BuzzFeed laid off 8% of its domestic workforce, or 100 people, Wednesday as the company diversifies beyond native advertising. Recode first reported the cuts. With 25% of revenue in 2017 coming from programmatic, affiliate links, commerce and non-native ads, many staffers working on the branded content side are being let go. Despite building a nine-figure revenue […]
Meredith Corp’s agreement to acquire Time Inc. for $1.85 billion, announced Sunday, will test whether Meredith’s sales org leadership can benefit from Time’s programmatic technology – and vice versa. In terms of ad sales, it’s a tale of two different strategies. Time Inc. struggled in the wake of a chaotic sales reorg that caused ad […]
The ad buyers who will be hurt by the adoption of Ads.txt aren’t giving up without a fight. Publishers are being deluged with emails from “agencies” and “digital marketing solutions” companies threatening to stop buying inventory unless they’re added to the Ads.txt file. The New York Times, Wenner Media, Intermarkets and LittleThings all confirmed to […]
Purch, publisher of LiveScience and TopTenReviews, added three layers of defense to its anti-fraud system in October. In addition to pre-screening for bots twice, Purch now detects bots, malware and ad quality in real time. “Better-quality traffic means higher ad performance and higher CPMs,” said Purch CTO John Potter. “This is a trend. Demand sources […]
Publishers still struggle to make enough video content and inventory. Text-to-video platform Wibbitz, which announced its $20 million Series C on Tuesday, aims to help them meet that need with technology that automates creation. The round, led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments with participation from The Weather Channel TV network, the Associated Press, existing investor […]
The idea of accomplishing more together than apart sounds like a tagline for a social justice organization, but that’s what Upworthy and Good say happened after they merged 10 months ago to form Good Worldwide. The two publications cater to corporations and nonprofits that want to align their brands with social causes and change. Good […]
As Facebook grabs more mobile and video dollars from the ecosystem, premium publishers are looking for viable ways to compete. For storied publisher Time Inc., one solution is to bring its own mobile-optimized video solutions to market. Using Google’s native framework, Time created a mobile, in-feed video solution dubbed Adapt that is customized to its […]
Texting and messaging friends tends to bring out our inner foodies, and the Food Network has used a Facebook Messenger bot to join that conversation. Food Network has invested in its chatbot since it first launched in November 2016, even after the initial hype dropped off. While other brands and publishers had difficulties being conversational […]
With header bidding enabled, the open marketplace works just fine for Advance Local. While many publishers and buyers are moving to closed, curated programmatic environments due to brand safety, fraud and viewability concerns, Advance Local is focused on driving yield in the open marketplace. That strategy means improving viewability and giving buyers transparent URL information […]
Google on Tuesday unveiled its Insights Engine Project – including six products for data visualization, integration and insights – and promised that exchange bidding will be generally available in early 2018. Read the release. For the first time, Google, via an Insights Engine product, will give publishers the types of user demographic and content consumption […]
