The Big Story

AppLovin wants Unity – but only if Unity calls off its planned acquisition of ironSource. Why doesn’t AppLovin want ironSource? And how is Apple’s ATT driving consolidation in mobile ad tech? Listen in. Plus: The Trade Desk claims to benefit whenever a regulator starts investigating Google.

Meta just got sued over an alleged violation of HIPAA. But where exactly does the health privacy law apply? With the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade, it’s more important than ever for digital advertisers to understand how HIPAA protects (and doesn’t protect) the use of sensitive health data in ad campaigns. Plus: Understanding the resurgence of MMM and the rise of incrementality measurement.

The expiration date for third-party cookies has been extended for another year. We talk through what the delay will mean for ad tech. Plus, an entire corner of the LUMAscape now exists within the Tremor-Amobee deal, the ultimate example in ad tech consolidation.

Netflix shocked the ad tech world with its selection of Microsoft to run its AVOD business. But the deal actually makes sense, and it’s helped calm nerves on Wall Street to boot. Plus: Why the IAB Tech Lab’s seller-defined audiences is slow to take off.

Google is signaling it may spin off its ad tech business. A DSP and SSP change would create new winners and losers and potentially open up access to walled-off inventory, says our guest, Ari Paparo, founder of Marketecture. Plus: How Google Analytics’ coming change will affect publishers.

The overturn of Roe v. Wade, the ongoing war in Ukraine, a stock market collapse – it’s all the news that’s fit to print, but how are publishers going to monetize it if brands are skittish about serious topics? Plus: The dangers of data collection in a post-Roe world.

Google has tried – and so far mostly failed – to get its customers on board with major new migrations for its online advertising platform. But Google means business this time, with the migration to the new GA4 analytics solution. You’ve got one year. Also: Tech layoffs are on the rise.

If there is one constant in ad tech, it’s change. When the AdExchanger team recorded its first episode four years ago, ad tech was in the middle of one of its acquisition sprees. IPG had just bought Acxiom Marketing Services. Agencies were buying up data platforms as they sought to differentiate and help clients with […]

Google may open up YouTube to outside programmatic demand as a bargaining chip to EU regulators. And a looming recession won’t deflate digital advertising – although don’t expect pandemic-level growth.

After Apple’s WWDC, the company’s next step will be to clamp down on fingerprinting … the question is, when? Plus, industry orgs struggle to build a path forward with new signals.

We read between the lines of Google’s progress report to the UK’s antitrust regulator on its plan to remove third-party cookies from Chrome. Could Google miss its own self-imposed 2023 deadline? “Signs point to yes.”

The NewFronts are old news. Now it’s all about the upfronts, which are old. But don’t forget about the podcast upfronts, which are newer than the NewFronts but named after the TV oldfronts … or upfronts. Okay. Now that we’ve cleared that up, tune in for frontline reporting from the upfronts (TV and podcast varieties).

We evaluate the new crop of attribution and analytics companies rising from the ashes of multitouch attribution. Plus, is Marriott’s entrance into the ads business a sign that we’ve reached peak media network – or is it just the beginning?

A rundown on the state of TikTok’s ad platform, including its attribution woes. (But you’d be crazy not to advertise there.) And location-data-related privacy issues that will crop up should Roe v. Wade be overturned.

It’s NewFronts season. A week of programmatic pageantry where the data-driven video and streaming media ecosystem plays dress up in an attempt to recreate the glitz and glamour of the age-old TV upfronts. But across the Atlantic, the industry is hard at work dealing with the harsh realities of the online era as advertising becomes a means of “psychological warfare.”

Twitter’s ad prospects just got even more dicey with news that Elon Musk will buy the platform. Plus, quantifying ad tech’s carbon footprint.

As data-driven advertising undergoes an unwanted rebrand by privacy advocates to “surveillance advertising,” we take the pulse of privacy professionals and talk about how they talked about ad tech at a recent privacy conference in Washington, DC. Plus: The rise of in-game advertising and what it needs to do in order to level up.

WarnerMedia and Discovery concentrate power in the CTV space, even as CNN+ makes a slow start. Plus: understanding the tech pipes powering retail media businesses.

The Privacy Sandbox proposals are moving forward in an organization whose governance is in the air and whose leadership is disengaged. We unpack what’s going on at the W3C with working group member and IAB Tech Lab advisor Alex Cone. He also weighs in on what went wrong with FLoC.

Retail media is reaching the C-suite, with advertising (and first-party data projects) coming up in retailer earnings. Then, we talk about the $16 billion deal to buy Nielsen. 

We analyze the WTF moments from BuzzFeed’s first earnings report – including the negative effect of Facebook’s audience declines. Plus: We dive into Google Ad Manager’s acronym soup and share an audio TL;DR on Google’s publisher-focused signals, including PPIDs and ESPs.

Google Analytics is removing the IP address from its global product. We get into the data privacy whys, as well as what Google Analytics is building in its place, in this week’s episode. Also: The EARN IT act and how American Express overhauled its attribution model in anticipation of loss of signal.

When the time comes to take up arms, the best weapons – or tools – are the ones you’re most familiar with. And in Ukraine, advertising is becoming a weapon of choice wielded against misinformation, explains MGID CEO Sergii Denisenko. He joins the podcast from western Ukraine to report on the situation, and how the ad community can help. Also in this episode: Black creators weigh in on equitable (and not so equitable) payment for influencers.

This week, there’s only one big story: the Russian invasion and war in Ukraine. The worlds of media, marketing and technology are reckoning with their role in a time of war. Difficult theoretical questions of content moderation and information access are all of a sudden not-so-theoretical and advertisers, too, must consider their role.

Signal loss is muddying Meta’s algorithms and causing short-term pain (and stock dives) for the company formerly known as Facebook. Its partners and advertisers are feeling it, too. But signal loss is also prompting digital transformation and creating strong tailwinds – depending on who you are in ad tech.

It’s the beginning of the end of the Android Ad ID. What Google’s mobile privacy sandbox announcements means. Plus: Why Facebook’s ad approval process irritates telehealth company, wisp.

Activision-Blizzard, ZeniMax Media, Bungie, Zynga, MoPub, Adjust, Glu Mobile: Each multi-billion acquisition happened in the past year, as creative game developers and the ad tech businesses that monetize their apps come together. Plus: What’s new in the SSP market? Google’s iron grip on the category is strong as ever, but there’s room for growth.

Audio advertising is maturing (or going through puberty?): Spotify is the latest platform to weather a content controversy (over Joe Rogan’s misinformation). Meanwhile, competitor SiriusXM is building first-party identifiers. Plus: the quiet Olympics, and why B2B advertisers love the Super Bowl.

Google tells its side of the story in a motion to dismiss the antitrust case it’s facing – but where does the truth lie? Also: Google unveils its cookie-free Topics API, a rundown on California’s follow-up privacy law (CPRA) and a quick explainer on the latest privacy bill to hit the Hill: the ominously named Banning Surveillance Advertising Act.

More than a year after 17 states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, the hits keep coming. A newly unredacted version of the suit – now ballooned to 242 pages – dropped on Friday and provides quite the scratch-off surprise. AdExchanger has been busy polling the industry and reading up on the latest allegations about how Google […]