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Chrome is introducing new metrics that give advertisers and publishers a more data-driven picture of what users actually experience on ad-heavy sites.

The Trade Desk is less than a third as valuable as it was a year ago. It retains about one-tenth of its high-water market cap from December 2024, when the company was worth almost $70 billion. Why did investors lose the faith?

McGrath left Prebid in June following five years as board chairman after stepping down as SVP of product management at Magnite. But now, overseeing Prebid will be his full-time job.

Telly, the startup that gives away free smart TVs in exchange for data and ad exposure, is making its home screen ads available for brands to buy programmatically – and pushing for industry standards to help attract more spend. 

L’Oréal adopted creative AI platform Springboards to generate creative ideas that led to a collaborative, ongoing ideation process.

Google won’t have to break up its ads business after being declared an online monopolist. Meanwhile, Amazon faces a lawsuit from the FTC alleging that it charged advertisers more than necessary for ecommerce ads.

Buy-side experts said it’s another example of a Big Tech platform taking advantage of the lack of transparency built into programmatic ad auctions. And they’re not optimistic change is coming.

This week, the Commerce Media Newsletter catches up with a startup from outside the world of data-driven advertising, but with an interesting position when it comes to ecommerce advertising. That’s Clearco, a Canadian fin tech company founded in 2015.

Halo Collar, a dog collar brand with direct-to-consumer origins, is preparing for its retail expansion by honing its first-party data strategy and incrementality measurement.

The company is launching an accelerator program to help tech vendors pitch their solutions in a way that makes sense to advertisers.

TWC is building a monetization model that treats weather as both a contextual and an emotional signal, and it’s using AI sales agents to bring it to market.

Simon Property Group, the largest shopping mall operator in the world, is taking its biggest step yet into the world of data-driven advertising. On Thursday, the company launched Simon Media Network, its version of a retail media network.

TTD is introducing agentic AI workflow improvements and automated audience building, which are quickly becoming table stakes for programmatic platforms.

In the modern streaming landscape, everything old is new again. At least that’s the case for NBCUniversal, which is trying to bring back bundled distribution deals and appointment viewing.

OpenX CTO Joel Meyer, who was named Prebid’s new chairman, previews the org’s next phase and helping publishers navigate competing agentic protocols.

Alphonso – LG’s ad tech division – finally has a way out of its legal drama with parent company LG Electronics. Actually, it has three potential options.

Much like the ecosystem of life that surrounds a blue whale, a market of AI SaaS vendors is springing up around the biggest AI companies. And AI data startup Micro1 is emblematic of the shifting nature of these early-stage AI vendors.

How long does it take you to decide what to watch after you turn your TV on?

Just in time for new TV programming to hit the screens in September, Nielsen is rolling out a few upgrades to its video measurement currency that will go live by the end of August

According to Horizon Media’s Bob Lord, most agencies are trying to solve the wrong problem by obsessing over cost efficiency at a time when AI has quietly unlocked something far more valuable: the ability to become a growth partner to advertisers.

Tuple is entering the DSP market at a strange and tense moment for third-party ad tech. “There’s just so much animosity” between the programmatic buy and sell sides, says Founder and CEO Doug Lauretano.

Gaming apps are filled with ads for more gaming apps. Why not other advertisers? We go inside AppLovin’s play to bring non-gaming advertisers into the fold.

AI can help make media buying more efficient. But it’ll take some more time before AI agents are a seamless part of the modern media buying process, says Goodway Group’s Andrea Kwiatek, director of strategic partnerships.

Pinterest expanded tvScientific CEO and Co-Founder Jason Fairchild’s title to general manager of programmatic and affiliate. The title upgrade comes less than a year after Pinterest acquired the performance-focused CTV ad startup.

Liftoff used its market debut to school investors on mobile ad tech – and make the case that travel, finance and shopping apps could be its next growth engine.

Liquid Death is all jokes and dark humor on the surface, but the canned water brand’s chief media and digital commerce officer, Benoit Vatere, takes measurement deadly seriously. He’s tackling one of the gnarliest problems in CPG: proving that media actually moves product off the shelves.

“Our revenue growth is below our expectations and below the standard we hold ourselves to,” The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green told investors.

On Thursday, Nielsen entered into a definitive agreement to acquire DoubleVerify in an all cash transaction valued at approximately $2.15 billion.

Warner Bros. Discovery cited softer ad sales growth and the continued decline of linear TV as its reasons for missing investor expectations in Q2. Unsurprisingly, streaming ads are the biggest bright spot on WBD’s earnings report card.

“We’re deemed a new bucket, so a testing category,” AppLovin CEO told investors regarding its nascent consumer and ecommerce ads business. “And to graduate up takes time. This stuff compounds over quarters and years.”