Technology

What do Hercule Poirot, Ben Bernanke, Star Wars and C.S. Lewis have in common? If you’re an ad tech nerd, you’ll know the answer immediately.

The IAB’s annual advertising outlook has mostly rosy news. Plus, can sludge videos be wielded for good – or, at least, for effective political organizing?

AppsFlyer announced its integration with the Attribution Reporting API in the Android Privacy Sandbox and released a related dashboard for campaign optimization.

The bottom is falling out of the mass multichannel TV bundle. Plus, Amazon crushed its first-ever upfront this year.

The initiative will kick off this month, and the IAB and MRC expect to have draft accreditation guidelines open for public comment by Q1 2025.

In today’s newsletter: Google Demand Gen is the industry’s latest over-attribution controversy; data from third-party brokers might not be worth it; and The Trade Desk launches a CTV operating system.

In today’s newsletter: Amazon stands out among Upfronts CTV rookies; Google reveals how much revenue its ad tech divisions make; and women hold more marketing leadership positions than men, but churn is worse for women.

Google doesn’t want AppNexus founder Brian O’Kelley – you know, the godfather of programmatic – to testify during its ad tech antitrust trial starting on September 9.

Publishers trafficking in pirated movies, TV shows and games sold programmatic ads alongside this stolen content, while using domain cloaking to obscure the “cashout sites” where the ads actually ran.

Just two weeks before Google’s antitrust trial, we discuss revelations from a cache of documents released in advance of the trial – plus, a primer on what’s ahead as header bidding goes to the stand.

Is it time to retire references to the advertising “duopoly?” Plus, Omnicom wants to bring its major agency brands under unified leadership.

Starting last week and into this week, hundreds of court-filed documents have been unsealed in the lead-up to the Google ad tech antitrust trial – and it’s a bonanza.

In today’s newsletter: Google paid $445 million in rebates in 2018; publishers across the ideological spectrum blame brand safety for hurting the media biz; and Mark Zuckerberg apologizes to Congressional Republicans for Meta’s content moderation.

ID bridging isn’t the problem. Buyers are objecting to unexpected, undisclosed manipulation of critical data in bid requests by sellers.

On Monday, FreeWheel announced the integration of Proximic by Comscore’s contextual audience data directly into its ad management platform.

The publication still makes most of its on-site digital revenue from programmatic. But it’s doubling down on direct-sold custom content, especially when it comes to video and social media.

Remember back when Netflix was anti-advertising? Plus, CTV is still struggling with low programmatic fill rates.

An ex-Googler asks: Has the commitment to perfection over progress led to the current state of play for the Privacy Sandbox and harmed the industry’s opportunity to provide better consumer privacy?

Ecommerce tech has had a rough couple of years. Plus, VP Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign will spend $370 million on ads.

The growth of Walmart’s ads business and third-party marketplace are separate, it says. Plus, Google and Meta’ve been targeting teens for a while.

Admiral, a startup that first got its start with ad block recovery tools, announced the close of a $19 million growth equity and debt funding round on Wednesday.

The only way forward for the industry is to put consumer choice first. That means putting the cookie behind us and rebuilding our relationship with consumers.

In today’s newsletter: Digital twins are marketers’ cool new AI tool; Netflix pulls a Prime Video and defaults lapsed subscribers to the ad-supported tier; and California compromises with Big Tech on two journalism bills.

Serial ad tech entrepreneur Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan founded two startups roughly a decade apart, both for a similar reason: making data available across the enterprise in a way that’s also respectful of the consumer.

Adelaide used this latest cash injection to boost its valuation to $60 million ahead of an all-stock acquisition of Rita, an Amsterdam-based data marketplace with a focus on the EU.

Publishers are in the business of selling their readers’ attention to advertisers. But in response to consumer preferences and regulatory pressure, publishers should reposition themselves as champions of data dignity.

In today’s newsletter: Google gets hit with another glitch; influencers fight gen AI provisions in their advertising contracts; and political fundraising pivots as social media bars campaign ads.

In today’s newsletter: Walmart’s hottest growth drivers are ads and subscriptions; why The Trade Desk’s UID 2.0 could be regulators’ next target; and how the growth of CTV content fortresses is preventing breakout streaming hits.

Inside Publicis’ play to be both an agency and an ad tech company. Plus: the dissolution of GARM and what it means for the future of brand safety.

That sound you hear? Alarm bells ringing in Google’s offices. Plus, women’s sports has been an unexpected accelerant for ad sales.