Technology

WPP shares dipped to a four-year low on after posting its 2024 earnings results. Plus: How brands are courting virality.

Today’s roundup deals with an uncomfortable topic that, at some point, retail media companies must reckon with. It’s not transparency, or MFA, or standardization. It is the issue of rising return rates.

DoubleVerify adds Rockerbox to its attribution stack; Taboola courts performance marketers with a new ad platform; and the end of the MLB/ESPN deal spells opportunity for sports streamers.

Magnite ended up with a scrappy 4% year-over-year growth rate in Q4 2024, after a sudden, unexpected drop in display and online video CPMs during November and December, which caused the company to miss its revenue guidance.

To solve ad tech’s intractable problems, there’s a solution that the advertising industry could borrow from the hacker world: bug bounties.

YouTube advertisers prefer long-form videos to Shorts; Microsoft tests an ad-supported version of its Office suite; and Chegg sues Google over lost traffic from gen AI search.

Forget ramping up. Maybe it’s time for the online advertising industry to ramp down. That’s the idea behind a guerrilla marketing campaign by InfoSum, timed to coincide with LiveRamp’s RampUp event in San Francisco this week.

Amazon is still lowering its Prime Video ad rates across the board. Plus, there are disadvantages to being a big tech giant.

A concept known as data minimization – the practice of limiting data collection and retention to only what’s strictly necessary to achieve a specific purpose – is becoming a key tenet of privacy legislation around the world.

Streaming TV advertisers are still unsatisfied with the level of transparency from publishers in the ad buying process. So Rain the Growth Agency created its own way to get more transparency into CTV buys.

Curation is amazing – for SSPs. The question publishers continually ask is, “Is curation good for us?” That’s the wrong question. 

YouTube is adding a new tier with a “light” ad load. Plus, remember Facebook?

When The Trade Desk, the ad tech darling of Wall Street, missed its earnings forecast for the first time, ad tech insiders paid attention. Plus: Reddit, fueled by Google Search, sputters after an algorithmic adjustment.

The last five years saw our industry’s conventional models of ad targeting and measurement evaporate with the regulatory and cultural shift toward privacy. But out of these ashes, the advance of clean room architecture is enabling a deeper level of measurement and insights, which is moving us toward something much better than ever before.

Not every retailer has a solid handle on emerging AI tech. While some thrived, others stumbled – sometimes spectacularly. Here are some lessons to learn from Q4 campaigns.

Why Google Demand Gen is struggling to grow; embattled web browser extensions test the limits of last-click attribution; and the State Department demands diplomats cancel their news subscriptions.

Spotify faces obstacles in its ticket sales aspirations; Apple switches to view-through attribution; and The Washington Post and Meta remove ads that were critical of Elon Musk.

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

Making TripleLift stand out among the pack is one of Helmreich’s top priorities, as is ensuring supply chain health. And, he said, the company has no plans to shy away from its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

US judge rules generative AI has no fair use claim; Snap sets its sights on SMBs; MMM comes to CTV; and Disney introduces ads in live TV, even for paid users.

Reddit’s ambitions to build its own AI-powered on-platform search business suggest even Google’s allies need to find ways to protect themselves from its influence – sometimes by copying its playbook.

AppLovin’s stock popped by more than 28% in after-hour’s trading Wednesday on the news that it plans to offload its entire apps business at a $900 million asking price by next quarter.

Basis Technologies introduced Unify, a new feature in its DSP that facilitates data access and campaign planning across a brand’s in-house departments and external teams.

The convergence of on-site retail and shopping across the web got a little more converged on Tuesday with the news that Kevel has acquired Nexta.

The Google Chrome team is getting closer to deciding on its cookie consent mechanism. And  Paramount resolves its four-month standoff with Nielsen, as the mechanics behind currency change forever.

Amazon’s advertising services group earned $17.3 billion in Q4 2024, up 18% year over year.

AdExchanger reached out to a number of major DSPs to gauge the current state of adoption of the IAB Tech Lab’s new video ad standard.

Criteo’s shares leapt more than 20% Wednesday morning after the company reported continued profitability growth and a strong financial footing.

Publicis looks to capitalize on potential fallout from the Omnicom/IPG merger; Google Cloud is seeing an influx of ad sales talent; and Spotify advises investors to be patient with its growing programmatic ads biz.

Alphabet is beset by challenges on all sides. But the company’s revenue growth remains unchecked.