Somewhere between what the ad industry says and what the market rewards is often where the truth lives. Here are the three industry storylines most in need of debunking.
Historically, non-human traffic was viewed on a spectrum from benign to intentional fraud. But AI agents represent a legitimate audience that brands will have to understand and engage.
Advertising in AI-native destinations and experiences is already starting to look less like a series of experiments and more like an emerging market.
A collaboration between InterMedia Advertising, Peer39 and Pontiac Intelligence provided show-level cost-per-acquisition data for 94% of CTV ad impressions.
In a world being agentically orchestrated at scale, human judgment is the indispensable guardrail preventing us from optimizing right over the cliff.
Cleo Davis-Urman, CEO and co-founder of wearable vitamin brand Barrière, talks word-of-mouth, measurement, retail media and what it takes to build a new category around patches instead of pills.
For the first time, Omnicom can directly compare ad frequency and performance across multiple major streamers, which typically prefer to keep data locked inside their walled gardens.
We must reject the fantasy of infinite creative variations tailored to individuals – not just because it is technically impossible but because it fundamentally misunderstands how advertising works for the vast majority of brands.
The W3C’s proposed “Attribution Level 1” browser standard deserves far more scrutiny from the advertising and measurement community than it has so far received.
Binary measurement preserves margin and lets late-arriving impressions claim credit they may not deserve. We need a new measurement model for the AI era.
Between signal loss, missing audience information and aging data, most of the data that companies have is spotty. But despite what you may have heard, agentic AI can deal with spotty data.
WPP is shifting to a pay-for-performance revenue model. But there are many barriers to clear before PFP becomes the industry standard.
Surprise! Platforms ignore users opting out of ad tracking; the marketing machine claims credit for Geese’s popularity; and Meta’s MAGA-friendly moderation makes an unforced error.
Enjoy this weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem …
The industry has spent years debating third-party cookies, but AI has settled the debate. First-party data isn’t just preferred; it’s structurally necessary. And the capital is already moving.
If you want to protect your margins, your data and your long-term strategy, here are five questions worth asking before you sign anything.
Many organizations are encountering a paradox: Performance appears strong, while durable growth remains elusive. How should performance be evaluated when the strongest signals no longer align cleanly with growth?
The future of retail media depends on a shift away from siloed in-store and online metrics to a full-funnel approach that reflects how customers actually shop.
AI in advertising has gone from a buzzword to a full disruptor in what feels like just a few months. If CES was any indication, there is no sign of this slowing down.
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.
