Digital Marketing Newsletter

Oracle Wins Bid for TikTok in U.S., Beating Microsoft Oracle Corp. won the bidding for the U.S. operations of the video-sharing app TikTok, people familiar with the matter said, beating out Microsoft Corp. in a high-profile deal to salvage a social-media sensation that has been caught in the middle of a geopolitical standoff. (WSJ)

Partnerize Acquires Pepperjam, Consolidating Affiliate Marketing Partnerize has acquired Pepperjam to strengthen its hold on the affiliate marketing space as brands look to prove performance for their dollars. (MediaPost) - Affiliate

Comcast Technology Solutions and FreeWheel Partner to Bring Programmatic Advertising

Ad business likely to suffer as firms brace for spread of Coronavirus

Publicis unit, a large advertising buyer, plans to cut global spending forecast and New York Times warns of a slump. As recently as December, Zenith, a Publicis Groupe SA ad-buying firm, had expected global ad spending to rise 4.3% to $666 billion this year. But on Monday, Jonathan Barnard, Zenith’s head of forecasting, said that number would be revised lower in the coming weeks because of the virus. (The Wall Street Journal)

New email extortion scheme threatens to get websites kicked off Google AdSense unless they pay up

A new email scam threatens website owners with a flood of bot traffic to get their Google AdSense accounts suspended, Krebs on Security reports. By directing a large amount of bot traffic to a company’s banner ads, the scammers could trigger Google’s automated anti-fraud protection. (The Verge)

The ad tech trends rounding out 2019

With all the progress of advanced digital advertising, it’s easy to lose sight of big-picture trends and insights. From enterprise consolidations that impact ad operations to recent advances in supply chain transparency, the advertising solutions of our modern digital age are vast and ever changing. But how are these changes affecting the digital ecosystem? And what can advertisers expect in ad tech for the year to come? Here are the top ad tech trends rounding out 2019. (Marketing Land)

Snaptube app caught serving up invisible ads and charging users for premium purchases they didn't make

TSnaptube, a popular video downloader app for Android that has over 40 million users, has been caught generating fake ad clicks and unauthorized premium purchases from its users. According to security firm Upstream, users are served invisible ads without their knowledge that run silently on the device. The app also uses the same background click technique to rack up charges for premium purchases the user never requested. (TechCrunch)

Taboola and Outbrain merge in $850 million deal

Taboola and Outbrain, rivals that both operate advertising-based content recommendation engines for publishers that typically appear in the form of boxes at the bottom of online articles, are forming a single company. The merger will result in a customer list that will now number 20,000 online properties and an audience of 2.6 billion to compete better against the likes of Facebook and Google. (TechCrunch)

Ad blocker extensions caught in cookie-stuffing ad fraud scheme

Google has removed two extensions from the Chrome Web Store. The two extensions were fully functional ad blockers, but they tried to deceive users by using the names of other more reputable ad blocker extensions. But besides using misleading names to hijack and deceive other extensions' user bases, the two -- "AdBlock" by "AdBlock, Inc" and "uBlock" by "Charlie Lee" -- were also caught performing cookie stuffing - a form of affiliate ad fraud. (ZDNet)

What's in and out at Dmexco, 2019

As one of the ad tech industry's largest shows wrapped up this week in Cologne, Digiday outlined what's in and out on the conference show floor. (Digiday)