SMB marketers value flexibility when it comes to marketing technology, which is why many of them build their own tech stacks--tools and services--that they select from various vendors. They want to choose the best tool for each marketing activity and keep costs down. A study by Campaign Monitor and Marketing Cube found that when choosing a martech stack, 63% of respondents said flexibility was a top criteria and 45% said they liked the fact that  they could choose the best technology for each marketing function.

Twitter is expanding its advertising program to place ads before video content uploaded by more of its users, not just major publishers, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Twitter previously sold pre-roll video ads before content uploaded by publishers, and shared a portion of that revenue with them. That video revenue program, called the Amplify Publisher Program, is being extended to individual creators also. "Creators will keep 70% of the revenue generated from ads sold against their content, with Twitter taking a 30% cut, according to a person familiar with the matter. That’s the same revenue split that Twitter …

Measuring effectiveness across devices and content platforms isn't a one-size-fits-all task. KPIs vary by advertiser, device, campaign objectives, and dayparts. A June 2016 report by ad tech firm FreeWheel digital video completion rates with larger screen and longer content. In Q1 2016, completion rates for U.S. video ads on over-the-top (OTT) devices such as connected TVs were 93% compared with 78% for smartphones. Tablets were 85% and desktop was 84%. An eMarketer article finds teh rates make sense considering the lean-back aspect of the OTT experience.

Online publishers and developers were surprised in recent weeks when Facebook appeared to cut off access to information they use to help gauge the performance of content across the social network, according to a Wall Street Journal report. "Data wasn't being received from Facebook’s 'Graph API' feature, which publishers use to help understand how links to articles are being distributed and engaged with across Facebook. Some publishers also use the information to display a counter on their website pages that shows the number of shares links to their articles, videos and other content receive across Facebook." The Journal contacted Facebook about …

Digital marketing platform GumGum and Brand Innovators polled 246 U.S. digital marketers from diverse industries about the challenges their departments are facing. Nearly seven in 10 respondents said innovation initiatives would influence staffing and organizational decisions over the next two years. Second, other changes included analytics and measurement (65%), mobile initiatives (64%), and content marketing (64%). Some 84% of executives agreed that their company is looking for the next single "market-shifting innovation," according to Accenture research.

Business Insider reports  Snapchat is planning to introduce behavioral targeting for advertisers, the company's director of revenue operations Clement Xue revealed in an eMarketer report published earlier this week. "Xue said the company was working towards rolling out behavioral targeting capabilities in the third quarter of 2016, according to the 'Snapchat Advertising' report." The BI report maintained that Snapchat will only be using behavioral data from users' activity in the app, at least at this stage. "What that means is if users were heavy consumers of basketball content, for example — perhaps following an NBA Snapchat account or consuming lots …

News aggregators like Alphabet Inc.’s Google news search may have to pay publishers to list snippets of articles on their Web sites under plans by the European Union’s executive body to update the bloc’s copyright rules, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. "The European Commission is slated to propose that national legislation be allowed to require news publishers to claim compensation from internet companies, according to an internal document.... The proposals are still being discussed internally. The possible EU move to pave the way for potentially lucrative agreements between publishers and web giants could be a …

The Wall Street Journal reports that startups are increasingly having trouble raising funds if they call themselves an "ad tech" company. "Martech" is the preferred moniker apparently. "It has become increasingly difficult for advertising technology companies to raise money in recent years, but funding for companies in the closely-related marketing technology sector appears to be as healthy as ever," the Journal reported. "U.S. venture-capital firms invested around $860 million in ad tech firms last year, the lowest amount since 2010 and down considerably from a peak of more than $2.7 billion in 2011, according to venture capital and private equity …

On its blog, ThomVest Ventures attempts to interpret and explain The Trade Desk's S-1 filing. The demand-side platform filed its S-1 on Monday indicating its plans to go public. "Their IPO is an important milestone for the advertising technology sector, which has experienced declines in investor sentiment and deal volume over the last several years. The company is growing and profitable — it reported revenue of $113.8 million and an adjusted EBITDA of $39.2 million in 2015." The post takes a more in-depth look at the filing and offers up charts to show the company's financials.

According to a report in The Information, Facebook’s mobile ad network is looking to sell more ads on a broader number of Web sites, diversifying beyond the game and utility apps that dominate its client base. "Some of its new targets for mobile ad sales are large publishers such as USA Today and Hearst, which have started selling ads through Facebook Audience Network after plugging into the social network’s fast-loading article-hosting platform, Instant Articles." The report adds that Audience Network is testing header bidding. As described by The Information, header bidding changes allows ad exchanges to compete directly against each …