Online Advertising

Pre-Roll Ads Will Soon Know Where You've Shopped Online
May 08, 2013

Pre-roll video ads are about to get smarter, according to OwnerIQ, a digital advertising company that is adding targeting data based on consumer browser behavior to online video ads. The new targeting capabilities borrow from tactics developed for display advertising that try to zero in on a prequalified audience.

LinkedIn's Bright Q1 Dimmed by Weaker Forecast
May 03, 2013

Despite revenue gains that beat expectations for LinkedIn's quarterly earnings report Thursday, investors sent the company's stock falling when the company forecast lower-than-expected guidance. LinkedIn reported revenue of $324.7 million for its most recent quarter, a 72 percent jump from the 188.5 million it brought in a year earlier.

The End of Social Media Marketing's Wild West
May 01, 2013

The FTC recently updated its guidelines for online advertising to address the growth in mobile and social media marketing. Now a paid tweet has to begin with the word "ad," as obvious disclosure now must be included with all commercial speech. Is the link you're tweeting from an employer? A client? You have to mention that. The new rule: If money is changing hands, disclose it.

Phone Passions Runneth Over in Satirical Lumia Ad
April 30, 2013

Microsoft has launched an ad for Nokia's Lumia Windows Phone, presumably with the goal of neutralizing competitors enough to make some inroads in the hot mobile market. The ad is clever and funny enough to accomplish it -- depending on how well Apple and Samsung fans handle the ribbing against their beloved devices.

More A-List Brands Will Join the Tweet Chorus
April 23, 2013

Twitter will soon significantly expand its advertising reach after the social network agreed to a deal with Publicis' Starcom MediaVest Group, one of the world's largest advertising agencies. Starcom's top clients, which include Coca-Cola and Microsoft, will now win some of the premier advertising slots on Twitter. The two companies will also gain access to each other's demographic research and user data.

Mobile Ad Spend Is Starting to Look Like Serious Money
April 18, 2013

Internet advertising experienced double-digit growth in 2012 for a record $37 billion in revenue, according to a report from the Internet Advertising Bureau and Pricewaterhouse Coopers. The largest increase was in the second half of the year, where both the third and fourth quarters topped previous records.Interactive ad revenues for the third quarter totaled $9.24 billion.

Facebook Slices, Dices Consumers to Refine Ad Targeting
April 11, 2013

Facebook added another level of targeting to its advertising strategy Wednesday with the introduction of partner categories, a self-service feature that uses data collected from other channels to deliver ads on the social network. Partner categories will let advertisers target Facebook users based on browsing and purchase history, occupation, a wide range of specific interests, and location.

Scant Brain Power Behind Massive DDoS Attack
April 01, 2013

One of the largest denial of service attacks in the history of the Internet didn't take rocket science to execute. The offensive was conducted over several days last week after the anti-spam group Spamhaus placed a Dutch hosting service, located in a former NATO bunker, on a blacklist reserved for spammers.

New Media Metrix Service Counts Eyeballs Across Platforms
March 28, 2013

Global digital measurement company comScore this week launched its new Media Metrix Multi-Platform reporting service, which will give publishers and advertisers better insight into how their content is viewed on a wider variety of devices. The new data set builds on the widely used Media Metrix, Mobile Metrix and Video Metrix services from comScore's Audience Analytics suite.

Marin Software Rocks Wall Street
March 25, 2013

As initial public offerings go, Marin Software couldn't have asked for much better than its Friday debut on the New York Stock Exchange. Late Thursday, it priced its stock at $14 per unit, higher than the anticipated range of $11-$13. Then it sold 7.5 million shares -- half a million more than originally expected -- raising about $105 million.

Brands Wasting Their Digital Ad Dollars, Study Finds
March 21, 2013

Brands may be shifting more money to digital advertising and social media marketing efforts, but so far that's not buying them a lot of trust from consumers, according to a new report from Forrester Research. Seventy percent of more than 57,000 U.S. consumers surveyed trust brand or product recommendations from family and friends, while digital ad formats all rank below 20 percent.

Seoul: Use of China Server in Cyberattack Fits Pyongyang M.O.
March 21, 2013

North Korea is the suspected perpetrator of a hacking attack that knocked out a trio of South Korean broadcasters and two major banks on Wednesday. South Korean officials in the capital of Seoul traced the attack to a server in China, something that meshes with previous attacks by North Korea.

Digital Advertisers and Mozilla Fight Over Cookies
March 14, 2013

Proposed changes to the popular Mozilla Firefox browser that would block third-party cookies from websurfers' computers have sparked the ire of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which claims the move will damage how small businesses use ads to attract customers. Mozilla's proposal will require its browser users to give their permission for the installation of cookies,

FTC Puts a Damper on Freewheeling Digital Advertising
March 13, 2013

The Federal Trade Commission released its updated Dot Com Disclosures guidance on Tuesday, emphasizing the requirements for advertisers targeting mobile devices. In short, the rules that apply to ads in newspapers, radio and television also apply to mobile devices and social media. The update is the first since the guidelines were released in 2000 -- an era when smartphones and tablets were far, far less ubiquitous.

Facebook's Rejiggered News Feed: The Ads Have It
March 09, 2013

Facebook unveiled its new look this week, providing bigger photos and more links in users' News Feeds, along with additional ways to view specialized streams based on topics of interest, such as music. This is apparently an attempt to corral all the random musings and disjointed pictures users are accustomed to sorting through. Facebook's move seems geared toward bringing order to the chaos.

Facebook Denies Promoted Post Hanky-Panky
March 05, 2013

Facebook has flatly denied the suggestion by a New York Times columnist that it might be gaming its own system -- that is, that the way it pumps up views of fee-based promoted posts could be by limiting the sharing of ordinary posts. "This is not true," Facebook says in a post labeled "Fact Check."

Demandbase Tech Targeting Trims B2B Marketing Waste
March 04, 2013

Demandbase has incorporated a new filter in its Demandbase Company-Targeted Advertising platform. The filter, called "Technology Targeting," lets users target and personalize display ads based on the technology they use. In other words, users can now include the specific criteria of 'technologies used' as part of their campaign targeting requirements with the Demandbase platform.

Facebook's New Ad Tool Targets You Online and Off
February 28, 2013

Facebook users will soon see ads in their feeds that are more specifically targeted to what they like and where they've shopped -- both online and offline -- thanks to a series of agreements with data companies announced Wednesday. The agreements expand the social network's Custom Audiences program released last September, which was designed to allow advertisers to target their existing customers via Facebook.

A Little Extra Digital Spend in the Online/TV Ad Mix Goes a Long Way
February 26, 2013

For the past several years, the money spent on online advertising has grown at the expense of other media platforms. That trend will probably continue, suggests a new report released Monday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau suggests; it finds that brands will benefit from a 15 percent shift from the TV ad spend to online video.

HootSuite for Twitter Gives Advertisers a Souped-Up Dashboard
February 22, 2013

HootSuite has incorporated paid advertising into its dashboard for the first time with the rollout of HootSuite Promoted Products integration for Twitter. It allows users to buy Promoted Tweets and manage their accounts on the HootSuite dashboard. This is a significant step for HootSuite's users, said Greg Gunn, VP of business development.