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The Big Story: Cookies And Creamed

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This week saw a big flex from LiveRamp, which a few days ago reported its first profitable quarter since it spun off from Acxiom.

All very cool, especially when you consider that this measured success happened during a global pandemic when the rest of the digital advertising community – and, really, the rest of the world – has been experiencing significant revenue hits.

The team dives into why LiveRamp saw growth while others didn’t. What is in LiveRamp’s milkshake that causes advertisers to keep investing despite having fallen onto hard times?

We’ll also quickly check in on The Trade Desk, the other publicly traded ad tech darling, which reported earnings last Friday.

And then stay tuned for the latest in W3C drama as Chrome engineers, ad tech pioneers and a smattering of advertisers and publishers continue to wrestle over the future of the cookie.

When we last checked in, the ad tech community was freaking out over the inchworm pace of what is supposed to be a race toward a cookie alternative in Chrome. This time around, they’ve petitioned the W3C Advisory Board for more influence in the hopes of scooting things along.

And, finally, we’ll talk about a recent Apple development that sees the tech giant rerouting some publisher traffic to its Apple News Plus app. Hat tip to Scroll CEO Tony Haile for tweeting this to the world’s attention. And apologies in advance for referring to him as the Chartbeat CEO – that was his title four years ago.

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