In a sponsored post for Ad Age, Brian O'Kelley, the CEO of AppNexus, pronounces programmatic advertising dead. He ays that despite the fact that he "invented it," building the first ad exchange at Right Media in 2006, programmatic advertising is over. Huh? "To clarify: I don't mean that we'll see an end to "digital ad buying that involves automation and data-driven decision-making, frequently in real-time," which is how Cowen & Co. defines programmatic. All of that will still happen." He goes on to explain: "But programmatic is an obsolescent technology built for the one-dimensional and monolithic internet of Eudora and …

Business Insider analyzes a Q1 Integral Ad Science report finding that "overall, programmatic display and video ads – ads that are sold through automated channels – garnered lower quality ads impressions than ads bought and sold through a direct relationship with a publisher." The study measures the quality of an ad impression based on several factors: viewability, ad fraud, and brand risk (the probability of an ad being placed on a webpage that is misaligned and/or damaging to the image of the brand being advertised). One finding:"Direct-sold display ads boast viewability rates that are nearly 10% higher than …

Columnist Josh Manion takes a look at how marketing technologies are converging and explains why tag management is helping to drive that convergence. Scott Brinker's 2016 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic documents what many enterprise marketing teams deal with daily: The proliferation of marketing technology vendors, which has doubled yet again since last year. Manion states: "Innovation comes from extraordinary creativity in our industry. It also has its negative side: the fragmentation caused by rapid proliferation of martech tools and the siloed data they generate.At the same time, several forces are converging to help unlock the power of data for marketing …

CNN wants to monetize attention and plans to wrap this up in its first-party data to give to advertisers in order to justify the larger budgets it now wants, The Drum reports. "It’s no secret that the likes of Google and Facebook are locking down their data, spurred by the need to measure and monetize advertiser performance plus the growing demand for privacy. It’s a tried and tested method that’s rapidly turned these businesses into media technology companies, something CNN wants in on as it tries to move as far as it can from low yield ad deals and CPM …

AdExchanger's Allison Schiff probes into Ghostery's business model, declaring: "Whether or not Ghostery is an ad blocker depends on how you define 'ad blocker" Also depends on who you ask." Schiff goes on to say: "It’s an awkward question for a company that wears two seemingly different hats in the online ad industry.The first is as one of two primary privacy compliance technology providers powering the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) debatably toothless AdChoices program. (TRUSTe is the other.) Ghostery works with ad tech vendors to dynamically serve that ubiquitous little blue AdChoices icon into the top right corner of ads …

Ad Age's new video series "Explain It Like I'm Eight" is genius and quite possibly the best industry-related video content there is. This episode explores how to understand the differences between first- and third-party data with a very cute little girl who actually breaks it down like a champ. If you need some help, this is the kid who will explain it all -- plus, she says she was born to be a mobile marketer. Readers, you have to watch! Editor in Chief Ken Wheaton, are you behind this series?

Clients want their agencies to operate in fluid, multidisciplinary teams. That’s hard to achieve for larger holding companies traditionally siloed into distinct arms. Disparate units working toward internal goals often find themselves competing instead of collaborating to meet client KPIs. Hearst-owned marketing agency iCrossing is challenging this model with a new structure that promotes omnichannel planning. Originally a search agency, iCrossing began working across channels to offer a full set of marketing services for clients. Now it’s integrating those services across the agency. Of his approach to flattening the siloes, Mike Racic, iCrossing’s president of media operations, told AdExchanger: "We …

AdExchanger's Sarah Sluis takes a look at Gawker's experiences with programmatic and header bidding and reports that when Gawker Media first started selling ads programmatically in late 2014, it only sold through private marketplaces (PMPs). "Since then, the publisher behind Gawker, Jezebel, Lifehacker, Gizmodo and other sites has expanded its programmatic offerings. First it added an open marketplace option and then it implemented header bidding. Programmatic revenue has grown by triple-digit percentages over the past two years. Using private marketplaces as a foundation to expand its programmatic business was a critical strategic decision, said Eyal Ebel, VP of programmatic at …

More than two years after Facebook began to allow brands to retarget people who visited its sites and apps, the company is going to allow them to retarget people based on specific things they did on a brand’s site or app, such as how much time or money they spent, according to a report in Marketing Land. "The expansion of Facebook’s Web site custom audiences ad-targeting option is supposed to make it easier for brands to get in front of the most valuable members of their sites’ and apps’ audiences." The move is expected to address a challenge that marketers …

Automating digital media trading can make operations more streamlined and efficient, but we’re only at the start of the game with programmatic ad management, according to a report in PerformanceIN: "If you believe the current hype, programmatic advertising management is the holy grail to maximizing your ad impact in a multi-channelled digital world." The report goes on to say that programmatic ad delivery enables marketers to focus their ads on specific target audiences and to customize them accordingly. "On the surface, it is a really exciting prospect and one publishers and clients alike have been crying out for. But the …