Marketers

Almost everything in AI feels big. But are you looking at the next Gangnam Style or the birth of a new industry? Here’s how to assess whether an AI vendor is likely to matter in two years.

Marketers used to wait for obvious signals, like a product page view, a cart add or a keyword search, before triggering campaigns. But in today’s fractured landscape, those signals can arrive too late.

The Economist is charting its own course in the age of AI, says Nada Arnot, the 182-year-old publication’s EVP of marketing. It’s steering clear of licensing deals and lawsuits and partnering with Claude on its own terms.

For years, MFA was a mostly web-based problem. Now, generative AI has supercharged the made-for-advertising model, and it’s infecting social media feeds and vertical video platforms.

Thanks to mitigated tariff effects and the AI boom, WPP Media’s 2025 ad spend forecast has good news for marketers.

Fizz, a new discussion and news feed app that targets college campuses, is helping marketers reach college students authentically.

Broadsign may actually be building a platform that will make an attractive acquisition target down the road. And one of the major cross-platform Big Tech players feels like the most likely buyer.

Differin, which produces over-the-counter gels and patches to treat acne, wanted to reach teens facing their first breakouts – and do it in a way that felt real.

Manscaped’s CMO Marcelo Kertész on flipping its strategy from quick-win performance marketing to building a lasting brand with smarter, long-term growth.

On Tuesday, digital out-of-home (DOOH) ad tech startup Place Exchange was acquired by Broadsign, another out-of-home SSP.

E.l.f. Beauty’s “So Many Dicks” campaign targets corporate leaders via contextual advertising with the goal of increasing diversity in corporate boardrooms.

After pulling back on moderation, Instagram gets flooded with antisemites; BidSwitch builds a programmatic way for AI bots to pay to crawl websites; and nearly half of Gen Z dislikes AI content.

Leila Brillson spoke with AdExchanger about The Onion’s marketing strategy and the unique challenges – and opportunities – that come with monetizing the infamous satirical news site.

With its latest funding, Agentio plans to expand its team and to establish creator marketing as part of every advertiser’s media plan.

Most of what’s sold as “contextual” today still runs on the same keyword logic we used a decade ago. The industry didn’t reinvent contextual targeting; it simply replaced one keyword with a cluster.

Laser Eye Center struck the balance between human creative and AI usage by partnering with creative marketplace Kartel to generate ads for a local TV network.

Consumers don’t experience media in silos. They might stream a live game on their TV, scroll social feeds during halftime and research products on their mobile device later that night.

Omnicom revamps its revenue reporting; Amazon will now charge for access to its Selling Partner API; and brands seek sponsorship deals with all sorts of social creators.

The real challenge is drawing a clear line between the AI-generated content that adds value and the kind that erodes trust and leads to significantly lower ad effectiveness.

“You’ve got to really evaluate your [media] mix almost every day, but particularly when you’re on shelves and on Amazon,” AG1 CMO Paulie Dery, who joined in August 2024, told AdExchanger.

Social CPMs have risen. The ability to find incremental audiences on social platforms has declined. Add the growing brand-safety concerns, and the equation looks even worse.

A new integration between Amazon and Clinch allows advertisers to access Amazon custom audiences via a third-party platform.

Publishers, brands and agencies today are navigating a new landscape. With rising consumer expectations and evolving regulations, delivering personalized campaigns requires a fresh approach.

To get to the heart of the TID debate, you have to understand the definition of a healthy marketplace and how our tendency to limit transparency for the other side of the supply chain is holding us back.

Wouldn’t it be great to enact standards rather than talk about them?; Amazon wants to go fully automated; and revenue doesn’t seem to drop like search traffic does.

Deli meat company Land O’Frost has been leaning into a new MMM approach to figure out which opportunities it’s been overlooking – or even inhibiting.

CTV has become a powerful full-funnel channel, attracting advertisers of all sizes – and the momentum isn’t slowing.

CTV ad spend is projected to rise another 16% this year to $26.6 billion, according to the IAB. But with rapid growth comes complexity. Advertisers now face a maze of platforms, apps and channels, each with different buying models, audience access and inconsistent measurement. For SMBs without large teams or budgets, this fragmentation is especially challenging to navigate.

It has long been understood that brand is advertising’s most powerful driver of growth. Yet, in a marketplace worth more than one trillion dollars, less than 10% of digital campaigns track brand outcomes.

The AI advertising agents will need their own trade group eventually. For now though, a bunch of companies are forming the Ad Context Protocol, or AdCP.

In today’s economic climate, every marketing dollar is under scrutiny. CMOs aren’t just required to build brands and grow demand; they’re expected to prove that their budgets drive measurable business value. And no one is more invested in that proof than the CFO.