Sustainable digital media business models exist – just look at Dotdash. Dotdash acquired Meredith at a $2.7 billion valuation Wednesday to form a new media business to be called Dotdash Meredith. At first glance, the two entities coming together feels like a marriage of opposites: a century-old magazine media company and a digital native. But […]
The ad management space is consolidating. Freestar acquired Sortable Wednesday in a deal that expands Freestar’s inventory by 30% and increases its staff from 90 to 130 people. Freestar, which is profitable, self-funded the acquisition. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is “completely additive” on multiple fronts, Freestar CEO Kurt Donnell said. […]
Google’s AdX is a primary demand source for many small- and mid-size publishers. But the way they access that demand is about to change as Google gears up to revamp the partner program that smaller ad sellers use to access AdX. Pubs need a direct integration with Google in order to tap into AdX. Because […]
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 […]
When the ad tech company Minute Media acquired the publication Players’ Tribune in 2019, the deal underscored how consolidation is creating unlikely portfolios. “For years, we thought it would be difficult long term to be a standalone publisher, which was why we focused on being a standalone tech platform,” said Asaf Peled, CEO of Minute […]
The Gist co-founder Ellen Hyslop believes women care about sports news – they just don’t care for the way it’s presented. When Hyslop captivated her friends with her account of the Toronto Maple Leafs making it to the NHL playoffs, they all realized they had stumbled onto a winning idea. More women deserved to hear […]
Consider 2021 the age of consent. The end of third-party cookies is pushing nearly everyone in the supply chain to try to figure out how to get consumers to opt in – including a growing number of ad tech companies that are attempting to create their own consumer-facing consent mechanisms. It’s a new and largely […]
The end of the third-party cookie won’t happen for nearly a year, but thanks to GDPR, Axel Springer was prepared for the shift: the publisher hasn’t used third-party data in the ad campaigns it sells since the end of 2018. Instead, it’s shored up its technology, working to create scalable first-party data. The German news […]
Even though The Weather Channel’s advertising business remained strong during the pandemic, relying on advertising alone is risky for a media company, even one that specializes in unique data and tech. “We’re at an inflection point. With all the changes happening in advertising with privacy, and identifiers and cookies being eliminated by the big tech […]
When BuzzFeed ramped up its affiliate business recently, one group of products consistently popped up in its top ten: sex toys. Though some might blush, BuzzFeed was proud of its nuanced, sex-positive coverage of sex toy product recommendations. BuzzFeed wasn’t trying to sensationalize, but to be inclusive of all sexual orientations and body types in […]
