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.
Viant struck a deal with IHeartMedia and its Triton Digital advertising platform that will make IHeart’s broadcast radio inventory available through Viant’s DSP.
When it comes to complex techniques like media mix modeling, the field is awash with false promises about the benefits that AI can offer.
CTV has become a powerful full-funnel channel, attracting advertisers of all sizes – and the momentum isn’t slowing.
CTV ad spend is projected to rise another 16% this year to $26.6 billion, according to the IAB. But with rapid growth comes complexity. Advertisers now face a maze of platforms, apps and channels, each with different buying models, audience access and inconsistent measurement. For SMBs without large teams or budgets, this fragmentation is especially challenging to navigate.
The real risk isn’t in running robust tests; it’s in wasting money or cutting high-performing channels based on misleading conclusions from bad measurement.
Clear Channel will provide advertisers weekly, mid-flight reports on outcomes driven by its inventory in order to bring OOH measurement closer to the speed of digital.
The old approach to media and measurement is no longer sustainable. AI is now embedded across every step of the media value chain, and AI is only as good as the data it’s fed.
Concrete findings on how effective QR codes are at driving ad interactions are now available, and some industry best practices are emerging.
CAPI integrations have moved from a nice-to-have to a necessity for anyone operating within walled garden environments. Now they’re laying the groundwork for an outcomes-driven ad ecosystem.
As marketing fails to speak the language of business outcomes due to an overemphasis on vanity metrics, it is increasingly losing its seat at the decision-making table.
Brands spend millions activating around Coachella. Then they spend the next three months trying to figure out if any of it actually worked. It’s a reflection of our industry’s broken approach to measuring media effectiveness.
Overreliance on performance channels in pursuit of short-term gains creates fragility in the growth model, especially when brand equity is underfunded and unable to drive demand.
Generative AI tech is hurting publisher search traffic, but it’s also helping pubs optimize their ad sales efforts. The head of publisher ad tech solutions for AWS explains how AI is transforming how advertisers value media and the implications for publishers large and small.
After a reenergizing week at the Cannes Lions festival, here are six observations on how our industry is changing to meet its new challenges.
When it comes to the red-hot retail media sector, history doesn’t have to repeat itself. Here’s how to add accountability and transparency to a space where those attributes are sorely lacking.
Enjoy this weekly comic from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem …
Can the IAB Tech Lab’s Trusted Server initiative really help restore publishers’ ownership of monetization and wrestle back control from Big Tech and walled gardens?
Agentic AI aims to take the work out of campaign targeting; marketers are increasingly using retail media data in non-retail channels; and Puma drives sales by re-embracing its branding.
Erez Levin, a former Googler and current outspoken consultant, on why the digital ad industry should transact on media quality signals like attention instead of optimizing to outcomes and other flawed attribution models.
Criteo’s Brian Gleason shared how it is working with agencies to capitalize on curation and measurement opportunities in retail media and CTV.
As media consultancy Sequent Partners ceases operations, its leaders look back at how far the ad industry has come – and how far it still needs to go.
HUMAN plans to build a deterministic ID from its tracking of more than 20 trillion digital signals per week across 3 billion devices, which will aid attribution for ecommerce.
Randomized controlled trials are the best source of evidence of cause-and-effect relationships, including advertising’s impact on sales. Imagine the potential for conducting geo experiments using ZIP codes instead of DMAs.
Breaking down how incrementality complements multitouch attribution and media mix modeling, and how advances in AI and ML have evolved incrementality measurement beyond A/B testing.
