ExchangeWire rounds up some of the biggest stories in the US/Canadian digital advertising space. In this week’s edition: AdBrain assets acquired by The Trade Desk; Neustar and J.D. Power partner; Grapeshot integrates with MediaMath; Sharethrough and Adobe Advertising Cloud integrate; Videology launches DETVgo; Collective becomes Visto; and Connatix raises USD$15m.

The Trade Desk acquires AdBrain assets

The Trade Desk, an advertising technology company, has acquired Adbrain’s intelligent identity resolution technology assets for an undisclosed amount.

By acquiring assets that create advanced customer ID maps, The Trade Desk is adding technology to continue to help advertisers target consumers across all devices through their buy-side platform. Adding AdBrain’s technology, with data sets from previously established partners, will match a user’s identity across different devices through The Trade Desk’s device graph.

“We are thrilled to add Adbrain’s innovative technology and expertise to our company”, said Jeff Green, CEO and co-founder of The Trade Desk. “With this acquisition, we will develop a proprietary device graph that combines Adbrain’s technology with login data, giving advertisers and brands on The Trade Desk platform an independent alternative to walled gardens.”

Neustar & J.D. Power Partner

Analytics company, Neustar, has partnered with consumer insights and analytics company for automotive audiences, J.D. Power, creating a solution to help brands and agencies deliver hyper-personalised and relevant messages to automotive consumers and prospects.

Julie Fleischer, VP, Marketing Solutions, Neustar

The joint automotive marketing solution will give advertisers greater precision, quality, and reach when delivering customer experiences to audiences across multiple channels and screens by utilising Neustar’s more than 20,000 available audiences, with J.D. Power’s valuable audience data across more that 14,000 dealerships, allowing for targeting messaging along the path to purchase.

“The standards for audience data are highly variable across the industry. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in automotive, where the cost of using stale, outdated data means waiting for years before the buyer is back in market”, Julie Fleischer, VP, marketing solutions, Neustar, tells ExchangeWire. “Most data providers start with limited data and limitless assumptions, creating audience segments that may be flawed, inaccurate, and out-of-date. By partnering with J. D. Power, we are setting a new standard for what actionable, verified, fresh automotive audiences should look like. When you only get one chance at selling to a customer every four or more years, you shouldn’t have to rely on trial and error to identify and serve your target. Better data sells more cars.”

Grapeshot & MediaMath integrate

Contextual targeting technology company, Grapeshot, has integrated with advertising technology company, MediaMath, to make Grapshot’s full suite of pre-bid products available on MediaMath’s platform.

John Snyder, CEO, Grapeshot

The integration of Grapeshot’s solutions will provide MediaMath’s clients with advanced predictive keyword targeting, dynamic contextual targeting, and a content listening tool, giving more choices to MediaMath’s clients, and helping to prepare for the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that will tighten rules against cookie-based tracking.

John Snyder, CEO, Grapeshot, tells ExchangeWire: “Advertisers and agencies are increasingly savvy to the dangers of brand safety online and are demanding the very best solutions from their technology partners to protect their digital ad spend. The ability to analyse online content at page-level to identify ‘brand unsafe’ material before the ad is served should be a crucial part of this. Unfortunately, very few providers today are able to truly offer this advanced type of protection to advertisers.

With our full suite of pre-bid contextual and predictive targeting products integrated into MediaMath’s global advertising platform, thousands of the world’s largest brands and agencies will now have access to the most advanced brand safety protection on the market. It will give them confidence that their brand values and performance objectives are aligned before the media commitment is made.

And, with less than seven months to go until GDPR is fully implemented, Grapeshot’s cookie-less solutions will give MediaMath and its partners added peace of mind that their digital advertising activities won’t fall foul of the new regulations.”

Sharethrough integrates with Adobe Advertising Cloud

Sharethrough, a native supply platform company, has integrated with Adobe Advertising Cloud, a demand-side platform that manages advertising across traditional TV and digital formats. The integration will give marketers using the Adobe Advertising Cloud ability to access audiences with in-feed native video and display placements across sites and apps on the Sharethrough Exchange.

Alex White, VP Product Marketing, Sharethrough

Launched in March 2017, Adobe Advertising Cloud has combined the capabilities from Adobe Media Optimiser and recently acquired TubeMogul, to simplify the delivery of video, display, search, and TV advertising across channels and screens. The integration with Sharethrough will enable advertisers to execute advanced marketing tactics with their native inventory, including retargeting exposed audiences from other ad formats and channels.

“We are really excited to be live with Adobe – one of the leaders in the space. Video continues its phenomenal growth and popularity with consumers, and is becoming one of the most influential formats for brands to reach audiences – when delivered in a non-intrusive and relevant way. We are proud to help advertisers reach and exceed performance goals as they continue to shift budgets to reflect demand for better user experience, as part of their overall omnichannel strategy”, Alex White, VP product marketing, Sharethrough, tells ExchangeWire.

Videology launches DETVgo

TV and video advertising technology company, Videology, has launch a self-service, automated advanced TV advertising product called DETVgo, offering agencies and advertisers free access to help aid advanced TV transactions, among other benefits.

Scott Ferber, Founder & CEO, Videology

The DETVgo product is powered by the Videology platform and serves as an access point for users interested in the benefits of data-enabled TV advertising, including programmatic transactions between buyers and TV inventory providers, audience creation, and reporting.

Scott Ferber, founder and CEO, Videology, tells ExchangeWire: “We believe that technology should advance the industry forward, and that’s what we’re aiming for with DETVgo. It’s important to get the Advanced TV market moving and we’ve got to make it easier for advertisers and media companies eager to move forward with Advanced TV – clearly, there are others waiting in the wings if the TV industry doesn’t act swiftly on this. Data-enabled TV advertising is the future and DETVgo is the gateway product to help companies stay ahead of the curve.”

DETVgo is available to a select group of users to start, with open access starting in November.

Collective becomes Visto

Advertising technology company, Collective, has rebranded to 'Visto', after launching the company’s flagship Visto Enterprise Advertising Hub earlier this year. With Visto’s new logo and tagline, 'At the Center of Programmatic Media', they plan to address the ad industry's operational inefficiencies and lack of transparency, bringing the advertising supply chain into a single interface for buying, managing, and analysing campaigns.

Kerry Bianchi, CEO, Visto

"It was clear to us that more and more media would continue to be transacted programmatically and that there would be a continued proliferation of providers of data, ad serving, inventory, analytics, verification, measurement, and more, that would all need to be orchestrated somehow. What was lacking was some sort of hub or ad-tech systems integrator that could provide enterprises transparency and control over all of these moving parts. That is why we built Visto”, Kerry Bianchi, CEO, Visto, tells ExchangeWire.

Connatix secures USD$15m in funding

Connatix, a native video advertising company for advertisers and publishers, has secured USD$15m (£11.4m) in equity funding led by Volition Capital, bringing Volition’s managing partner, Larry Cheng, to the Connatix board of directors.

David Kashak, CEO, Connatix

David Kashak, CEO, Connatix, tells ExchangeWire: “The investment allows us to accelerate our business growth, including resources to expand quickly and strategically and deliver on our vision of ensuring publishers stay ahead of emerging trends and media formats. Importantly, we are planning to use the funding to accelerate innovation with new interactive media products for publishers.

Our accelerating growth means hiring more people in sales and marketing. We doubled our team this year and we are now positioned for even more growth.

We’re helping publishers meet the trends in formats and to stay ahead of shifting audience expectations. Perfecting video is what publishers need now; but in the near future, there are many more formats to come. This investment is going to fuel our innovation to work with formats such as AR, interactive videos, games, and more – our technology will make video more engaging for audiences. In the long term, as media evolves, we will continue to be the first in helping publishers stay ahead in the game.”