Opinion

Are the big players building a more privacy-friendly advertising ecosystem in the right way? Or are they just cementing their control?

How can we establish guardrails for the use of generative AI while supporting creative exploration? As banal as it sounds, the answer is to create a comprehensive gen AI policy.  

The push for more privacy-compliant ad targeting, combined with recent advancements in the use of on-device signals like location and biometric data, could mean the industry is finally primed to unlock mobile’s true value.

When Google first announced plans to disable third-party cookies on Chrome in January 2020, the news hit ad tech like an earthquake. But a lot has changed in the past four years. Now, as Google finally begins acting on those plans, the death of the third-party cookie is looking a lot more like opportunity than crisis.

Aiming for one thing and being measured against another is absurd. But this is how the multibillion-dollar TV industry has operated for decades.

Lawmakers are busy playing politics, and it’s getting in the way of creating safety guardrails for children’s privacy online.

With the encroaching reality of AI, marketing professionals should be included in strategic planning, given the roles we play in shaping public image and maintaining a brand.

Excluding the long tail of CTV is a hangover from a linear age when audiences clustered around a small subset of wildly popular shows. The idea of “premium” is subjective in a climate packed with vast amounts of content catering to diverse and passionate audiences.

Crisis is often fertile ground for change. And boy, the marketing world is in desperate need of change.

While 2023’s return to fiscal responsibility made for rough waters, it will pale in comparison to 2024.  Here are eight trends worth watching.

Until universal standards are set and adopted by retailers, marketers need to ask some boring yet fundamental questions about the metrics currently in use if they want to assess and compare performance across retailers. 

Self-supervised learning is at the heart of generative AI, and it’s perfectly suited to address the signal loss we’re increasingly facing in digital advertising today.

Native advertising needs a redefinition, not just for the sake of advertisers and publishers but also for consumers. Here’s how recent advancements in AI can help native advertising meet its potential.

Publisher frustrations with the algorithm-driven internet are boiling over – and the rise of generative AI-powered search, which rarely links to the stories it scrapes, will cause irreparable damage.

Welcome to Scandi-Land, where the cookieless future has been our online media reality for the last five years. Here are three lessons for media planners, buyers, sellers and platforms who are going to have a tough time navigating the thicket of change.

Marketers and advertisers have been calling for transparency into their advertising investments – from planning to activation, measurement and optimization – for years. Yet, by and large, the lack of transparency has been accepted as the status quo: While we’ve made strides, data remains fragmented – operationalized and accessed on behalf of marketers, rather than with them.

Google has had to rely on vectors other than an increase in search volume for growth. Without proper protective legislation in place, however, the result could be a dangerous one. 

The ad tech industry has undergone an identity transformation. With 2024 around the corner, the end of the once-reliable cookie is finally at hand. But signal loss doesn’t stop with cookies.

The shift in ad spend from linear TV to CTV isn’t correlated to audience time spent. It’s because CTV offers entirely new possibilities to advertisers. 

The need to expand beyond first-party identifiers fundamentally changes how companies think about building out a future-ready mar tech stack – with some big implications for how many companies have designed their customer data platforms (CDPs) today.

For the past two decades, B2B marketers have been inundated with messaging telling them they need to “take a page from the B2C playbook.” There’s truth in this advice – but there are faulty assumptions at play, too.

AI’s speed of innovation and deployment have raised concerns about risks and harm to people and businesses. Here are some tips for how to use it responsibly.

The streaming revolution isn’t only taking place on the big screen in the living room. There are opportunities to reach audiences on a multitude of devices, and the possibilities can be daunting.

Advertisers and agencies are recognizing the importance of SPO to select strategic SSPs that reduce the number of intermediaries, offer more control and align on better financial incentives and greater cost savings.

As we look ahead to the much-hyped AI revolution, businesses should learn from the last two major technological revolutions: the internet and social/mobile media. History tends to repeat itself, and as a tech “veteran” old enough to have worked through both, I’ve seen the risks of companies going all-in on the hype before the tech is ready. I’ve also seen the dangers of being too cynical and slow-moving.

Publishers’ deals with Taboola and Outbrain might be helping divert more revenue to shady MFA sites than they generate for legit publishers.

Advertisers’ attempts to engage consumers could end up leaving them cold. After all, not all attention is created equal.

“What frustrates me most about this situation is how easily it can be remedied in a way that will benefit all parties,” writes Lou Paskalis about the Google Search Partner network brand safety debacle.

Researchers at Insider Intelligence estimate social commerce will become a $100 billion market by 2025, up from $67 billion this year. The question is how to win in this fast-moving landscape.

Let me put it plainly: You’re taking a huge gamble on your company’s ability to reach its target audience, and time is running out!