DSPs

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

Gamera, a media quality measurement startup for publishers, announced on Tuesday it raised $1.6 million to promote its service that combines data about a site’s ad experience with data about how its ads perform.

It’s been 15 years since this comic first ran in January 2011, and there’s something both quaint and timeless about it. Here’s to more (and more) transparency in 2026, and happy New Year!

The generative AI trend generated endless hot takes this year, but the ad industry also had plenty to say about growing competition between DSPs and SSPs. Here are AdExchanger’s top 10 most popular guest columns of 2025 and why they resonated.

Publisher comment sections remain an untapped source of intent-based data, according to Kelly Andresen, who recently left USA Today to head up comment monetization platform OpenWeb’s direct sales efforts.

Enjoy this weekly comic from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem … and happy Thanksgiving!

Confusion in CTV isn’t a natural byproduct of a maturing market; it’s an outcome of how distributors protect their pricing power.

In July, PubMatic saw a temporary drop in ad spend from a “large” unnamed DSP partner, which contributed to Q3 revenue of $68 million, a 5% YOY decline.

A DSP, an SSP, an agency and a publisher walk into a room. Believe it or not, that isn’t the lead-in to a bad joke. It’s the model used by Medialive, a new AI startup that brings media buyers, sellers and vendors together to collaborate directly in a shared (digital) space. Joe Prusz, former CRO […]

Mike Hauptman, co-founder of AdLib, discusses the company’s evolution and how AI is changing the future of both AdLib and ad tech as a whole.

Agencies that dismiss in-house development are limiting their potential for differentiation. Here are five questions to ask yourself before committing to in-house tech.

SSPs are staring at their own demise. And it’s because, for over a decade, SSPs have positioned themselves as agnostic platforms.

Rather than sharing universal TIDs that any DSP or curator can access, Raptive says publishers should instead share encrypted TIDs with an encryption key provided only to trusted demand-side partners.

Transaction IDs can benefit the ecosystem, but not if they result in information asymmetry. Solutions need to be found that reduce bad duplication but do not reduce bid density.

Dentsu might sell its overseas business; a Prebid update worries the buy side; and Washington State imposes a new ad tax.

In an era marked by generative AI, algorithmic optimization and an obsession with outcomes, cloud infrastructure has become a competitive differentiator.

Is TTD forcing agencies to adopt the new Kokai interface despite claims they can still use the interface of their choice? Here’s what we were able to find out.

The competitive set has shifted and it’s stacked against independent DSPs. But, instead of chasing what competitors already own, TTD can own what they can’t: trust.

Almost a decade ago, running multiple retargeters across the same user base was a recipe for inefficiency. But the landscape shifted, and the data makes that clear.

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

DSPs are building tools to bypass SSPs, and SSPs are trying to cut out the buy side. But the real question in the noise is whether the technology improves effectiveness, says Kara Puccinelli, chief customer officer at Nexxen, which just so happens to describe itself as an end-to-end platform.

Viant announced that it acquired Lockr, a consumer and business service for managing email inboxes and data opt-ins, during its Q4 earnings call Monday.

Publishers are initiating more and more auctions – but doesn’t mean DSPs are listening to more bids, according to Chris Kane.

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

Why does MFA continue to thrive? MFA monetization benefits everyone in the ad tech ecosystem that collects a revenue share. That includes both SSPs and DSPs.

The Criteo bounce back is in full effect after the company reported strong profit growth and continues to hit benchmarks distancing it from the old days of retargeting.

Every week, we publish an original comic inspired by trends in the online advertising industry. These are the stories – and the puns – behind AdExchanger’s top 10 comics of the year.

There are no new DSPs out there. Nobody’s investing in the category. Google, Amazon and The Trade Desk won, and there’s no point trying to become another omnichannel DSP for everything. That isn’t true, mind you.

Of course, the misappropriation of a publisher’s audience data would be unethical. But this is not what contextual providers do.

The demand-side platform Viant announced an expansion of its supply-path optimization solution for connected TV ad buying.