Opinion

Ad spending across RMNs and CMNs is still hindered by incomplete data access and connectivity. Here’s how to bridge that gap.

The modern marketing landscape is being rewritten in near real time. While economic uncertainty may tempt brands to retreat into the comfort of walled gardens, the truth is more nuanced, especially regarding data and identity solutions.

Even with the amazing storylines, this NBA season brought a steep decline in local TV viewership. While it’s tempting to frame this as waning fan interest, these drops are symptoms of a media ecosystem in transition.

No one needs reminding that a recession sharpens the knife on every budget line. Yet the 2025 slowdown is arriving just as media trading itself is mutating.

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.

Frequency capping has long relied on a static “set it and forget it” mindset: once every 24 hours, three times every seven days and so on. This passive approach to avoiding consumer ad overexposure relies on the presence of ad identifiers, which continue to deteriorate.

Political advertisers, by necessity, have built precise, privacy-conscious targeting strategies that work without relying exclusively on third-party data like cookies.

Health care marketers are playing what feels like a constant game of digital Whac-A-Mole, from dealing with ongoing signal loss and ever-changing privacy regulations to the challenge of reaching the right audiences at the right time.

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.

Agency leaders cite inefficient processes as the biggest challenge currently facing their organizations, ahead of all other pain points, according to a recent survey. Clunky planning workflows, scattered data sources, bloated tech stacks and siloed platforms are just a few of the symptoms.

When platforms choose to label any significant portion of an ad buy as “other,” it’s a deliberate decision to withhold information for the seller’s benefit and the buyer’s detriment.

Managing first-party data – and, by extension, your identity strategy – has never been more critical in today’s evolving digital landscape. The landscape has also never been more challenging to navigate.

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.

The wave of ad tech headlines in recent weeks represents a long overdue moment of reckoning for companies who (still) hold disproportionate control over publishers’ website traffic and revenue potential.

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.

Every organization that has installed a marketing mix modeling solution today wants to be more data-driven.

Modern CMOs, marketing analytics leaders and media leaders know marketing is an investment, which must have demonstrable ROI. And they know using data to figure out what’s working and what isn’t is crucial to ensuring waste is controlled.

Here are three areas that marketing technology professionals must handle successfully to get the most out of their AI applications.

Data clean rooms have become a major topic of discussion amid ongoing regulatory changes and evolving industry policies. As advertisers navigate these shifts, it’s important to take a step back and understand what’s available – and how to select the right partners to solve real business challenges.

CTV advertising has made great strides, but it still lags behind social platforms in one critical area: optimizing campaigns based on outcome data. Here’s how standardized conversion API integrations for CTV can help.

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.

Advanced and generative AI are transforming marketing from fragmented workflows into an engine of profitability and growth. Yet, despite AI’s promise, many in marketing remain trapped in outdated systems that fail to deliver.

The next wave of the boom isn’t going to come from the same online corners as it has over the past five years.

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.

The need for addressability has been a rallying cry among advertisers for the past five years. But clinging to outdated notions of addressability means overlooking the broader needs of today’s modern media landscape.

Many in the industry see Google’s fingerprinting reversal as an irresponsible move due to privacy concerns, particularly in regions with strict data regulations.