5 stories from 2015 that captured marketing's attention

From social media companies making a splash to major marketing technology, here's a recap of some of the biggest stories from 2015.

By David Kirkpatrick • Jan. 5, 2016

Martech funding only hit $17 billion in 2015

Martech funding was down in 2015 to $17 billion after 2014’s banner $47 billion, according to VB Profiles.

By David Kirkpatrick • Jan. 4, 2016

Explore the Trendline➔

Multichannel Optimization

There’s greater urgency around the need to optimize multichannel marketing efforts and unite channels including retail media, social media and others.

By Marketing Dive staff

GroupM acquires programmatic tech firm The Exchange Lab

GroupM is making The Exchange Lab part of its Connect digital operations unit and will retain most senior leadership in some capacity.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 21, 2015

Outfront Media offers more analytics for outdoor ads

Outdoor advertising company, Outfront Media, is hoping to lure some of the growing digital ad budgets back to the more traditional channel with a platform that offers analytics as well as digital buying of outdoor ads.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 21, 2015

4 cringe-worthy marketing debacles from 2015

Not every marketing effort can be a success, that’s why there’s testing and optimization programs.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 18, 2015

Lithium's new analytics tools help marketers 'stay ahead of the game'

Lithium Technologies is boosting the analytics capabilities of its Community Health Index with new benchmarking tools.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 17, 2015

IBM's Watson now providing e-commerce, marketing analytics

The supercomputer now answers plainspoken questions.  

By Ian P. Murphy • Dec. 16, 2015

Connexity snags data firms Hitwise, Simmons Research for audience-based targeting

Connexity, formerly Shopzilla, boosted its digital marketing platform with two acquisitions from Experian giving the company four new tech pieces in less than two years.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 16, 2015

Powa takes print ad shopping beyond the QR code

Brands upload images used in print ads to Powa and users can just scan the ad with a smartphone rather than having to find and scan a QR code.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 16, 2015

Rubicon Project paves way for header bidding in mobile apps

Rubicon Project’s FastLane product beta test for mobile app header bidding is seeing CPM increases of 300% in early results.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 16, 2015

SocialRank's new social media tool helps ID audience segments

Market Intel, the new social media tool from SocialRank, was created along with Publicis Groupe agency MRY.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 15, 2015

Google's latest AdWords update now includes forecasting data

AdWords Display Planner now has click and impression estimates based on campaign bid and budget.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 14, 2015

Twitter is testing Promoted Tweets to non-logged in users

By testing Promoted Tweets to people who aren’t logged-in, Twitter is finding a way to make money off users who aren’t even registered for the social platform.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 11, 2015

Lead quality tops marketing and sales list of concerns: Study

Seventy percent of marketers surveyed in research by ToutApp said they would like more meetings with the sales team and 89% said meetings boost results.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 11, 2015

The key to fighting ad fraud in 2016: Transparency

Ad blocking and ad fraud are issues that are quite joined at the hip. As we head into 2016, the digital marketing industry has to get serious about combating these problems, and the solution, per one expert, lies in transparency.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 10, 2015

Google says Pinterest is testing AMP in its mobile apps

Google will start driving AMP traffic via Google Search in February and has announced a number of publishers and messaging apps already on board with the open source project.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 10, 2015

Tribune Media injects $25M in Dose Media to boost sponsored content

Tribune Media’s Series B investment in Dose Media is based on helping sponsored content go viral.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 10, 2015

Header tags — the biggest trend in programmatic advertising

The main lure of header tags is they open ad inventory to multiple advertisers bidding at once, rather than in succession.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 7, 2015

A+E struck a huge deal to use AOL's programmatic platform

A&E’s deal with AOL for use of its programmatic platform rolls “multiple services into one offering.” according to AOL’s Tim Mahlman.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 4, 2015

Google's First Look will allow buyers to see available inventory

Google has a new option in beta, First Look, available in DoubleClick for Publishers that is a response to header bidding.

By David Kirkpatrick • Dec. 3, 2015

Ad management software startup AdHawk just raised $1.4 million

Ad campaign management platform AdHawk was founded by two ex-Google AdWords employees to help marketers with multi-platform online advertising.

By David Kirkpatrick • Nov. 25, 2015

Data-driven marketing is coming to the silver screen

The partnership between Fandango and National CineMedia to bring the pre-show ad program FirstLook to cinema screens includes mobile and online moviegoer data to target ads.

By David Kirkpatrick • Nov. 23, 2015

AOL's Millennial, Rentrak team up on TV retargeting on mobile

TV Commercial Retargeting is Millennial Media’s first new product since being acquired by AOL.

By David Kirkpatrick • Nov. 20, 2015

MediaMath snatches up programmatic implementation firm Spree7

Spree7 is based in Berlin and provides MediaMath inroads into the German, Austrian and Swiss programmatic marketplace.

By David Kirkpatrick • Nov. 19, 2015

Salesforce's new predictive analytics tools help you target using data science

Salesforce's Salesforce Marketing Cloud Predictive Journeys helps marketers leverage data to segment and target prospective customers.

By David Kirkpatrick • Nov. 19, 2015