Platforms

Spotify faces obstacles in its ticket sales aspirations; Apple switches to view-through attribution; and The Washington Post and Meta remove ads that were critical of Elon Musk.

Experimentation has been proven to offer unrivaled insights into marketing effectiveness, but it remains underused. But what can organizations do to successfully integrate experimentation into their measurement frameworks? 

Enjoy this weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem … 

Understanding advertising effectiveness is the cornerstone of successful marketing, yet marketers often shy away from the most reliable tools for the job.

US judge rules generative AI has no fair use claim; Snap sets its sights on SMBs; MMM comes to CTV; and Disney introduces ads in live TV, even for paid users.

Reddit’s ambitions to build its own AI-powered on-platform search business suggest even Google’s allies need to find ways to protect themselves from its influence – sometimes by copying its playbook.

AppLovin’s stock popped by more than 28% in after-hour’s trading Wednesday on the news that it plans to offload its entire apps business at a $900 million asking price by next quarter.

TVs are officially the most popular device for watching YouTube; Google’s lead generation comes under fire; Temu tests a “half custody” distribution model to counter import tariffs.

The Google Chrome team is getting closer to deciding on its cookie consent mechanism. And  Paramount resolves its four-month standoff with Nielsen, as the mechanics behind currency change forever.

Meta quietly launched a product and loudly updated another. Plus, DeepSee.io’s naming and shaming which sellers it found monetizing stolen content.

Pinterest reported $1.2 billion in Q4 revenue, an 18% year over year increase – and its first-ever billion-dollar quarter.

Longtime Google exec Stephen Yap on why he left after more than 17 years to become CRO of Perion Network: “There’s a better future out there, one that’s a lot more efficient.”

Google’s AI search drops click-through rates for organic search results to 0.4%; Trump’s China tariffs put the squeeze on Temu; and how other brands could pull back ad spend due to tariffs.

Publicis looks to capitalize on potential fallout from the Omnicom/IPG merger; Google Cloud is seeing an influx of ad sales talent; and Spotify advises investors to be patient with its growing programmatic ads biz.

Coinbase has acquired a blockchain-based advertising and attribution startup. Plus, is brand safety on social media a myth?

Chinese advertisers and ecommerce companies have become a force in American shopping. What happens now?

Google’s open-source MMM product goes live; Amazon Prime Video’s ad biz turns one; and teens don’t trust Big Tech and have doubts about AI.

Slap on your Ray-Ban smart glasses, ask Meta AI to remind you to post on Threads and then hop into Horizon Worlds. Welcome to the near future, according to Meta.

Meta and Mozilla’s new browser-based attribution system for web ads appears to solve an interesting math problem. But if applied to real-world advertising, it will increase privacy risks for users, writes Raptive’s Don Marti.

The IAB predicts what privacy laws might be passed by the new congress; AI-generated newsletters are competing with local news; and the IAB Tech Lab ramps up production of new OpenRTB specs.

Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk, calls it like he sees it. And he doesn’t see a future for Google monetizing the open internet via its SSP and ad server business.

Sen. Ron Wyden shared his stance on a federal privacy law, consumer data brokers and, for good measure, his thoughts on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg cozying up to President Trump. (“I thought it was god awful,” he said.)

At long last, brands on Threads can buy ads. Plus, Meta is also trying to copy-and-paste an alternative to CapCut.

For many advertisers and agencies, returning to TikTok this week felt a bit like remote working through a natural disaster: Business as usual, except not really.

The first half of this decade has left publishers reeling from a pandemic jab and an AI uppercut that rearranged our reality and knocked us to our knees. Here’s how pubs and their ad tech partners can punch back in the years ahead.

TikTok was granted a 75-day stay of execution this week. We discuss what’s next for the social media platform, why it was classified as a threat to national security and how advertisers are responding.

P&G pumps the brakes on paid media and turns to product innovation to drive growth; with TikTok’s fate unclear, Snap and Reddit offer credits for new advertisers; and brands are following news audiences and journalists to Substack.

Retail media might not ruin retail, but the strikes are adding up. Plus, TikTok throws its support behind Trump.

As a brand, the social media platform TikTok has only existed for about seven or eight years. Yet during that short time, it’s completely taken over the minds of users, business owners, advertisers, and, most notably, elected officials. And now, despite generating billions of dollars in annual revenue, it might be on its way out.

AI-generated slop content is growing exponentially online. Plus, publishers and new organizations are strategizing for a post-TikTok future.