Mediavine

Here’s how PubMatic and Optable are using AI to help publishers turn first-party data into new ad deals and reach more buyers.

Traffic-starved publishers are hopeful that their long-undervalued audience data will fuel advertising’s automated future – if only they can finally wrest control of the industry narrative away from ad tech middlemen.

Last week, after nearly six years of development and delays, Google officially retired its Privacy Sandbox.
Which means it’s time for a memorial service.

GAM’s dinner with ad agencies sparked speculation that Google is preparing to spin off its bundled SSP and ad server as a remedy to its ad tech monopoly. But Google says it’s just part of the trend of SSPs going direct to buyers.

While some Privacy Sandbox testers lamented their seemingly wasted effort, they remain committed to post-cookie targeting and measurement – even if Google eventually abandons the Sandbox entirely.

2024’s most popular guest columns offer a snapshot of an industry in flux – and one that’s grown cynical due to repeated promises of unrealized change.

At Tuesday’s Prebid Summit, a panel of publisher and pub tech execs shared tips for how publishers can get the most out their flooring strategies.

By reversing its position on third-party cookie deprecation, Google’s is acknowledging its inability to effectively execute its plans for the Privacy Sandbox. It’s time Google commits to competing with the rest of the industry rather than dictating terms. 

If Chrome imitates Apple, there may be a de facto deprecation of the third-party cookies, since potentially only a slim percentage of users would consent to tracking. In that case, advertisers would still have to primarily rely on cookie alternatives, including the Privacy Sandbox.

Since launch, 82% of advertisers that buy inventory through the Yahoo DSP have tried Backstage at least once. And buyers are seeing lower CPMs from cutting out SSPs.

Even if the industry finds a way to replace the cookie, it won’t matter if publishers no longer have traffic to monetize.

The delay is an acknowledgment by Google that efforts to prepare its cookie alternative will take longer than its proposed deadline allows, which shouldn’t be a huge surprise to those actively participating in testing.

It’s not that publishers aren’t keen to do their part to reduce media-related carbon emissions; they just don’t want to make changes without understanding the impact on their revenue.

Buyers will soon have far more transparency into video ad inventory sold through Google’s platform. But some publishers and video platforms have concerns.

Publishers and online video platforms that rely on accompanying content video ads could see their revenue drop after Google AdX’s April 1 update.

Privacy Sandbox’s Protected Audiences API causes increased latency, decreasing viewability and yield. Given these issues, publishers simply cannot afford to test PAAPI at scale.

“Compliance doesn’t have to be a chore, and legal can be a strategic partner,” says Jamie Lieberman, chief legal officer at ad management and monetization platform Mediavine.

Contextual targeting today is way more advanced than what was available a decade ago. So, what could the FTC’s COPPA Rule proposal mean for contextual advertising to kids?

What happens when you get a bunch of smart, technical, pissed off publishers and SSPs in one room? Here are some of the spicier things AdExchanger overheard at the inaugural Prebid Summit.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Detective Work A pox on the ad tech tax. Google is promoting a new tool in its tech suite to help publishers and buyers track the hidden fees getting sucked up by middlemen in the bid stream. Google initially launched its tool, Confirming […]

Supply-path optimization conjures an image of SSPs and DSPs dueling it out to each render the other obsolete. But it’s actually not that dramatic.

Ad industry veteran and event stage mainstay Amanda Martin is taking on a new role as Mediavine’s SVP of partnerships and business strategy. Martin will be moving from the buy side to the sell side after a nearly eight-year stint at ad agency Goodway Group.

On the mobile web, outstream is in, and instream is out. With its latest guidelines, the IAB Tech Lab has effectively ended instream, declaring outstream the primary path for web video inventory. This shift will mean incredible things for the advertising ecosystem, writes Eric Hochberger, CEO of Mediavine – namely, a transparent buying and selling experience for video inventory that should help supply and demand.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Path Less Traveled More publishers have signed up for OpenPath, The Trade Desk’s direct buy-to-sell-side integration. Since launching in February, TTD says it’s “registered interest” (interesting turn of phrase) in OpenPath from more than 100 publishers.  The latest crop to, uh, register […]

Earlier this month, ESP, not to be confused with PPIDs, entered open beta in GAM, so feel free to rev up your UID2s. In English: Google is moving forward with its solution, called encrypted signals from publishers (ESP), that allows publishers to share encrypted first-party signals, including Unified ID 2.0 identifiers, with buy-side platforms of their choosing via Ad Manager. Here’s the DL on all things ESP.

Google isn’t a fan of using email-based identifiers as a replacement for third-party cookies. “We don’t believe these solutions will meet rising consumer expectations for privacy, nor will they stand up to rapidly evolving regulatory restrictions, and therefore aren’t a sustainable long-term investment,” Google’s director of product management for ads privacy and trust, David Temkin, […]