The Drum looks at ad tech's year thusly: "The year in ad tech can be characterised by two trends: the growing rivalry to Google’s dominance of the online advertising business; plus the ongoing consolidation in the sector, which gave rise to mobile operators re-emerging as serious contenders for ad budgets. Oh yes, and ad blocking…" Can't sum it up too much better than that. Also noted, eMarketer data for programmatic spending in the UK which is projected to surpass £2bn in the UK in 2016 with 60% of all display ads being bought via programmatic technology. 

Sidecar, an e-commerce marketing technology that programmatically connects retailers' products to the most relevant consumers, announced a new solution to help retailers target and display Facebook's Dynamic Product Ads (DPAs) based on a consumer's real-time intent to purchase, according to a press release. "Sidecar developed the proprietary DPA technology through the Facebook Developer Program. The solution builds on the targeting capabilities inherent in Facebook DPAs by dynamically segmenting consumers into groups based on their likelihood to make a purchase from a retailer's site. Visitors identified by the Sidecar technology as having high intent are up to four times more likely …

The Wall Street Journal reports that a new European digital privacy law could have serious implications for online advertising in the region, threatening everyone from ad tech middlemen to publishers to Web giants like Google and Facebook, industry executives say. "European Union officials reached an agreement Tuesday on the pan-European law, creating a strict new legal framework that dictates how companies can use individuals’ personal information. The law requires approval from the EU Parliament and European governments. The new rules could limit the ability for companies to collect and process online data, a practice on which many business-to-business online advertising …

AdExchanger reports that TripleLift's been testing the cinemagraph ad format where there’s an instant of motion within a static image. While the format has been around for a while on social media platforms, it may emerge as a useful ad tool with a broader swath of publishers.The offering was developed by TripleLift in response to social media platforms' investments in similar products, according to TripleLift co-founder and chief strategy officer Ari Lewine. “The cool thing about [cinemagraphs] is that they’re typically made at a very high quality,” said Scott Messer, senior director of business development at Demand Media, which recently …

In a blog post for NiemanLab, Celeste LeCompte, a Nieman Fellow and director of business development at ProPublica, rejoices over ad blocking. "Thank god for the handwringing and number-crunching over its impact on digital revenues. Sure, the jury is still out on what exactly that impact will be; but no matter what the future holds, it’s likely the kerfuffle will have one incredibly positive effect on the media landscape in 2016: It will change the conversation about revenue models for media companies," LeCompte writes. "In 2016, the ad blocking conversation could finally drive the industry to grapple with the need …

Vice's Motherboard reports on Yahoo's extravagant holiday party themed "The Roaring 20th". The extravagance is ironic since the company remains in chronic turmoil. An anonymous guest reports that a very pregnant Marissa Mayer (she's since delivered twins), sat on a thrown in a sequined gown (people could pose for pictures with her), the booze was top shelf and the food, well, it was possibly anything and everything you can imagine (healthy options, of course). "The reported cost of the party is in the millions. (Editor’s note: One shareholder pegged the price at $7 million; a source with knowledge of …

AdExchanger reports that Rubicon Project is beta testing header bidding in mobile apps with 20 publishers. Early results for the product, FastLane, saw CPM increases of up to 300%. Rubicon will release the product more widely to publishers in Q1 of next year, the report said. Unlike the mobile web or desktop, mobile apps bring in demand via SDKs, server-to-server integrations and APIs. Whie mobile ad servers are newer, they haven’t solved the same problem that made header bidding popular on desktop: fragmented demand. The two dominant mobile ad servers, MoPub and DoubleClick for Publishers, use price estimates of bids …

AdExchanger reported Tuesday that True[X], the video ad platform Fox acquired last December, has teamed up with Comcast’s TV ad-serving platform FreeWheel to bring more “engagement-based” video ads to broadcasters. The report will offer True[X] greater sell-in among FreeWheel’s base of media and entertainment brands, which include NBCUniversal, Turner Broadcasting, Viacom, Sky, DirecTV and ABC. True[X] creates interactive video ad formats that give audiences ad viewing options in exchange for content. Hulu, for instance, uses True[X]’s “selectable” video ad units, which give consumers the option to view a 30-second ad in exchange for commercial-free episodes. “We wanted to enable the ability …

Ad tech firm OpenX is reportedly looking for suitors and is looking to be acquired, according to a report in the Business Insider. People familiar with the situation told BI that OpenX has met with potential buyers both within the ad tech sector and in the marketing cloud space. OpenX is an ad exchange that's raised $75.5 million in funding and "claims to be profitable, on $100 million net revenue in 2014," the report said. The firm competes with DoubleClick from Google, the Facebook Exchange and AppNexus. It also competes with supply-side platforms that enable publishers to sell their ads programmatically …

Itay Levy of Teradata, writes that according to a 2015 Forbes study "there are a staggering 198 million people using ad blockers (on desktop). In the last calendar year, use of ad-blocking software grew by 42%, according the researchers’ findings, which characterize blockers as an “existential threat” to publishers. In the U.S. specifically, the use of ad blockers grew by 48% year-over-year. The rise in desktop ad-blocking usage – will mobile ad-blocking get adopted so fast as well?" Levy argues that marketers will need to adjust to the new iOS 9 Ad …