Ad tech mergers and acquisitions (M&A) has been a roller coaster in recent years, and 2016 certainly didn’t let up. In 2015, public and private marketplace sentiment cooled, but 2016 saw a resurgence – albeit a much more cautious one than in years past. “Good businesses in ad tech will find owners,” said Tolman Geffs, […]
A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…
For the big six holding companies, 2016 was a year of acquisitions, restructures, reviews and leadership shakeups, centering expertise around data and digital. But they also engaged in strategies at odds with best practices and client interests. Faced with shrinking margins and rising technology costs, holding companies found new ways to eke revenue – methods […]
“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 Lung Huang, head of strategic partnerships at 84.51°. Well, the holidays are here and many of us are either hitting the after-Christmas sales or dreading those final projects we put […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Allison Mezzafonte, senior vice president of operations at Bauer Xcel Media. For the typical digital publishing employee, the holiday season looms in the distance like a wave over a surfer. Ride the wave right, […]
2016 was the year that header bidding crossed over and became a disruptive force in the ad industry. The wave of publisher adoption spurred tech companies to create header bidding solutions. Vendors that were slow to adopt, like Rubicon Project, saw their stock crash as their rivals scooped up market share in a world […]
On Tuesday, White Ops exposed a sophisticated browser-based botnet called Methbot that was reportedly stealing somewhere between $3 million and $5 million of US-based video ad spend a day. The story developed quickly after that. Some large, well-known exchanges have come out to say they’ve had little or no exposure to Methbot. And a few […]
Grabr is an ecommerce app for the stuff you can’t usually find online. “You can think about us as the Airbnb for international shopping and delivery,” said Daria Rebenok, CEO of Grabr, a peer-to-peer marketplace that aims to help travelers make a little extra cash by acting as couriers for difficult-to-obtain items from anywhere in […]
A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Creative Data Is programmatic creative finally happening? Ad tech firms Eyeview and Spongecell have raised $21 million and $10 million, respectively, toward making the dream a reality. Both build custom ads in real time to bring the “right message” component to the trope “right message, right […]
This is the latest installment in “PII,” a series featuring the talent that makes the wheels turn in our data-driven advertising world. Read previous interviews with talent from Mindshare, Mediavest | Spark, Razorfish, Essence, INNOCEAN and Clear Channel Outdoor. Former Brightroll and Amazon exec Craig Whitmer recently joined location data company Placed as VP of programmatic. Placed “measures what people do […]
Adam Chandler joined Kargo as its chief business officer this week. He will handle sales, account management and business development for the fast-growing mobile rich media company. Kargo added 92 employees in 2016, for a total of 250. From 2011 to 2015, it’s grown at a rate of 100% a year. Chandler joins from Rubicon […]
A few years ago, when Twitch CRO Jonathan Simpson-Bint would walk into meetings with agencies and advertisers, they’d cock a dubious eyebrow. “That many people engage on Twitch? You’ve got to be kidding.’ That was the reaction,” said Simpson-Bint, who’s been with Twitch since 2011, three years before Amazon acquired the social gaming and live […]
After being acquired by Epsilon, Conversant had two big challenges. First, continue combining its own disparate technologies into a single stack. Second, get the whole caboodle working smoothly with Epsilon. Conversant claims it has accomplished the former, as it’s rolled its CRM assets into CORE (Conversant One-to-One Relationship Engine). “CORE takes advantage of our match, […]
Maureen Bosetti, the chief investment officer for IPG Mediabrands’ Initiative, will discuss dynamics for this year’s upfronts alongside other TV power players at Industry Preview on Jan. 18 in New York City. The 2016 TV upfronts ended with networks posting double-digit CPM increases, but will that momentum carry into 2017? Two key factors could help buyers wield […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Buy One, Get One Nielsen is on a Christmas shopping spree. After acquiring content recognition company Gracenote for $560 million on Tuesday [AdExchanger coverage], it snapped up audience data company VisualDNA on Wednesday. Terms were not disclosed. VisualDNA collects audience data through online personality quizzes and […]
Who’s left at Rubicon Project? This year, a wave of senior executives left Rubicon Project, hollowing out the ranks. A company that prided itself on building a strong workplace culture in sunny Los Angeles now faces discontent with what some have described as product missteps and a lack of strategy at the top. Among the […]
Pandora is increasing its bet on ad tech. The streaming music platform will bring on Eric Picard as VP of ad product management to continue building out display and video products and lead its dive into programmatic audio. Picard is a longtime ad tech executive. In 1997, he launched Bluestreak, one of the first companies […]
Tolman Geffs of global investment bank Jordan, Edmiston Group, along with Bill Wise, the CEO of Mediaocean, will speak about the “private equity path” at Industry Preview on Jan. 19 in New York City. What really happens during – and after – a private equity (PE) investment? While the experiences of different companies vary, one thing […]
When should an ad count? Traditionally, the IAB and Media Ratings Council (MRC) has recommended measuring desktop or mobile ads based on served impressions. So that means the ad only counted after the ad server responded. But now, the IAB and MRC, in conjunction with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), want to change these standards, […]
“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 Joel Sadler, vice president of product at Adacus. Every so often over the last few years, well-written, thoughtful articles have popped up that identify parallels between digital advertising and the […]
As part of The Weather Company’s shift to a vertical-based sales organization, it has hired Sarah Ripmaster as VP of automotive sales. Ripmaster, who has a decade of experience working with auto manufacturers, will help advertisers use The Weather Company’s location data, weather data and the Watson Ad platform in their ad campaigns. Ripmaster worked […]
One of Piera Gelardi’s personal mottos: “Friction creates sparks.” As executive creative director and co-founder of Refinery29, Gelardi is constantly working to balance quality with quantity and achieve scale while staying true to Refinery29’s roots as a “mission-driven publisher for millennial women.” “There was a point when I was scared to grow because I thought […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Jaclyn Stewart, senior director of publisher services at The 614 Group. Publishers spent much of 2016 working through the significant challenges presented by ad blocking, privacy and user data regulations and the residual effects […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Not Quite Programmatic There’s a lot of hype around programmatic TV. Adam Gaynor, VP of media sales and analytics at Dish, acknowledges that his company is still in the “crawl phase.” Dish launched a programmatic exchange in 2015 for addressable inventory with Rocket Fuel, TubeMogul and […]
Turn is settling with the Federal Trade Commission for its part in the Verizon zombie cookie debacle. It’s been nearly two years since it was first revealed that the demand-side platform was using Verizon’s unique identifier header (UIDH) for tracking purposes even if a user had opted out of being tracked. On Tuesday, the FTC […]
Kochava has spent the past year building up the Collective, its audience data co-op for in-app advertising. Last week, it picked up its first DSP partner – The Trade Desk – to carry the data. Kochava’s Collective works by gathering data from three sources: aggregated third-party providers, ad networks that pool audience behavior insights and […]
Nielsen intends to acquire Gracenote, a Tribune-owned company specializing in audio and video content recognition technology, for $560 million, the company confirmed on Tuesday. Gracenote will operate under Nielsen’s “Watch” business – the side of the house that measures audiences – and the acquisition is expected to close Q1 2017. If it goes through, Nielsen will […]
For YouTube, the recent election cycle was the best of times and the worst of times. Multiple campaign sources think the Google-owned video network remained the single largest platform for political video dollars (aside from TV networks), despite Facebook’s meteoric rise. “YouTube is the second most trafficked site in the US, so it played a […]
Amazon’s ad business is gaining steam. In 2016, the company ramped up its DSP, Amazon Ad Platform, and began to market it more aggressively to holding companies and independent agencies. Then it made a big move this month with the launch of server-side bidding for publishers, a major evolution of its header bidding product that reduces […]
