pubmatic

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.

TV advertising is undergoing a tectonic shift from programmed to programmatic. Not unlike on the open web – but unlike on linear – advertisers can use programmatic to get scale across connected TV. There’s demand for biddable CTV because buyers realize they can get more flexibility and transparent signals from publishers.

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.

As part of a plan to consolidate its SSP partners, Horizon Media struck a deal with PubMatic Monday. Horizon’s clients who purchase open-auction inventory through its HX trade desk will be able to use PubMatic’s SPO products to automatically optimize their bidding depending on which KPIs they want to boost, whether the deal is open auction, programmatic guaranteed or a private marketplace.

PubMatic’s total Q3 revenue grew 11% to $64.5 million despite an industry-wide downturn, but the company doesn’t have high hopes for the rest of the year. It expects that ad spend will continue to trend down in Q4. But although spending is decelerating due to recession fears, PubMatic is planning to capitalize on the eventual rebound by focusing on video, retail media and particularly CTV, which continues to grow.

My Code, a publisher network that specializes in multicultural media, manages display and video inventory across nearly 800 sites under its umbrella. Because of the complexity of programmatic sales across such a diverse portfolio of sites, including a mix of owned and third-party clients, My Code has relied on PubMatic’s OpenWrap unified bidding solution for the past two years.

Transparency is the keystone that will bring together the best of linear advertising with the best of programmatic. Brands should be able to get more transparency on programmatic CTV, but, just as importantly, publishers should get something in return for sharing this information, writes Nicole Scaglione, global VP of OTT and CTV at PubMatic.

How will the high-stakes game of antitrust chicken between Google and the US Department of Justice play out? It could be a first important proactive step toward true structural change – not just at Google but across many of the biggest players in the industry, writes Arnaud Créput, CEO of Equativ.

Google’s decision to kick the can on cookie deprecation even further down the road to 2024 did not come as a shock to many in the digital advertising industry. The longer runway will give advertisers and publishers more time to test post-third-party-cookie solutions. But despite the temptation to procrastinate, publishers and tech vendors told AdExchanger they don’t anticipate straying too far from the road maps they’d already established to meet the previous 2023 deadline.

Just three months after Netflix surprised the world with the news that it plans to launch an ad-supported tier, the streaming leader has settled on its third-party vendor of choice: Microsoft. But why Microsoft? It wasn’t considered a serious programmatic contender until it acquired Xandr from AT&T (and that deal only closed last month). Still, something made Microsoft stand out from the crowd.

Google may have a solution to the antitrust regulatory pressure it’s facing from governments around the world: a proactive spinoff. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is exploring splitting Google’s digital ad business into a separate entity under the Alphabet umbrella. The question is whether Google’s proposed solution will pass muster with regulators, and if it does, who stands to win – and who stands to lose?

Netflix is planning to introduce an ad-supported model to attract new viewers, and chances are it will embrace programmatic advertising, too. Without the portfolio of strategic partners that NBC and Disney have, Netflix will need to catch up somehow. Programmatic is one enticing option for doing so, writes Nicole Scaglione, global VP, OTT and CTV business, at PubMatic.

It’s chilly out there, but PubMatic had a decent quarter. Organic revenue for Q1 totaled $54.6 million, up 25% year-over-year, representing PubMatic’s seventh consecutive quarter of 20% revenue growth or more. PubMatic’s stock was up a smidge, about .5%, in after-hours trading.

The day has finally come – Netflix is considering ads after it lost 200,000 subscribers in Q1, the streamer’s first subscriber loss in a decade. It won’t be easy, but Netflix will need to find a way to keep customers (and their wallets) satisfied. Ads will be a slow rollout that Netflix hopes to phase in within a year or two, CEO Reed Hastings said on Tuesday’s earnings call.

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

CTV is the hot new programmatic media channel, but it suffers from fraud, a lack of clear media-buying signals and a hodgepodge of approaches to measurement. The lack of standards is hampering market growth – but rather than waiting for standards to be handed down, publishers can create positive momentum with media buyers now, writes PubMatic’s Nicole Scaglione.

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.

Supply-path optimization (SPO) is one of three key growth strategies for PubMatic this year, Rajeev Goel, PubMatic’s CEO and co-founder, told investors during the company’s Q4 earnings call on Monday. Omnichannel and audience addressability are the other two top priorities.

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.

The IAB designed the sellers.json specification to follow the money – but the spec has its own limitations that require hygiene practices and general maintenance for accuracy. What’s more, just because an entry exists on sellers.json does not mean inventory is available to buyers, writes Eric Bozinny, senior director of marketplace quality at PubMatic.

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Mike Brooks, SVP of revenue at WeatherBug. Recent analysis from PubMatic highlights two trends that we at WeatherBug have been experiencing firsthand. One, iOS CPMs have dropped over the last two quarters and, two, […]

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

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by John Sabella, CTO at PubMatic. With international scrutiny and stories about opaque pricing, Google could use some positive PR. Federated Learning of Cohorts 2.0 (what I’m dubbing FLoC2) presents a unique opportunity for Google to prove […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Mike Chowla, Sr. Director of Product Management, PubMatic. Header bidding is now widespread and successful on the web, and Prebid.js is the most widely used solution. However, the majority of publishers using Prebid are […]

The United States Northern District Court of California dismissed a case earlier this week brought by Hugo Elliott, a citizen of the UK who lives in England, against the American ad tech company PubMatic. The case was dismissed out of hand, so it hardly seems a notable decision. Except that it would have been the […]

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, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. IPOs Popping The ad tech party is raging after a slew of companies went public in recent weeks. AcuityAds, Taboola and Integral Ad Science went public in June. Not to be outdone, content recommendation company Outbrain announced plans to IPO a day before rival […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Opening The Books Amazon is acquiescing to an audit by the Media Rating Council of the online retailer’s ad tech. Amazon’s demand-side platform saw tremendous growth in Q1 as ad revenue soared nearly 90% year over year. Sponsored Products – Amazon’s cost-per-click product listing […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Correction Streaming giant Netflix slipped a bit after riding high when demand surged at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. CNBC reports that Netflix shares dropped more than 10% in after-hours trading on Tuesday night following an earnings report with fewer-than-expected subscribers. Netflix gained […]