2025 promises a proliferation of US state laws regulating the processing of children’s data, with new rules either already in effect or coming into force later this year.
Can the IAB Tech Lab’s Trusted Server initiative really help restore publishers’ ownership of monetization and wrestle back control from Big Tech and walled gardens?
Programmatic promised clarity: automation, efficiency and measurable outcomes. What we got instead is complexity dressed up as optimization: a stack of acronyms performing trust theater.
As AI agents begin to mediate everything from search to purchase, marketers are being forced to confront the reality that they must treat machines as customers.
Ad spending across RMNs and CMNs is still hindered by incomplete data access and connectivity. Here’s how to bridge that gap.
We’re seeing the worst possible outcomes with the CPM-based buying approach. And Google’s recent decision to hang on to cookies indefinitely risks perpetuating the worst parts of the digital ad business.
The era of fragmented, adversarial ad tech is winding down. A new paradigm is emerging defined by AI-first, end-to-end platforms and collaboration among buyers and sellers.
Political advertisers, by necessity, have built precise, privacy-conscious targeting strategies that work without relying exclusively on third-party data like cookies.
Short-form video, infinite scrolling and hyper-targeted algorithms aren’t neutral mediums. They shape, and often compromise, the attention they harvest, creating compulsive habits that warrant serious reflection.
Transparency has become the currency of credibility in advertising. Larger holding companies and black box AI platforms must recognize that their opaque practices are no longer sustainable.
AI is being embedded in tools, tagged in decks and tossed into internal sprints. But for agencies, publishers, brands and platforms, there’s still no shared definition of success.
If the court ultimately orders Google to spin off AdX or DFP, the result would be a fundamental rebalancing of power across the digital advertising supply chain. For marketers, the implications are just as significant.
It’s important to have frank discussions with clients, explaining the need and value of brand safety. That way, marketers can make an educated decision on whether they truly need to pay for it.
Many well-intentioned advertising standards efforts gather digital dust thanks to industry politics and competing interests. Here’s how the industry can stop sabotaging its own progress.
Here are three areas that marketing technology professionals must handle successfully to get the most out of their AI applications.
Audience suppression may be the missing link between annoying a consumer and building a lasting relationship.
Does AI kill authenticity? Or is it just another evolution of content creation? And does it even matter? After all, consumers say they care about authenticity, but their actions don’t always match their words.
It’s difficult for advertisers to enter into contracts with every company to which they disclose personal information. However, difficulty is no longer an acceptable excuse.
Many in the industry see Google’s fingerprinting reversal as an irresponsible move due to privacy concerns, particularly in regions with strict data regulations.
Despite diverse hiring initiatives and programs to support women in the workplace, representation in ad tech is lacking. And given threats to women’s rights and the rollback of DEI efforts due to political pressure, the time to take action is now.
Where principal media has gone wrong is that buyers have commoditized it due to an overreliance on vanity metrics in contractual agreements.
Based on the way advertisers deal with publishers, you’d think they were sworn enemies. Our failure to prioritize collaboration on the open web and build a positive value chain has been our collective downfall.
If we’re to leave behind the third-party cookie era, the rest of the ecosystem must reassert the role it plays in setting the agenda.
GDPR may not be perfect, but it forced European companies to adopt a privacy-by-default position. For US companies, this is a clear signal: Change is inevitable.
Now that Chevron is overturned, it will be easier for companies to challenge FTC regulations in court, arguing that they exceed the FTC’s mandate, writes OpenX’s Julie Rooney.
To solve ad tech’s intractable problems, there’s a solution that the advertising industry could borrow from the hacker world: bug bounties.
Not every retailer has a solid handle on emerging AI tech. While some thrived, others stumbled – sometimes spectacularly. Here are some lessons to learn from Q4 campaigns.
Experimentation has been proven to offer unrivaled insights into marketing effectiveness, but it remains underused. But what can organizations do to successfully integrate experimentation into their measurement frameworks?
Understanding advertising effectiveness is the cornerstone of successful marketing, yet marketers often shy away from the most reliable tools for the job.
As we navigate the challenges facing our industry, we must prioritize both efficiency and integrity – and focus on quality over quantity in ad delivery.
