SPO

PubMatic’s new AI curation features are helping it forge closer relationships with ad agencies like GroupM that are ramping up their use of AI.

The era of fragmented, adversarial ad tech is winding down. A new paradigm is emerging defined by AI-first, end-to-end platforms and collaboration among buyers and sellers.

After adopting OpenPath, Freestar pubs now see 3x higher inventory fill rate from The Trade Desk demand and 27% higher programmatic revenue from these buyers.

Warner Bros. Discovery officially launched OpenPath last week, with the goal of driving demand for its news sites’ display inventory. But for now, CTV is not part of the integration.

Based on the way advertisers deal with publishers, you’d think they were sworn enemies. Our failure to prioritize collaboration on the open web and build a positive value chain has been our collective downfall.

On Tuesday, mobile video ad platform LoopMe bought mobile monetization platform Chartboost from mobile game publisher Zynga. That’s a lot of mobile. But with more scale and direct connections to app publishers, said LoopMe CEO Stephen Upstone, “more brand dollars are going to move into the app environment.”

Publishers expect the agencies will eliminate tech redundancies as they consolidate, which could compel pubs to shed redundant tech themselves. The merger could also entrench principal-based buying, which may not be a bad thing.

Curation is a reaction to programmatic’s worsening queries-per-second problem, says Permutive’s Joe Root. DSPs are biased toward impressions that have an identifier attached, so SSPs are using curated deal IDs as a stand-in for third-party cookies.

Political ad strategies evolved quickly this year, as campaigns moved beyond exclusivity, focusing on flexibility and reach. Here’s what this cycle taught us and how it will guide our business in the medium term.

Open programmatic ad spend has only grown 3% since 2021, according to Wolfe Research – but there’s hope for the open internet.