At the outset of Advertising Week in New York City, WPP chief Sir Martin Sorrell turned his attention to Amazon’s VP of global ad sales Lisa Utzschneider on the stage they shared with Live Nation, CBSi and ESPN. “Your job, I guess, is to demonstrate the value of Amazon’s data for off-platform advertising,” he quipped. “Your revenues […]
Rakuten Marketing, the online marketing subsidiary of Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten, renamed its business units on Tuesday to signify its omnichannel aspirations. Rakuten Marketing is part of a hybrid clique of companies scurrying to unite digital marketing and commerce data services – competitors like eBay, IBM and the newly public Alibaba – round out the […]
An emerging theme at the Digital Marketing Exposition & Conference (DMEXCO) in Cologne, Germany – where 30,000 digital marketers are convening – is building for future cross-channel experiences. Amazon is no stranger to the concept. Although the ecommerce giant has, of late, been reportedly developing an ad platform to rival Google’s, the company maintains a […]
As Asia-Pacific commerce powerhouses like Alibaba and Rakuten push West, it’s still unclear how they will grow large US-based audiences. One such method is through acquisition. Alibaba late last week priced its IPO at $60 to $66 per share and expects to raise $24 billion when the company begins trading on the New York Stock […]
Facebook and Twitter are keen to build more commerce functionality into the social stream. Earlier this summer Facebook began working with select commerce brands to support direct transactions on its platform, and Twitter has been expected to produce something similar after sharp-eyed users spotted a semi-functional “buy” button on the site in July. Well, now that other […]
Catalina, a purveyor of consumer purchase insights for CPGs, has acquired digital coupon company and “instant savings” application Cellfire for an undisclosed sum. Cellfire bridges the gap between digital coupons and store loyalty systems, first launching its service with grocer Kroger in 2008; additional roll-outs with Safeway, CouponLink, ShopRite, Giant Eagle and Stop ‘n Save […]
Google and Amazon are going after each other. Google has ramped up commercial search and fulfillment, and Amazon is building a Google-like ecosystem around ads – a project involving an ad-buying platform to rival AdWords, according to The Wall Street Journal. And of course, both are investing heavily in video content and advertising. What is Amazon’s […]
Despite having close to a half million Instagram followers, upscale retailer Nordstrom knows that “likes” and “follows” are great for growing community and measuring engagement or affinity, but these actions don’t necessarily translate into hard business metrics. Retailers want to know if that showroom-grade snapshot on social actually sold a tube of lipstick. “What we’ve primarily […]
Monetate, a platform primarily known for landing page optimization, has expanded well beyond the A/B test. Appointing long-time board member and entrepreneur Lucinda Duncalfe as CEO on Tuesday, the Philadelphia-based company says it’s tackling a “multi-billion dollar” market opportunity: digital personalization. While Monetate’s early product strategy around website targeting and optimization drove early growth for […]
Facebook wants to be the answer to your cross-device measurement problem and it’s in a pretty good position to do it. Enter cross-device reporting for ads, courtesy of Facebook. The new measurement solution, unleashed Wednesday, is available within Facebook’s campaign back end and is designed to allow advertisers to track customers as they move across […]
