Magnite

Sustainability was a hot topic for the advertising industry in 2022. The momentum will only grow in 2023, though decarbonization remains a multiyear journey.

In 2022, SPO solutions largely revolved around creating direct connections to so-called premium publishers. But machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) also took on a bigger role in SPO this year. And 2022 was the year the ad industry began touting SPO as the solution of choice for sustainability-focused marketers.

UK-based publisher LADbible Group is testing post-cookie alternatives and building its contextual targeting capabilities. But the social-first publisher has yet to be convinced that any of these alternatives will be a truly viable replacement for the much-maligned – and yet still widely used – third-party cookie.

Magnite’s quarterly revenue was up 11% year-over-year in Q3, with a large chunk of its growth coming from streaming. Growth guidance is conservative for next quarter, but Magnite expects AVOD inventory and retail media to become bigger growth drivers for its bottom line.

Live television is back in style. And according to Magnite, there’s a surge in demand for linear addressable inventory from programmatic buyers. The net result is that SSPs are squeezing linear addressability into their tech stacks. Magnite, for one, ran a test campaign that points to programmatic addressable’s incremental reach potential.

The IAB Tech Lab’s seller-defined audience (SDA) spec is touted as a key contextual targeting alternative for the post-third-party-cookie digital ad ecosystem – one predicated on privacy-friendly addressability and publisher first-party data monetization. Some publishers are enthusiastic about testing SDA campaigns in the run-up to Google’s 2023 deadline for the phaseout of third-party cookies in Chrome. There is growing concern, however, about a marked lack of advertiser interest in doing the same.

Google’s decision to delay third-party cookie deprecation until 2023 came the day before Salon CRO Justin Wohl’s wedding. Salon had converted its ad business to an open-web programmatic model a few years earlier, so the brief reprieve from signal loss came as a huge relief and another reason to pop some champagne. Since then, Wohl has been laying the groundwork for effective post-cookie monetization on the open web.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Get Connected The coveted prizes in programmatic right now are exclusive CTV contracts.  In Cannes, the crème de la crème for handshakers and lunch-takers is Netflix. Google is meeting with Netflix there, Ad Age reports, and is an obvious choice as Netflix purportedly […]

There’s an industry-wide scramble to replace third-party cookies – but it’s unreasonable to expect that just one solution will become a silver bullet, writes Garrett McGrath, SVP of product at Magnite. Solving for identity will require a range of solutions and more involvement on the sell side.

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

The Trade Desk recently made waves with the rollout of OpenPath, its direct-to-publisher offering, and its plan to turn off Google Open Bidding, a one-two punch in supply path optimization (SPO). Both of these SPO moves could reshuffle the ad buying ecosystem, making publishers less reliant on SSPs and cutting off a revenue source for Google’s Open Bidding.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Hope And Pr-AVOD Ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) is commanding a lot of interest right now. Practically every ad tech company is banking on CTV to outgrow web display.  After all, the thinking goes, consumers can’t just keep shelling out for more and more […]

Integral Ad Science CEO Lisa Utzschneider, Magnite CEO Michael Barrett and DoubleVerify CEO Mark Zagorski talked about their experience heading public companies at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview Tuesday, in a panel moderated by LUMA CEO and founder Terence Kawaja.

Google Ad Manager is still the dominant supply-side platform – but the race for second place is tighter than ever. Forty-six percent of publishers say they use Amazon Publisher Services, Amazon’s supply-side platform, according to Advertiser Perceptions’ SSP report for the second half of 2021, which was enough for Amazon to maintain its grip on the No. 2 spot.

With millions of households tuning into live TV through CTVs, advertisers need to overcome the constraints that are holding them back, writes Paige Bilins, VP of video product management at Magnite.

Magnite acquired connected TV ad server SpringServe in July for $31 million as part of its ongoing ambition to go big in CTV. But SpringServe continues to operate largely independently, and that’s by design, said Joe Hirsch, general manager of SpringServe.

“On TV & Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video.  Today’s column is by Dan Fairclough, Sr. Director, Agency and Brand Relations, Magnite. In my many years working with DTC brands, I saw firsthand how companies hustled to grow their brand visibility from the ground up using search and […]

Wall Street can’t get enough of ad tech – creating a hot market for stocks and making quarterly earnings a who’s who of ad tech companies. Not so long ago, the ad tech bellwethers were The Trade Desk and Magnite, but earnings season now features a parade of companies young and old: PubMatic, DoubleVerify, Viant, […]

Sell-side platform Magnite acquired connected TV ad server SpringServe Thursday for $31 million, in a deal that will improve its access to all of a publisher’s CTV inventory. SpringServe’s video clients include Vizio, Univision, Tastemade and Pluto TV. SpringServe and Magnite work with many of the same clients, the company said. While SpotX (the video […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Taboola Roll Call Taboola began trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday. It raised more than $500 million with the IPO, and reported a net income of $18 million on total revenue of $303 million in Q1, CNBC reports. “I think of Taboola as a […]

Though Google announced last week that it would delay the phase-out of third-party cookies for nearly two years, sell-side platform Magnite has no plans to slow down its push to create an identity solution using first-party data to reach audiences. “It’s great that we have more time … but we as an industry still need […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Staff Cuts Magnite is laying off about 6% of its staff following its $1.17 billion acquisition deal with video supply-side platform SpotX, Adweek reports. Buying SpotX is part of Magnite’s CTV growth plan, after already taking on Telaria. Though the acquisition nearly doubled […]

Magnite is shaking up its leadership team following the late April approval of its $1.17 billion acquisition of SpotX. On Wednesday, Magnite announced that Tom Kershaw, the company’s chief technology officer (CTO) for the past four years, will leave Magnite to pursue an opportunity outside of ad tech. Kershaw will also step down as chair […]

Digital ad tech companies are making their play to control advertising on CTV. But it’s not easy to become a star of the big screen. Ad tech companies that make it big in CTV must earn their spot in a few ways. First, they must understand the supply constraints of CTV and find their niche. […]

Ad tech IPOs are back in fashion as online advertising continues to surge during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the first quarter of 2021 alone, there were seven ad tech transactions valued at more than $1 billion – double the number of unicorn-level deals that went down in the past few years combined. Public companies […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. About six years ago, ad server Innovid introduced interactive ads in CTV. Now, about a third of Innovid’s clients are testing them, and the company is seeing 2% to 3% engagement rates that are four or five times higher compared to other ad […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. FLoC Fears There’s no love lost for FLoC. In a blog post on Sunday entitled “Proposal: Treat FLoC As A Security Concern,” a WordPress developer called Carike suggested that users of the open source content management software block FLoC by default. If that happens, […]

“Calm down.” That’s Magnite CTO Tom Kershaw’s advice, dished out at the IAB’s virtual Annual Leadership Meeting on Tuesday. “If a single blog post from one company about not supporting something sends us all into a frenzy where we think we’re going to lose our minds – perhaps we’re falling off track,” Kershaw said. That’s […]

Disney laid out an aggressive plan to unify all of its screens, automate more than half of its business and make the majority of its inventory – both linear and digital – addressable within five years. As part of that plan, it created a programmatic exchange, DRAX, which will allow programmatic buyers to compete for […]

Magnite’s revenue grew 69% YoY to $82 million in Q4 2020. Not including its merger with Telaria, revenue grew 20% YoY. The company will nearly double in size once the acquisition of SpotX closes in Q2. In Q4 2020, SpotX had $71.6 million in revenue. Here are the seven highlights you need to know from […]