According to a report from research firm eMarketer, LinkedIn is growing faster than expected. The number of monthly US adult users in 2019 increased by 8.8% year over year, which is up from eMarketer’s previous estimate of just over 7%. These numbers are from an updated membership data from parent-company Microsoft and other sources. Although there was a [...]
On January 7, Twitter announced the launch of a new takeover ad unit called the Promoted Trend Spotlight. First started testing in 2018, the format allows advertisers to take up "premium real estate" in the top section of Twitter's Explore Tab. Just like Twitter's Promoted Trend ads, the Promoted Trend Spotlight supports 6-second videos and gifs [...]
On January 6, Termor International Ltd, an Israeli video ad tech firm, has agreed to buy Unruly from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The video advertising platform came at a deep discount from what was paid by New Corp back in 2015. This highlights several different trends in ad tech, one of which is ad tech consolidation. [...]
In advance of Small Business Saturday, which takes place on November 30, and the holiday shopping season, Pinterest has launched Pinterest Shop, which is a new dashboard curated by Pinterest that showcases the profiles and products of small businesses in an Etsy-style fashion. Currently, the Pinterest Shop has 17 different small businesses that make and sell unique [...]
In an announcement by McDonald's Corporation, it has entered an agreement to acquire voice-based technology provider, Apprente. This will make the second tech acquisition the company made this year. McDonald's bough personalization and decision logic technology Dynamic Yield back in April, hoping that to have it working in all US and Australian drive-thrus by the [...]
Acxiom, a data provider, announced Monday that it is selling off its Marketing Solutions (AMS) division to the global marketing agency holding company, Interpublic Group (IPG) for $2.3 billion. This follows the reports that IPG was considering putting itself up for sale. It also follows a strategic review by Acxiom about the chance of selling [...]
Recently, Yelp bought up a company called Turnstyle for a reported $20 million. Turnstyle calls itself a WiFi-based marketing and loyalty platform. Not only that, it can even be called a "marketing automation" platform, as well as a "marketing personalization platform." With Turnstyle, business can offer guest WiFi in exchange for customer email addresses (opt-in). The company [...]
BuzzFeed has done their first major agency coup by striking up a deal with WPP's global media buying arm, GroupM, which is worth millions of dollars. In an announcement made on Thursday by Buzzfeed, the benefits of this deal will give both WPP and GroupM agencies an “unprecedented access to BuzzFeed’s creative and data assets.” As part [...]
On Thursday, LinkedIn announced that they were going to acquire Lynda.com, an online professional development company, for approximately $1.5 billion in stock and cash. “The mission of LinkedIn and the mission of lynda.com are highly aligned. Both companies seek to help professionals be better at what they do,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, in the announcement. [...]