The Big Story

GroupM is in the middle of “restructuring,” as AI looms over the business model of agency holding companies. One-click campaign planning is coming for agency jobs. Now what?

Does a connected TV DSP need lower take rates? Inside the battle among DSP's to take on The Trade Desk's dominant market position. Plus: an on-the-ground report from the TV NewFronts.

Emarketer is predicting tariffs could lead to a $2.78 billion to $4 billion decline in linear TV upfront spending, but CTV spending will be flat to up. Emarketer analyst Ross Benes unpacks these findings. Plus: At the Possible conference, optimism reins.

Google's SSP and ad server businesses have been ruled monopolies. Plus, Google Chrome isn't going to change its third-party cookie opt-ins, preserving their utility for marketers. Go inside this momentous news.

Temu pulled back on its US ad spend this week, as tariffs loom. Plus, in France, the ATT prompt was deemed anticompetitive and, as a result, will likely need to be changed.

The Trump tariff situation is in constant flux, creating uncertainty that spells doom for any potential growth in US ad spending this year. Plus, how retail media and other emerging channels could be threatened by tariff turmoil.

What's old is new. Time is a flat circle. Trends are cyclical. Choose your idiom, because this week's episode grapples with two topics that are back in style (so to speak): bot traffic and the tantalizing dream of scaling programmatic in-game advertising.

After the IAB Tech Lab proposed to move ad auctions from the browser to the server with its Trusted Server prototype, controversy ensued. Plus: Should data privacy be viewed as a badge of honor or a baseline?

Alphonso shareholders won their lawsuit against LG Ads, clearing the way for an IPO. Then, as TikTok counts down the days until its stay of execution expires, Oracle might buy a minority stake.

Tariffs are taking effect in the US, and advertisers are shook. Our special guest, Madison and Wall's Brian Wieser, weighs in on the “blindingly obvious” consequences of implementing tariffs, including supply-chain disruptions that lead to a pullback in ad spend. You can't promote what you can't produce. Plus: the rationale behind Publicis' acquisition of Lotame.

Programmatic algorithms optimize for performance, which can leave digital media companies floundering. Inside programmatic's pursuit of “premium.” Plus: an ad tech acquisition forged on matchmaking buy-side and sell-side IDs.

In her last week at AdExchanger, Senior Editor Alyssa Boyle reflects on three years of change, and stasis, in the CTV space. Then, how Ozempic is changing the marketing world.

When the ad tech darling of Wall Street, The Trade Desk, misses earnings, the industry pays attention. Plus: Reddit, fueled by Google search, sputters after an algorithmic adjustment.

When an ad shows up next to illegal content, there is often not a single point of failure. Adalytics Krzysztof Franaszek walks us through why he found ad showing up next to the worst kind of criminal content -- and the simple and complex solutions to this problem.

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.

CTV transparency remains a flashpoint between advertisers who want it and broadcasters who won't provide it. Our special guest, Jounce Media's Chris Kane, weighs in. Plus, we examine a persistent issue in ad tech: the chronic mislabeling of instream video.

TikTok was granted a 75-day stay of execution this week. We discuss what's next for the social media platform, why it was classified as a threat to national security – and how advertisers are responding.

2025 M&A is off with a bang. T-Mobile bought Vistar Media. The Trade Desk bought Sincera. With a special guest from LUMA Partners, Conor McKenna, we explore the rationale for these ad tech acquisitions.

Recorded from the showroom floor at CES, the AdExchanger editorial team talks about the intersection of consumer electronics and advertising with our guest, Monks head of AI innovation Dave Meeker. From the responsible use of AI to new ad experiences that will be enabled by tech on the showroom floor, we dig into what caught our eye this year.

To close out the year, The Big Story team is posting one of our favorite AdExchanger Talks episodes of 2024. Who better to give her take on programamtic transparency than an ex-FBI agent? Listen to this interview with Sherine Ebadi, Kroll managing director of investigations, who worked on the ANA's transparency report.

The IAB gave us new retail media standards for Christmas. But will the industry actually adopt them? Also, we discuss where the use of AI in advertising could be headed in 2025.

Omnicom is acquiring IPG. We unpack the nuances of the proposed deal with ad agency expert Brian Wieser, founder of the constancy Madison and Wall.

This year, Black Friday stretched on for more than a week. And the retail holiday is evolving as online shopping takes over.  

It's Thanksgiving, so we are sharing our podcast feed by posting an episode of AdExchanger Talks. Recorded right after the closing arguments of US vs. Google, ad tech antitrust edition, Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint shares insights from inside the courtroom.

The odds of RFK Jr. implementing a ban on TV drug ads are slim, says our guest this week, BranchLab's Josh Walsh. Still, pharma advertisers could face other regulatory changes over the next four years. Plus: We break down Forrester's picks for the top 10 SSPs.

Jessica Alter, co-founder of the nonprofit Tech for Campaigns, believes political campaigns should model their digital ad strategy on that of seed-stage startups. She joins the podcast this week to talk through this year's unexpected election results.

Trump won the 2024 election. To discuss how paid media played a role (and didn't) in his victory, we bring on guest Jordan Lieberman, CEO of Power Interactive. The programmatic buying company handled more than 1,000 digital campaigns across the political spectrum this election cycle.

To explain Forrester's latest creative ad tech wave, we bring on author, Senior Analyst Nikhil Lai. Then, the untold story of how Prebid.org became an independent industry organization.

We discuss the rise of curation in programmatic buying and the current backlash. Is curation an ad network with new window dressing? And will it save or undermine the open web?

From the Amazon Ads Unboxed conference, AdExchanger reports on the ad tech products it's building. Plus, why brand safety and news publishers remain at odds with each other, and what each side is doing about it.

As The Trade Desk grows more powerful, its moves are attracting more attention – and even frustration – from independent ad tech. We explore why. Plus: an update on Google Chrome's user choice mechanism.

 It's a wrap on the US v. Google antitrust case, at least for now. Then, behind the IP infringement claim on the OpenRTB spec that ruffled feathers at the IAB Tech Lab.

Hear what the ad tech industry is saying about Google's antitrust trial. Then, a rundown on how the election is playing out for political advertisers and news publishers.

After eight days of the antitrust trial, who's in the lead: the DOJ or Google? Details on the most gripping testimony so far with guest Arielle Garcia, director of intelligence for Check My Ads.

Index Exchange CEO Andrew Casale, fresh off the witness stand for US v. Google, and AdExchanger's courtroom reporter, Allison Schiff, join us to analyze the ad tech trial of the century.

 Inside a cloaking scam that funneled ad spend to piracy websites. Then: your AI agency assistant is here, and it's ready to build your media plan.

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.

Special guest and prolific ad tech investor Eric Franchi of Aperiam Ventures discusses his firm's recent bet on attention metrics startup Adelaide. Plus: What's up with Meta's new third-party attribution partnerships?

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.

 Google is a monopolist. We bring on a guest that's both a lawyer and a CEO of a search ad business to offer his perspective on the antitrust ruling, and what happens next for Google in light of this decision.

What will Chrome's third-party consent look like? We offer our best guess based on existing information (which is thin). Plus, we spotlight the controversy around ID bridging. The tactic supplies IDs for cookieless inventory through a spectrum of approaches, and not all of them are buyer approved.

Keep the cookies; hold for consent. We unpack Google's reversal on third-party cookies and what it means for the ad industry, which was preparing for a cookieless future.  

We set the scene for Google's upcoming antitrust trial in September, including details from the recently released witness list, a who's who of the ad tech world.

For our 300th episode, we do a post-mortem (don't do a brand safety block on us for using this term!) on Oracle's ad business. Then, we go through the ins and outs of reaching LBGTQ+ audiences online, a category that requires extra attention to data privacy.

This week, we bring on the CEO and CTO of privacy tech startup Anonym, which was acquired by Mozilla, to talk about PETs (privacy-enhancing technologies) and how Mozilla plans to use its tech to create a more private internet.

At the Cannes Lions, generative AI applications for advertising were out in force. Plus: takes from the Croisette on retail media and cookie conspiracies.

The move from in-store to digital shopper marketing continues, as United Airlines, Costco, PayPal, Chase and Expedia make new retail media plays. Plus: what the DSP Madhive saw in advertising sales software company Frequence.

SPO is moving from efficiency to curation to ranking the top 500 publishers. We talk through industry reactions to The Trade Desk's SP500+ product. Plus: Seedtag acquired Beachfront, a deal that's emblematic of multiple trends in CTV, privacy and the rise of contextual.

The open web is getting smaller, with the squeeze happening in two directions. Curated deals are skimming the cream off the open web, and exposed made-for-advertising websites are shuttering.

Our other “a-ha” moments from the conference, including observations on CTV, the state of commerce media, programmatic transparency – and the lack thereof. (Oh, and as an aside, somebody at the show told me they'd fed my AdExchanger articles into an LLM that could practically reproduce my work in a snap. Which is cool. Not.)

Made-for-advertising sites are roosting in reputable publishers' subdomains. IDs are declared inconsistently. And the established third-party measurement companies are sitting on the sidelines.