forrester

Open AI finally gets ads; YouTube gets its own BBC shows; and marketers get to grading their own homework.

Do Google AI Overviews really bring exposure to more websites?; Meta considered an all-ad Instagram feed; and agencies are cautiously optimistic even as tariff concerns threaten upfronts season.

The odds of RFK Jr. implementing a ban on TV drug ads are slim, says our guest this week, BranchLab’s Josh Walsh. Still, pharma advertisers could face other regulatory changes over the next four years. Plus: We break down Forrester’s picks for the top 10 SSPs.

To explain Forrester’s latest creative ad tech wave, we bring on the report’s author, Senior Analyst Nikhil Lai. Then, the untold story of how Prebid.org became an independent industry organization.

In today’s newsletter: Amazon stands out among Upfronts CTV rookies; Google reveals how much revenue its ad tech divisions make; and women hold more marketing leadership positions than men, but churn is worse for women.

Marketers will fold generative AI into more of their creative processes and ad creative in 2024.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Email Spreads Its Feathers Ultra-trendy CTV networks are turning to an old-school method for retaining users: email marketing. NBCU’s Peacock is using good-old-fashioned email blasts to reduce churn and increase viewership, Marketing Brew reports. Free and paid subscribers receive three to five emails […]

In the face of persistent economic uncertainty, marketers are simultaneously hustling to satisfy quickly changing consumer appetites and striving to squeeze the value out of every last marketing dollar. Not to mention needing to adopt full-funnel marketing approaches and allocate spend to channels as flexibly as possible.

The most commonly cited rationale for publisher staffing cuts has been marketers’ hesitance to spend on advertising amid persistent economic uncertainty. But publishers’ latest pivot to video and increased competition among digital channels is also likely to blame.

In a saturated technology marketplace, it is becoming harder for vendors to differentiate themselves. A competitive environment means using all methods available to win over buyers. One time-tested way is via industry analysts, writes Marc Johnson, general manager and CMO at Bombora. 

Marketers are banking on compelling creative and contextual signals for performance, with challenges to addressability, says Forrester Senior Analyst Nikhil Lai. Plus: How TV can reduce digital advertising costs.

What exactly does “premium” mean? It seems the definition varies depending on who’s using it – that “premium” is in the eye of the beholder. But there are some areas of agreement. And the industry isn’t setting the premium bar as high as you might think.

Video games can support intrinsic or native in-game ads, as well as ads that are delivered alongside gameplay but exist outside the game itself, like pause-menu display ads and rewarded video. Marketers can also sponsor and advertise on channels related to gaming, such as at esports events and across online streaming platforms, particularly Twitch and YouTube. And we can’t forget about the metaverse.

You’ve probably heard (dozens of times) by now that first-party data will be the key to post-third-party-cookie ad targeting. But what exactly is first-party data? How does it differ from second-party, third-party and zero-party data? And what makes first-party data more suited to a privacy-centric ad experience?

Writer Charlie Warzel recently linked to a piece by University of Chicago’s Dr. Richard I. Cook called, “How Complex Systems Fail.”  It’s a theoretical framework for assessing failure within medical systems. But in reading it, I couldn’t help but notice that Cook’s findings of complex system failure could apply to marketing technology, too.

The Vox Media/Group Nine deal is only the most recent example of the consolidation trend in digital media. Publishers have been turning to M&A as a method to grow their audiences and increase their ad revenue, in addition to boosting their valuation for further deals down the road.

It’s time for an exciting new acronym: CDP. But what makes it exciting? Is it the promise – delivered for only the thousandth time this decade – that marketers can finally unify their customer data? No, what makes it exciting is $3.2 billion (in stock). That’s how much Twilio paid to grab the CDP Segment […]

AT&T is reportedly exploring a sale of Xandr, the ad tech unit it launched in 2018 with lofty ambitions to transform the TV advertising industry with data and automation. The talks are still preliminary and a deal may not go through, per The Wall Street Journal, which broke the news. Xandr made a big splash […]

  The holding company MDC Partners was already struggling before COVID-19 decimated the US economy. But a proposed merger by Stagwell Group, first reported by AdAge late Thursday, demonstrates how the pandemic likely accelerated the end of MDC’s run as an independent public company. MDC Partners and Stagwell Group did not respond to requests for […]

  The US agency sector will lay off about 52,000 jobs over the next two years as media spend declines 23%, Forrester predicts. Agencies are projected to cut 35,167 jobs in 2020 and 16,578 in 2021. The global picture is even starker, with the big six agency holding companies poised to eliminate an additional 49,695 […]

Forrester’s Media Agency Wave, released Tuesday, gave the highest ratings to the agencies that used data platforms to improve both media execution and ad creatives and created a more centralized, integrated experience for their clients. IPG media agency UM led the 10 media agencies evaluated for the report. To qualify, each agency needed $10 billion […]

The remote work experiment caused by COVID-19 will transform agencies. Automation will become even more integral to agency workflows as consumer media habits shift, changing the nature of talent and services. Highly office-driven cultures will shift to a more remote, distributed workforce, as companies reduce their real estate holdings to drive efficiencies during the economic […]

  The advertising industry faces “imminent upheaval” as their tracking-heavy approach to digital advertising is being rejected by browsers, regulators and consumers. “Change is no longer a nice idea. It has become a requirement,” said Forrester VP and principal analyst Joanna O’Connell, who authored a report last week about how marketers need to address this […]

In this new podcast series, AdExchanger editors break the cabin fever by talking with the top thought leaders and practitioners in digital and data-driven advertising – all while under social isolation. While it’s impossible right now to fully make sense of our new national weirdness, it’s helpful – and therapeutic – to talk through how […]

The coronavirus outbreak has caused marketers to rethink their 2020 budgets, delay campaign launches, sit out conferences and experiment with remote work. Despite this disruption, we’re still largely in wait-and-see mode in terms of how the virus will impact operations in the United States. Here’s the quick lowdown on how COVID-19’s warpath through the world […]

Agency holding companies have spent $12 billion on data assets over the past five years but have yet to successfully deploy those assets at their creative agencies, according to a Forrester report released Monday. “It’s still very much a media proposition,” said Jay Pattisall, Forrester analyst and author of the report. “[Creative] seems to be […]

Forrester’s 2019 DMP Wave focused on how data-management platforms plan to make their products more privacy-safe in an environment with increased pressure from privacy regulation as well as Apple ITP and Firefox ETP. Because of the amount of change going on in the DMP landscape, the analyst firm gave particular weight to a company’s vision. […]

Amazon’s acquisition of Sizmek’s ad server and dynamic creative optimization (DCO) platform Friday puts it in a better position to compete with Google for advertiser budgets. Amazon will likely gain new clients from Sizmek who don’t want to deal with switching ad servers, as well as some advertisers who don’t like the idea of working […]

In its first-ever Wave evaluating media agencies with under $20 billion in billings, released Thursday, Forrester recognized agencies that leverage their buying clout and understanding of the media landscape in creative ways. Mediahub, Hearts & Science and Assembly were Leaders in the ranking. PHD, Spark Foundry, Horizon Media and Vizeum were Strong Performers, while Dentsu […]

Forrester tried to acquire SiriusDecisions, a B2B market research and analytics firm, five years ago, so closing a $245 million deal for the company last week felt like a natural step. But SiriusDecisions was the third acquisition in the past half-year for Forrester, which historically buys a company every three years or so, said founder […]