The Big Story

It’s the last episode of the year, and the AdExchanger team looks at the biggest moments and biggest personalities that rocked the advertising industry from 2010 to 2020. If the early 2000s were about innovation and finding new ways to transact advertising, then the 2010s were about maturation and cleaning up the Wild West that […]

Here’s your pre-holiday call to action: Flag your cookies. In February, Google’s Chrome browser will stop sending third-party cookie requests cross-site, unless they’re flagged using SameSite internet standard. What in the Sam Hill does that even mean? Listen to this week’s episode of The Big Story – or read Allison Schiff’s meticulous breakdown of what […]

The TV revolution is in full swing, as ratings decline, prices increase, viewers leave for non-ad supported services and new entrants offer video inventory. This week on The Big Story, we look at recent ad forecasts showing that the ratings decline is catching up to the TV market. In other words, the high prices broadcasters […]

As much as Amazon’s advertising platform has grown in recent years, will it ever surpass Google or Facebook? This week on The Big Story, the AdExchanger team looks at that question, and addresses some of the factors holding Amazon Advertising back – from availability of inventory, availability of data and the usability of its technology. […]

Even with doom-and-gloom headlines, our AdExchanger community has much to be thankful for. In a special Thanksgiving episode of The Big Story, we asked our readers and listeners, “What are you grateful for in ad tech?” As it turns out, many see a world of regulation and cookie pressure from a glass half-full perspective. They […]

Programmatic auction dynamics can be arcane, even for the most technical among us. Google has Open Bidding (nee Exchange Bidding), Amazon’s got Transparent Ad Marketplace (TAM) and Prebid predates them both, not to mention a host of other wrappers on the scene. But what do buyers, exchanges and publishers have to say – and, more […]

Everyone has an opinion about the death of the cookie, especially the ones who have something to sell. That something could be a product that will help alleviate the pain of the cookie going away, or targeted media that relies heavily on cookies. It’s hard to get a straight answer, and as Sarah Sluis and […]

For ad tech companies Criteo and Viant, it’s onward and… upward? Last week, Nielsen Chief Commercial Officer Megan Clarken was announced as Criteo’s new CEO, replacing JB Rudelle. (Incidentally, Clarken’s exodus from Nielsen makes a lot of sense, considering the measurement company’s decision to split into two.) This week on The Big Story, the team […]

The most sophisticated marketers want direct deals with exchanges; it’s hard to wean yourself from Google; and Facebook’s political ads policies continue to roil the public. This week on The Big Story, it’s all about relationships – both building them and moving on from them. First, we look at how some big brands – including […]

Ten years after dataxu raised its first round (and $87.5 million later), the demand-side platform has found its forever home. Roku intends to acquire the company for $150 million, a move that gives it the tech it needs to launch an open marketplace similar to what Xandr is doing with AppNexus. Because dataxu plugs into […]

Change is in the air. To wit, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, topping the polls of Democratic presidential candidates, has made the breakup of big tech into a pet issue on the campaign trail. At the same time, regulatory and privacy concerns are driving state legislation that could transform the way consumer data is collected and, thus, […]

In the lead-up to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Google enacted a bevy of changes that affected how advertisers could track and measure campaign performance on Google properties. This week on The Big Story, we look at those changes and the fallout with advertisers. Editor James Hercher examined some of Google’s biggest recent policy […]

Elizabeth Warren has big plans for Facebook: Break it up. This week on The Big Story, the team places Warren’s plan, and her campaign strategy, under the microscope. The Verge published the transcript on Tuesday of a Q&A Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had with his employees, in which he addressed Warren’s plans to break up […]

Owning a business that relies on consumer data is riskier than ever – in terms of both public sentiment and potential regulation. And this risk has caused Google and Oracle to make structural changes. This week on The Big Story, we look and what happened and why. Earlier this week, Oracle laid off 10% to […]

Like it or not, the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) is an inevitability as of Jan. 1, 2020. We’ve tried to be as comprehensive as possible covering the law and its potential impact. Earlier this year, new bills were introduced in an effort to influence that impact. Some bills – tweaking some of the language […]

Are we in the midst of an ad tech resurgence? It’s way too early to say, but public companies like The Trade Desk, Telaria, Cardlytics and Rubicon Project have been outperforming recently. This week on The Big Story, the team looks at what the heck is going on. Certainly business models have matured – no […]

Cookies: Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em. Well, that depends on who you ask, and the experts disagree. This week on The Big Story, the team examines both sides of the heated debate on the value, or lack thereof, of third-party cookie tracking. On one side of the fence, a study from May […]

Amazon’s clean room is … well, not open for business. But it exists! James Hercher and Alison Weissbrot on Tuesday reported on a closed beta test run by Amazon that will give ad buyers access to more of its vaunted data. This week on The Big Story, we’ll see what they uncovered in terms of […]

The practice of sending targeted messaging to people online is under fire – and not just in Europe. Both Apple and Mozilla are restricting the ability to target on their respective browsers, and it’s forcing Google’s hand with Chrome. This week on The Big Story, we take a look at some recent news related to […]

After more than a decade apart, Viacom and CBS have gotten back together. In many ways, though, this is a marriage of necessity. The new ViacomCBS entity must find its foothold in a world that’s been disrupted by Netflix and Amazon, faces further disruption from Google, Facebook and Apple – and where peers such as NBCU, […]

Real-time bidding (RTB) is at a crossroads, thanks to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This week on The Big Story, we check out what the future holds for a tactic that revolutionized the way ads online were bought and sold. While final decisions aren’t imminent – European data authorities are only investigating into 2020 […]

TV buyers brightened when Amazon Fire TV made some of its inventory available through the DSPs dataxu and The Trade Desk, bringing real-time bidding to the purchase of CTV inventory. This week on The Big Story, the team talks about that development and examines the state of RTB in programmatic TV and what sort of […]

Ad tech titans face off with each other this week as The Trade Desk takes a stand against Google, the FTC fines Facebook and TikTok… well, I suppose its denizens talk about invading #Area51. First up, Sarah Sluis broke wide open a scuffle about standards – namely, how will Google’s exchange bidding product be defined […]

Working with Google can feel like an arms race. Header bidding threw Google for a loop, since it took away its priority in the waterfall auction. But Google rebounded when it released a product called exchange bidding more than a year ago. Since then, it has continuously tweaked its auctions to accommodate – or control […]

This week on The Big Story, it’s all about quality – the quality CPM (qCPM). It’s a new – but actually kind of old – way for ad buyers to figure out whether they’re getting good value for the inventory they purchase by adding indicators of quality, such as viewability and brand safety, to the […]

Nothing says Fourth of July like a big helping of hot dogs, potato salad and The Big Story podcast. It’s the middle of the year (well, a little past the middle), and this week, the AdExchanger team takes stock of what happened so far and what will likely happen in the year to come. The […]

While most of the interest in TV happens in front of the glass, there’s a great deal of intrigue taking place behind it. This week on The Big Story, we dive into some of the most recent data dealings, with LiveRamp buying Data Plus Math and how much of that TV-generated data is collected and […]

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is just about over, and media, tech and marketing execs are stumbling  back to the airport to begin the arduous trek home. It was a more muted festival this year. MediaLink, the Cannes Lions’ sister company, positioned a giant white tent along the pier, which served as the […]

TV buying is changing and, goodness, it seems we’re in the storm before the calm. There are different operating systems, content owners, data owners, platforms on which to buy and ways to measure. And all the vendors and MVPDs offering solutions to “simplify” everything sometimes seem to add to the complexity. This week on “The […]

This week on “The Big Story” we start by winding down the epic of Sizmek. The near-final chapter of this saga came last week with Amazon’s acquisition of two of Sizmek’s most coveted assets: its ad server and its dynamic creative optimization (DCO) technology. Of the two, Sizmek’s ad server has always been the notable […]