 of 2012. Read the earnings release (PDF). The holding company is looking to […]

Among Adobe’s visions for its Marketing Cloud suite of products is enabling a streamlined process of creating content and delivering it all the way through to campaign execution, the company said. Just weeks after Adobe’s announced $600 million acquisition of marketing automation company Neolane (See AdExchanger story) to round out its creative and content capabilities […]

“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 Ed Carey, VP of sales at The Rubicon Project. As advertising technology moves from agencies’ back offices to the front — and from auctions to deals — digital publishers are […]

Accuen, Omnicom Media Group’s trading desk, is officially opening trading desk operations across 20 markets in Latin America, giving the programmatic unit coverage in 60 countries. Much of the focus on the nations that comprise Central and South America has tended to revolve around the rise in consumer spending by Hispanics in the US and […]

Retail marketers are focusing most of their digital marketing efforts on paid search and email, according to new findings from Forrester Research and Shop.org’s joint State of Retailing Online 2013: Marketing and Merchandising report, released today. Mobile optimization, unsurprisingly, is another area of interest as more commerce companies look to the mobile device as a vessel […]

After a year existing as a retargeting API feature within ad-exchange operator AppNexus’ system of technology tools, AdExtent says it is launching an independent version of its retargeting offering with a particular focus of augmenting Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) own solutions. In addition to AppNexus, the company is working with MediaMath, Turn and Google’s DoubleClick […]

“Old marketing has always been about archery. You’re there to hit the target and shoot the same arrows over and over again. New marketing is a lot like ping pong. It’s real-time decisioning. You’re leveraging business data, and not just media and marketing data. It’s requiring a lot of new skill sets, especially people who […]

Internet business models have been turned upside down and ad-tech is no exception remarked Youssef Squali, global head of Internet media equity research for Cantor Fitzgerald, during a speech at today’s IAB Advertising Technology Marketplace in New York City.  As a result, he sees this disruption enabling faster, cheaper processes and ultimately, better pricing – […]

The use of data tied to a consumer’s brand loyalty remains data-driven “gold” to marketers. And as addressability propagates across digital and offline channels, the importance of a loyalty strategy only strengthens. In early July, Alliance Data’s data-management and marketing company, Epsilon, announced (see the release) that it had been chosen as the technology platform for Dunkin’ […]

Viewability has been a trending topic in the online ad space this year, particularly as brand marketers and large publishers vent their ever-present impatience with the lack of metrics for advertising that’s more about creating affinity than direct-response clicks and conversions. In April, Google’s viewable-impression metric, Active View, got the approval of the Media Ratings […]

Behold, the many ways to “clip” a coupon. Long-ingrained in the collective memory of many as the stuff of super-savers (and Sunday newspapers), a bevy of businesses and app developers are remaking the way a discount is served. Digital discounts – as an industry – are heating up. Most notably, digital-coupon company RetailMeNot is prepping […]

Mobile advertising revenue jumped from $5.3 billion in 2011 to $8.9 billion last year in an 83% increase globally, according to a new report from the IAB and IHS.  And even though brands are experimenting with more interactive, media-rich ads, search is still king, representing 52.8% or $4.7 billion of all ad revenue. Google took […]

Ecommerce is on the upswing. This sector saw a compound annual growth rate of 18.7% between 2008 and 2012, suggesting it’s one of the fastest-growing industries, according to new research compiled by global boutique merchant bank Siemer & Associates. Worldwide spending on ecommerce totaled $820.5 billion in 2012, which was nearly 21% higher than the […]

Close to a year after Facebook debuted a real-time bidded ad exchange (FBX) and nine months after the release of its Custom Audiences CRM matching product, Twitter has unveiled plans for similar targeting features. But don’t call it “TWX” yet. Senior director of product for revenue Kevin Weil wrote in a blog post that Twitter is […]

Once upon a time, ad agencies were masters of data. Which is to say, research. Before the internet, firms like Leo Burnett and The Martin Agency wielded – and still wield – sizeable research budgets, which they used to uncover demographic opportunities and strategic consumer insights. These insights were turned into big ideas and placed […]

Video-ad tech firm YuMe has filed its S-1 with the SEC in hopes of raising $65 million in the public markets. The filing, expected by industry observers since the start of the year, comes less than a week after rival video-ad company Tremor filed its IPO. Among other video-ad firms in the wings for a […]

Since its inception in 1999, Restaurant.com has helped customers save $1 billion by offering more than 50,000 gift certificate options at dining destinations across the country. Its premise is simple – help diners and restaurants discover one another, and encourage loyalty to local merchants by brokering savings through discounts. Restaurant.com also acts as a stand-in […]

There were 34 “ad tech & services” deals during the first six months of 2013, double the amount during the same period the year before, according to figures complied by technology focused investment bank Coady Diemar Partners. Total value for H1-2013 M&A activity was up 664% with a collective $1.2 billion spent on acquisitions and […]

As the debate over the intersection of consumer privacy and online advertising rages, a recent announcement that browser maker Mozilla would work with Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society to create a “cookie clearinghouse” appears to have poured more fuel on the fire. Debuted by Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich’s blog on June 19, and then reiterated in […]

As Salesforce.com and Oracle CEOs Marc Benioff and Larry Ellison demonstrated last week, what CEOs say in public can rarely be taken at face value. Following a bitter rivalry and lots of name-calling, Oracle and Saleforce.com announced a nine-year partnership to integrate Salesforce.com’s CRM software and Oracle’s cloud-hosted human resources and financial applications. There was […]

Adobe Systems’ $600 million acquisition of cross-channel marketing automation company Neolane begs the question: What is the use case for an advertiser, and how will the platform fit with Adobe’s stack? In the words of Suresh Vittal, Neolane’s chief product officer, Neolane helps solve campaign managers’ need to distribute content to the right audiences based […]

The mega-vendor wars continue. Today, Adobe Systems announced plans to acquire Parisian cross-channel marketing automation player Neolane for $600 million. The move comes weeks after cloud giant Salesforce.com said it would buy email and CRM vendor ExactTarget for $2.5 billion (AdExchanger story), part of a plan to “double down” on its Marketing Cloud strategy in the […]

Tremor Video has officially gone public, giving the company a valuation of $470 million or so based on the latest stock quote and 48.5 million shares outstanding (Amended S-1). In total, the company raised $75 million by selling 7.5 million shares for $10 a piece — below the previous target of $11 to $12 the […]

Video ad players like Tremor, YuMe, BrightRoll and Videology are quickly evolving from their ad network beginnings to serve both buyers and sellers in a unified programmatic marketplace. Adap.tv is one of those working to create a video ad marketplace with an end-to-end tech stack. The premise is to serve the demand side and the […]

Specialty retailers are getting especially good at weighing the value of consumer behavioral targeting, but still have room to grow when it comes to mobile and, surprisingly, email strategies. According to L2’s newly released Digital IQ Index for Specialty Retail, more than half of specialty retailers are engaged in Facebook advertising, with “the majority of […]

“Paths to purchase are not linear or rational.  The planning of the trip is not the journey. And the customers’ starting point is often not where we believe the starting point is. The funnel has morphed into a journey map. The question is, ‘How do we organize around this journey to support people along the […]

Last week in Cannes, global leaders from the five biggest holding company trading desks convened for a panel discussion hosted by the Rubicon Project. The event took place on a rooftop against the backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea, while on the sidewalk below creatives scurried between beach parties and celeb-packed sessions at the Palais des […]

Disagreements continue between the advertising industry and privacy advocates as advertisers point to potential weaknesses in the “Cookie Clearinghouse” project that Mozilla, maker of the Firefox browser, and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society’s have unveiled. The Cookie Clearinghouse promises to create two lists of domains: one for those that browsers would permit to […]