AT&T, coming off the $49 billion acquisition of DirecTV last year, has been quietly putting together the pieces to potentially become one of the few outlets that can offer marketers the ability to precisely target people on all of their digital devices, according to a Wall Street Journal report. "Some top digital ad buyers said they questioned AT&T’s interest in the ad business after the company in late 2013 reduced staff in its AT&T AdWorks advertising division and pulled the plug on a digital ad network and a mobile ad network—both of which used the vast pools of data culled …

In a recent study conducted by the Relevancy Group, 401 marketing and advertising executives were surveyed across a collective of priorities in “madtech,” the marriage of marketing and advertising, according to a post on Salesforce.com's blog. 92% of respondents agreed that implementing people-based marketing is important, while 94% prioritized first the ability to identify an individual across channels and devices. This isn’t a coincidence. Marketers know that their audience is no longer limited to a single source of communication. "In order to truly succeed in people-based marketing, advertisers must recognize that this multi-channel user needs to be recognized across devices …

Rocket Fuel, which specializes in programmatic media and marketing has a dedicated sales enablement unit that's tasked with creating assets and training programs to help facilitate more efficient selling. In an interview with eMarketer, John Anagnost, senior director, sales strategy and enablement at Rocket Fuel, said his team works with salespeople to help them strategize with agencies, channel partners, and directly with marketers. The unit aims to offer an understanding and assessment of client needs to help accelerate business.

A report earlier this year by ZenithOptimedia found that luxury goods manufacturers, despite lagging behind the wider advertising market, are starting to invest more budget in digital media and marketing at the expense of offline channels. Publicis Groupe projected that digital will be the largest luxury advertising medium in 2017, overtaking print and TV, accounting for 32.1% of total spend by such brands, according to a report in The Drum. But ZenithOptimedia found that luxury brands seek control of the environments where they advertise and perceive that purchasing media programmatically can leave them vulnerable. “How fast the adoption of an …

To better understand what its customers want, eBay just bought SalesPredict -- a predictive analytics company. This seems to be mostly an acqui-hire, as an undisclosed number of SalesPredict’s employees will be join eBay’s structured data organization, working from eBay’s Israeli Development Center in Netanya,” Vator News reports.

Xaxis has struck a deal to utilize Scoota's rich media inventory in the U.K. The companies have already teamed up to launch a campaign for WPP client January (handled by Mindshare).

Publlicis Groupe has entered a partnership with Tencent, the Chinese Internet giant, according to a report on Campaign. Tencent will work with Publicis Groupe, Publicis Media, Publicis Communications, and Publicis.Sapient. "The companies will partner on creation and investment in web-native content, share data, and launch Drugstore incubation facilities to invest in and develop startups of the future," according to the report.

Eyeing Facebook as a potential threat, News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson is concerned enough that he says publishers and media groups should create their own networks in order to compete with the social giant, according to a report on The Drum. Last week, Facebook said it was going to show users more posts from friends and families as it adjusts its algorithm. What this means is that publishers will have a harder time reaching their followers with contributions to the company via post boosting. Thomson said: “Media platforms need to extend their reach to compete more forcefully with the likes …

It looks like LinkedIn had more suitors than was originally thought to be the case, according to a report in Recode which said Google and Facebook were also interested in the professional networking and education platform. Of course Microsoft was the ultimate victor: it acquired LinkedIn for $26 billion in June. A Securities and Exchange Commission document filed on June 30 revealed that as many as five possible buyers were interested in LinkedIn. "We knew that Salesforce was one of them, as CEO Marc Benioff confirmed to Recode. But a source familiar with the deal says that both Google …

The Belgian data protection authority on Wednesday lost a legal battle with Facebook in which it sought to stop the social network from tracking the online activities of non-Facebook users in Belgium who visit the social network's pages, according to Reuters. "The Belgian Privacy Commission said the Brussels Appeals Court had dismissed its case on the grounds that the regulator has no jurisdiction over Facebook Inc, which has its European headquarters in Ireland. That marks a victory for the U.S. company, which staunchly maintained that only the Irish Data Protection Commissioner has jurisdiction over how it uses Europeans' data. Facebook …