Marketers can get rather creative with targeting parameters, but still some of the most basic categorizations might be all you need. Of course, that depends on what you're looking for from a campaign, but there's no denying that the fundamentals -- gender, location, weather and time -- do a solid job of creating "audiences" for you.

"Taking programmatic in-house" is a thing -- and it might be the thing one year from now, if we are to take marketers at their word. At this time next year the headlines could read: "90% of programmatic video ad buyers now execute campaigns in-house." Ninety percent!

Alliance Data Systems (ADS), which owns Epsilon, this week announced that it will acquire Conversant, formerly known as ValueClick, for $2.3 billion. Conversant -- which had spent nearly a decade and a half as the acquirer, not the acquired -- will be rolled into Epsilon, which appears to be making a play in the marketing tech sector. Conversant brings a display ad network, mobile and video offerings, and programmatic tech to Epsilon.

At dmexco 2014 on Thursday, the IAB Europe announced that the programmatic market in Europe was EUR2.08 billion ($2.69 billion) in 2013 -- up 111% from EUR0.98 ($1.27 billion) in 2012. IAB Europe teamed with IHS Technology to conduct the research.

Advertisers in Europe spent 249% more through programmatic channels in Q2 2014 compared to the year before, according to a new Adform report on European RTB (real-time bidding) trends. Similarly, programmatic spend increased by 52% from Q1 2014 to Q2 2014.

"A million apologies. Did not read what the hashtag was about before posting." I feel like this blog post could start and end with that quote from DiGiorno Pizza's official Twitter account because it speaks for itself, but I'll expound for those who are interested.

At MediaPost's recent Mobile Insider Summit in Lake Tahoe, Calif., I had the opportunity to meet Joe McCaffrey, planning director and head of social at Huge, a marketing and advertising agency. Our discussion centered around real-time marketing as it relates to using social media during large -- usually televised -- events. McCaffrey shared some of his thoughts with Real-Time Daily after the event.

In addition to this week releasing guidance helping brands navigate the programmatic waters, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) also asked "industry experts" to spell out where their money goes as it weaves it's way through the programmatic "stack."

Digital advertising's viewability problem is getting bigger when it comes to display ads, and the Media Rating Council (MRC) standard for video ads -- which went into effect in late June -- doesn't seem to be helping much on the video side of things, either.

Drawbridge, a cross-device ad-targeting firm, is expected to announce updates to its platform in the coming weeks, and the company gave "Real-Time Daily" an early look at the new features. Perhaps the most interesting angle is to look at the updates through the lens of "last-touch attribution" modeling, a tactic whose grave is calling.