Technology

This year’s NewFronts cemented streaming as a main vehicle to reach TV audiences following a massive shift in viewing behavior fueled by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The theme of the IAB’s three-day event was “Living The Stream,” and this year’s presenters reflected the big changes in a programming market that has seen the launch of […]

Remember when telcos kept dropping billions on media and ad tech assets because they just couldn’t wait to activate their first-party data for advertising purposes? Didn’t pan out. This week on The Big Story, the team dives into the “why” in the wake of private equity firm Apollo Global Management’s $5 billion acquisition of Verizon […]

Retargeting might be considered a legacy business, but it held strong for Criteo – and actually grew – during the first quarter of this year. On Criteo’s Q1 earnings call Wednesday, CEO Megan Clarken pointed to the resilience of retargeting as a driver of the company’s growth. Not that retargeting’s rebound wasn’t also somewhat of a surprise. […]

Zynga is buying in-app growth and mobile monetization platform Chartboost for $250 million. It’s an excellent exit for a company that’s only raised $21 million since its $2 million Series A in 2011. The deal, expected to close in the third quarter, was announced on Wednesday on Zynga’s Q1 earnings call, during which the company […]

The founders of AdGear – a Canadian DSP and ad server acquired by Samsung Ads in 2016 – raised $3.6 million in seed funding to build a SaaS data connectivity platform called Optable. Optable uses specialized algorithms that ensure the secure transmission of encrypted audience data. The cryptographic technology allows for decentralized and secure data […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. CTV On Top People love to talk about streaming surpassing linear TV viewership, and that trend shows no sign of slowing down. Digital video advertising is on track to account for more than half of total video ad spend and to outpace traditional TV […]

This article is sponsored by Xandr. As upfronts season approaches, programmatic guaranteed promises to play a major role in the conversation in ways never thought possible a few years ago. While once considered a pipe dream, programmatic technology has evolved, garnering the ability to instill full confidence in highly predictable delivery among all marketplace participants. […]

Digital ad tech companies are making their play to control advertising on CTV. But it’s not easy to become a star of the big screen. Ad tech companies that make it big in CTV must earn their spot in a few ways. First, they must understand the supply constraints of CTV and find their niche. […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Chocka-ad-blocker While everyone is freaking about the phaseout of third parties cookies and low IDFA opt-in rates, don’t forget – an estimated 40% of US adults already block online ads on PCs or phones. According to new data from Blockthrough reported by CNET, ad blocking […]

Remember when telcos wanted to be digital media companies? That was so 2017. On Monday, private equity firm Apollo Global Management announced its intention to acquire Verizon Media for $5 billion. The new company will be called Yahoo – yes, for real – and Verizon will maintain a minority 10% stake in it. Read the release. […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Dark Underbelly You know when the opt-in button is, like, way bigger than the opt-out button, or a checkbox is ticked by default? Those are dark patterns, and regulators are starting to take notice. The Federal Trade Commission held an all-day workshop last week […]

Ad tech IPOs are back in fashion as online advertising continues to surge during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the first quarter of 2021 alone, there were seven ad tech transactions valued at more than $1 billion – double the number of unicorn-level deals that went down in the past few years combined. Public companies […]

Amazon’s “other” segment, which houses its advertising business, grew 73% YoY to $6.9 billion in Q1. “The advertising team has done a great job turning clicks into productive sales, and the advertising that results is valuable to us as well,” said Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky. While Amazon’s ads business grew due to traffic increases, its […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Dropped Call It’s no surprise that Verizon is reportedly exploring a sale of AOL and Yahoo, the Web 1.0 titans it acquired in 2015 and 2017, respectively. As The Wall Street Journal points out, the telco has already divested itself of Tumblr and HuffPost. […]

WebMD and Medscape parent company Internet Brands is set to acquire PulsePoint, a New York-based programmatic platform focused on healthcare marketers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is set to close in early June following regulatory approvals. Healthcare and pharmaceutical marketers’ digital advertising spend grew over 14% in 2020 and is expected […]

After months of anticipation, Apple will start enforcing ATT with the debut of iOS 14.5. Check out our infinite coverage here. Interestingly, this in-the-weeds ad tech story got picked up by the mainstream media, with Apple cast as the valiant steward of privacy. Because we live in a world where the only thing protecting us […]

Seems like almost every ad tech company you meet these days has attained unicorn status. Mobile ad platform Moloco has raised a Series C funding round, announced Thursday, that brings its valuation to $1 billion. The funding came courtesy of the South Korean investment banking group Shinhan GIB and a handful of other new and […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Nielsen’s recent agreement with Roku is poised to accelerate the growth of addressable TV advertising. And with Disney’s recent announcement that it plans to automate more than half of its business and make the majority of its inventory – both linear and digital […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Take Two Google seems perennially mired in litigation these days. The latest legal salvo hurled at the tech giant is a $4.16 billion class action lawsuit in the UK alleging that Google illegally tracked 4.4 million iPhone users nearly 10 years ago in England […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. All For Me And None For … Thee? Apple’s new privacy restrictions in iOS 14 could give its own small but growing ad business an edge over rivals, The Wall Street Journal reports. For one thing, advertisers targeting iPhone users will get more data […]

One year after the pandemic led to a sharp fall in Alphabet’s ad spending, the company’s Q1 2020 ad revenue has more than rebounded, sending the stock upwards in after-hours trading. Alphabet revenue grew 34% in Q1 to $55.3 billion. The amount Google paid out to its partners (or traffic acquisition costs) trailed revenue, growing […]

Despite widespread DSP consolidation, some buyers still find their needs aren’t being served. So IPONWEB developed Bidcore, a customizable DSP for buyers with unusual needs or use cases, and who don’t want to optimize around CPA, click-through rate or viewability. In the past, ad tech companies would have asked IPONWEB to build them a white […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. #Fail The pervasiveness of fake ad schemes on Facebook and Google have left their users “worryingly exposed to scams,” especially because the two giants have failed to crack down on fraudulent activity, even after it has been reported. Or so says the British consumer […]

Zeta Global filed its S-1 paperwork Monday. Zeta has not yet determined the number of shares it will offer or the price. Zeta – whose offering combines marketing tech, ad tech and data services – reported $368.1 million in 2020 revenue, a 20.3% increase from the year before. Adjusted EBITDA was $39.6 million, up 62.7% […]

The third-party cookie is halfway out the door, so CafeMedia is already ushering in its replacement: email-based IDs. The ad management firm started working with LiveRamp ATS (Authenticated Traffic Solution) eight months ago. ATS scrambles an email address and puts the user’s identity in a secure envelope for SSPs to open and resolve. Buyers then […]

There’s been kerfuffle after kerfuffle (after kerfuffle) at the World Wide Web Consortium since Google first announced its plans in January 2020 to kill off third-party cookies in Chrome. At the time, Google encouraged ad tech companies to join the W3C’s Improving Web Advertising Business Group (IWABG) as a way to provide feedback on and […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. About six years ago, ad server Innovid introduced interactive ads in CTV. Now, about a third of Innovid’s clients are testing them, and the company is seeing 2% to 3% engagement rates that are four or five times higher compared to other ad […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Another Day, Another Grilling The Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust is continuing its probe into big tech, and the latest hearing drilled down on competition (or, rather, the lack thereof) in Apple’s App Store and Google Play, The Wall Street Journal reports. The usual […]

The European Commission verified in writing on Friday that Google’s use of data to fuel its ad tech business is a focus of its ongoing antitrust investigation. And here’s the kicker: “Google’s proposals to deprecate third-party cookies are within the scope.” As Brussels-based journalist Alexander Fanta highlighted on Twitter, this could mean by extension that […]

Microsoft hosted its Elevate partner event earlier this week, when the advertising industry was still recovering from Apple’s roundabout announcement confirming the start of ATT enforcement. But there is news that isn’t Apple-related. Microsoft released a bunch of ad products at its event, including new formats such as video ads that appear in search results, […]