The Big Story features a roundtable discussion with the AdExchanger editorial team on the week’s top news stories. New and previously published episodes are available on this page and on your preferred podcast app.
From a $637 million PE acquisition of healthcare of a DSP to acquisitions of freshly minted startups, there’s been a flurry of ad tech deals this month. And they have one thing in common: AI.
Google is running a search monopoly, but the remedies are light. How will this decision affect advertisers and competitors? Plus, Google Ad Manager is acting like a standalone SSP, a move that appears connected to the looming remedies phase of Google’s second antitrust case.
Pause ads are going programmatic, as connected TV ad buying becomes more automated. Plus: how publishers are proposing to be compensated by AI companies – and the odds that they’ll receive what they are asking for.
We’ve got the witness list for the remedy phase of the Google antitrust trial, which starts in September. How might Google be forced to change its ad server and exchange to make this corner of the ad tech market competitive again?
The Trade Desk has won the battle for supremacy on the open internet, says Needham & Company’s Laura Martin. But it might just be losing the war for the future of the web to walled gardens and AI search.
OpenX filed a lawsuit against Google over its anticompetitive practices. And HyphaMetrics claimed victory against Nielsen in court over a patent lawsuit.
Change can be bumpy. From The Trade Desk’s Solimar-to-Kokai transition to Nielsen’s transition to its Big Data + Panel offering, we go inside customers’ challenges with these two transforming platforms.
Ad agency hold cos have broadcasted their earnings. As AI and acquisitions transform their businesses, there are clear winners and losers. With media as a strong spot, we discuss the paradox of “transparent nontransparency.”
Pixels attached to articles explaining a recent health diagnosis – without consent – led Healthline to a record $1.55 million fine for violating CCPA. Plus: the new AI contract.
YouTube accounts are uploading recent Hollywood movies, racking up views while advertisers (and sometimes creators) remain in the dark. Plus: Could Cloudflare’s AI bot blockers provide a salve for digital media’s traffic declines?
The FTC approved the Omnicom-IPG merger, but with a brand-safety caveat: The agencies cannot create agency-level blocklists of any media that’s political or ideological. With Ad Fontes CEO Vanessa Otero, we unpack the consent order’s ramifications.
From Cannes Lions, our editorial team discusses the mix of perspectives on the ad industry’s application of AI: the opportunity, the hesitation and the predictions of how it will disrupt marketing.
In the latest sign of massive change among ad agency hold cos, Mark Read is stepping down as leader of WPP. We unpack the impact of AI on agency hold cos and media, including WPP Media’s prediction that 2025 will be the first year in which the majority of ad spend flows through user-generated content.
Meta updated its ad platform Wednesday with AI-based buying improvements. Is the company on track to be fully automated with AI by the end of next year?
Amazon is integrating into Prebid. What does this mean for publishers? Plus, are Amazon and Google diverging in their product focus?
Recorded live on the Programmatic IO stage in Las Vegas, the editorial team recaps the trends that dominated our conference: marketers adopting AI and finding truth through measurement.
GroupM is restructuring, as AI looms over the business model of agency holding companies, and one-click campaign planning comes for agency jobs.
Does a connected TV DSP need lower take rates? Inside the battle among DSP’s to take on The Trade Desk’s dominant market position. Plus: an on-the-ground report from the TV Newfronts.
Emarketer is predicting tariffs could lead to a $2.78 billion to $4 billion decline in linear TV upfront spending, but CTV spending will be flat to up. Emarketer analyst Ross Benes unpacks these findings. Plus: At the Possible conference, optimism reins.
Google’s SSP and ad server businesses have been ruled monopolies. And Google Chrome isn’t going to change its third-party cookie opt-ins, further preserving third-party cookies. Go inside this momentous news.
Temu pulled back on its US ad spend this week, as tariffs loom. Plus, in France, the ATT prompt was deemed anticompetitive and, as a result, will likely need to be changed.
The Trump tariff situation is in constant flux, creating uncertainty that spells doom for any potential growth in US ad spending this year. Plus, how retail media and other emerging channels could be threatened by tariff turmoil.
What’s old is new. Time is a flat circle. Trends are cyclical. Choose your idiom, because this week’s episode grapples with two topics that are back in style (so to speak): bot traffic and the tantalizing dream of scaling programmatic in-game advertising.
The IAB Tech Lab is proposing that ad auctions move to a Trusted Server from the browser. Why its prototype attracted controversy. Plus, should data privacy be viewed as a badge of honor, or a baseline standard?
Alphonso shareholders won their lawsuit against LG Ads, clearing the way for an IPO. Then, as TikTok counts down the days until its stay of execution expires, Oracle might buy a minority stake.
Tariffs are taking effect in the US, and advertisers are shook. Our special guest, Madison and Wall’s Brian Wieser, weighs in on the “blindingly obvious” consequences of implementing tariffs, including supply-chain disruptions that lead to a pullback in ad spend. You can’t promote what you can’t produce. Plus: the rationale behind Publicis’ acquisition of Lotame.
Programmatic algorithms optimize for performance, which can leave digital media companies floundering. Inside programmatic’s pursuit of “premium.” Plus: an ad tech acquisition forged on matchmaking buy-side and sell-side IDs.
In her last week at AdExchanger, Senior Editor Alyssa Boyle reflects on three years of change, and stasis, in the CTV space. Then, how Ozempic is changing the marketing world.
When The Trade Desk, the ad tech darling of Wall Street, missed its earnings forecast for the first time, ad tech insiders paid attention. Plus: Reddit, fueled by Google Search, sputters after an algorithmic adjustment.
When an ad shows up next to illegal content, there is often not a single point of failure. Adalytics Krzysztof Franaszek walks us through why he found ads showing up next to the worst kind of criminal content — and the simple and complex solutions to this problem.
