adtech-juice

Why adtech’s biggest leak isn’t dollars. It’s work.

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 09:37:13 GMT

For years, the advertising industry has focused on financial leakage. That scrutiny is important, but it is incomplete. AdLib's Founder and CEO, Mike Hauptman, explores why we need to quantify the labor required to manage adtech's increasingly complex ecosystem.

For years, the advertising industry has focused on financial leakage. We scrutinize supply chains, debate made-for-advertising inventory, and calculate how much of every dollar reaches working media. Transparency initiatives, SPO strategies, and curated marketplaces are all designed to reduce monetary waste.

That scrutiny is important. But it is incomplete. We measure media waste carefully. We rarely measure operational waste at all.

Modern media buying is defined by fragmentation. Retail media networks continue to multiply. CTV inventory is distributed across hundreds of apps and platforms. DSPs operate with different optimization logics, reporting frameworks, and audience structures. Each new environment introduces incremental opportunity and incremental workflow.

What we rarely quantify is the labor required to manage that complexity.

Fragmentation has a headcount cost

Every additional platform brings its own contracts, reporting exports, attribution methodologies, and billing rules. Media teams reconcile performance across dashboards that were never designed to align. Analysts normalize metrics before insights can be presented clearly. Traders duplicate audience builds across systems that cannot coordinate frequency or budget logic.

This is not media waste in the traditional sense. It is an operational duplication.

In enterprise environments, that duplication is absorbed through scale. Dedicated teams manage trafficking, analytics, and cross-platform reconciliation. But for independent agencies and growth-stage brands, the burden is disproportionate. The cost of fragmentation appears not in hidden fees but in payroll.

Highly skilled professionals spend time aligning attribution windows, consolidating pacing data, and resolving discrepancies between platforms optimizing independently. As channel diversification accelerates, this work compounds.

Automation fixed bidding. It did not fix coordination.

The industry often asks whether artificial intelligence will replace media buyers. A more practical question is why media buyers are still responsible for so much manual coordination.

Automation has dramatically improved impression-level bidding and campaign optimization. Yet the surrounding infrastructure remains disconnected. Cross-channel reporting is still stitched together manually. Audience logic often lives in silos. Budget allocation decisions require human intervention because platforms optimize in isolation.

When systems do not coordinate, people do. That is the structural inefficiency.

The hidden constraint on growth

Operational overhead slows campaign launches and delays reporting cycles. It increases onboarding time for new channels and creates friction when testing emerging platforms. Many agencies hesitate to expand into additional retail media networks or CTV partners not because of performance concerns, but because they cannot absorb the added workflow.

In this environment, efficiency can no longer be defined solely by CPM reduction or supply path improvements. It must also be measured by how effectively systems reduce coordination costs across fragmented environments.

Media waste is visible and quantifiable. Operational waste is embedded in the process. But it is equally consequential.

The next efficiency frontier

As advertising becomes more omnichannel and more data-driven, competitive advantage will not belong only to those who optimize bids most effectively. It will belong to those who reduce the amount of human intervention required to make fragmented systems function cohesively.

The next phase of efficiency in advertising is not just about fixing the supply chain. It is about fixing the workflow around it.

Until that shift happens, the industry will continue to plug the visible leaks while the quiet ones continue to grow.

Mike Hauptman

Founder and CEO, AdLib

Mike is the Founder and CEO of AdLib Media Group , where the team is redefining how agencies and marketers scale programmatic advertising. Since entering the digital marketing space in 2006, Mike has been driven by a simple goal: to make sophisticated media buying more accessible, transparent, and profitable for everyone.

Before founding AdLib, Mike spent eight years as one of the first 100 employees at MediaMath, helping build one of the most influential programmatic platforms in the industry. That experience shaped his belief that performance, simplicity, and transparency should always go hand in hand. AdLib was recognized on the 2025 Inc. 5000 List of America's Fastest-Growing Private Companies.

The biggest challenges of programmatic advertising in 2026

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 09:21:09 GMT

Adtech enters 2026 stronger. Programmatic continues to expand across channels. Digital is the infrastructure of modern marketing. Mac Sawa, CEO of OnAudience, deep dives into why growth is no longer the main story in adtech.

Adtech enters 2026 stronger. Global advertising investment is approaching $1.3 trillion in 2026 according to WARC . Programmatic continues to expand across channels. Digital is the infrastructure of modern marketing.

But the growth phase is no longer the main story. Discipline is.

In 2026, competitive advantage won’t come just from having more platforms, more data, or broader reach. What will really matter is clear data logic, clear supply paths, and clear ownership of outcomes.

That means fewer handoffs, fewer assumptions, and less “we’ll fix it in optimisation.” It means building systems that make performance repeatable.

The industry’s next phase is not only expansion, but operational maturity. For agencies, advertisers, and marketers, this shift is already visible in day-to-day pressure: launch faster, scale smarter, and prove impact with greater confidence, even as execution has become more complex and less consistent.

Fragmentation has become the default operating system

The challenge

The adtech ecosystem continues to multiply: more platforms, more “must-have” partners, more supply paths, and more layers between advertisers and working media. Choice sounds empowering until it becomes operational drag.

In practice, fragmentation creates expensive inefficiencies:

duplicated workflows across platforms
inconsistent definitions of audiences and outcomes
limited clarity around where value is truly added versus where cost accumulates

Even when reporting appears clean, aligning teams and partners behind a consistent approach often becomes a hidden tax paid in time, overhead, and lost momentum.

How to fix it

Winning teams in 2026 are not expanding their stacks, they're simplifying how decisions flow through them .

That means:

reducing the number of activation points
consolidating audience logic earlier in the supply path
using operating layers (like curated supply or audience frameworks) that standardise execution across channels

The goal isn’t fewer partners for the sake of it, it’s fewer handoffs, clearer ownership, and repeatable execution .

Why data quality determines outcomes

The challenge

Most teams today have access to more data than they can realistically put to work. Signals arrive in different formats, follow different standards, and behave differently depending on where and how they’re activated.

In 2026, the frustration isn’t access to data, it’s turning the right signals into activation-ready audiences quickly, clearly, and with confidence.

Privacy-driven signal loss, inconsistent taxonomies, and platform-specific constraints mean the same insight can lead to very different outcomes once it’s translated into targeting logic and measured against business goals.

How to fix it

In 2026, performance increasingly depends on data quality and deployability, not data volume. The priority is using privacy-safe signals that are built to work in modern environments and choosing data partners who can explain what the data is, where it comes from, and how it performs.

High-performing teams focus on data that is:

high-quality and transparent (clear sourcing, methodology, and accountability)
privacy-safe by design (usable without relying on fragile identifiers)
activation-ready (structured to work across buying environments without heavy translation)
consistent and comparable (so results don’t change dramatically by platform)
measurable in practice (so impact can be tested, repeated, and defended over time)

The shift is simple : stop collecting signals you can’t use, and invest in signals you can activate confidently with clarity on inputs, logic, and outcomes.

Custom audience creation is still too manual for the pace of the market

The challenge

Even as programmatic continues to grow with US programmatic display ad spend expected to surpass $200B by 2026 , building high-quality custom audiences at scale remains difficult.

In many organisations, a “custom segment” still means:

tickets and spreadsheets
back-and-forth between teams
manual logic stitching
reactive optimisation when delivery underperforms

This slows campaigns down and introduces inconsistency long before media even goes live.

How to fix it

Audience creation needs to start from the brief , not from raw attributes.

That’s why agencies, media planners, and programmatic traders are increasingly adopting AI-assisted audience building approaches such as AI Audiences by OnAudience, where the AI technology allows to:

create an activation-ready audience based on the brief
build segments in seconds rather than days
validate reach, logic, and intent before launch

The outcome isn’t just speed, it’s consistency, scalability, and fewer performance surprises .

Speed, transparency, and control are colliding

The challenge

Agencies and advertisers are under simultaneous pressure to:

launch campaigns faster
improve performance
deliver cleaner, more defensible reporting

Yet speed and control often pull in opposite directions, especially when scale is pursued through broad, opaque access to open marketplaces.

How to fix it

A practical way to balance speed with control is to treat curation as an operating layer, not a buzzword. By applying quality and suitability rules earlier in the supply path, campaigns enter the auction already aligned to the brief.

When done well, curation helps teams:

control where campaigns run (and under what conditions)
improve quality and consistency across supply paths
maintain scale without opening up to low-quality inventory

The key is accountability : clear inclusion, transparent ownership, and decisions that can be explained in plain language. Without that, curation becomes just another opaque layer.

Measurement is improving but consistency remains the real challenge

The challenge

As budgets grow, scrutiny intensifies. Yet cross-channel measurement remains constrained by:

identity fragmentation
walled environments
mismatched methodologies across CTV, retail media, social, and the open web

This pushes teams toward modeled attribution, incrementality testing, and blended frameworks, all useful but difficult to apply consistently.

How to fix it

No measurement framework is perfect. But high-quality, privacy-safe data materially improves outcomes .

While it won’t eliminate measurement challenges, it does:

reduce noise in models
improve comparability across channels
increase confidence in directional results
make methodologies easier to defend over time

In 2026, measurement maturity means choosing frameworks that can be repeated, compared, and explained, not chasing whichever dashboard looks best this quarter.

Using low-quality data and expecting big results

The challenge

Many agencies stick with the same data provider year after year often because of long-standing relationships, established processes, and “we’ve always done it this way.” The downside is that the data itself doesn’t always keep pace with what campaigns need in 2026.

The pattern is familiar:

performance falls short
teams blame the market, inventory, or creative
optimisation turns reactive
the data powering targeting is rarely challenged

Low-quality or opaque data can quietly cap results while expectations stay high.

How to fix it

In 2026, choosing data needs the same discipline as choosing media. That means reviewing partners based on whether their signals are:

high quality and current transparent (clear sourcing and methodology)
privacy-safe by design
consistent across activation environments

It also means benchmarking the market . Regularly sanity-check your current provider against alternatives including competitors to confirm you are working with the best available data for your use case.

Agencies that reassess legacy partnerships and prioritise fit-for-purpose, privacy-safe data don’t win through novelty, they win through clarity, accountability, and more reliable outcomes.

Where this leaves us

In adtech budgets are growing, channels are multiplying, tools are becoming more precise and powerful. But scale alone is not maturity.

Across fragmentation, data, audiences, curation, and measurement, the same truth holds: performance depends on strong foundations.

The companies that win will not be those chasing every new platform or signal. They will be the ones simplifying execution, standardising logic, and building systems where results are not only significant, but also repeatable.

The industry has reached scale. Now it must prove discipline.

Mac Sawa

CEO, OnAudience

Mac Sawa is the CEO of OnAudience.com, a global audience data provider. He works with brands, agencies, and platforms to translate large-scale data into privacy-safe audience segments for programmatic campaigns across international markets. With extensive international experience across the AdTech industry, Mac is recognized for his expertise in programmatic advertising and data-driven marketing.

OnAudience provides audience data across 200+ markets for multi-device targeting across desktop, mobile, CTV/OTT, and DOOH. OnAudience works with agencies, advertisers, brands, and marketers to improve campaign efficiency and deliver measurable results through 3,900+ audience segments , raw data enrichment , OnAudience Curate (curated deals), and AI-driven technology, AI Audiences, which builds custom audiences from a brief in seconds.

https://onaudience.com

Why digital publishing never escaped print economics

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 09:40:36 GMT

Digital publishing has spent 25 years copying the economics of print, and that choice now blocks its ability to compete for advertiser trust and pricing power. The path forward is for publishers to stop selling impression volume and start selling outcomes, where attention, engagement, and contribution define value, says Tomas Forsbäck, CEO and Founder, Readpeak.

Digital publishing has spent 25 years copying the economics of print, and that choice now blocks its ability to compete for advertiser trust and pricing power. When newspapers and magazines started losing their ad money, they tried to recreate print economics online by turning pages into impressions and selling volume instead of scarcity. The model kept publishers afloat for a while, but it tied the open web to volume-based selling as attention fragmented and supply exploded

The path forward is for publishers to stop selling impression volume and start selling outcomes, where attention, engagement, and contribution define value. If they don’t, impression-based buying will keep rewarding junk traffic, wasting spend, and treating premium content like a commodity. Publishers will pay the price through lower CPMs and shrinking margins.

How impression-based selling creates bad outcomes

An outcome simply means charging for what people actually do, not what technically appears on screen. Instead of getting paid because an ad loaded, a publisher earns revenue when a reader takes a meaningful step, like spending time with a branded element, interacting with a product tool, signing up for a newsletter, requesting more information, or booking a test drive. In this model, value follows participation and intent, not mere visibility.

Impression-based selling works in the opposite way.

Impression-based monetisation taught publishers to value delivery over results. To grow revenue, they chased scale, and sales teams sold reach rather than impact. Ad platforms paid as long as an ad appeared on a page.

That logic keeps low-quality traffic alive, from fraud and made-for-advertising sites to accidental clicks, because impressions still trigger payment and advertisers respond by moving budgets elsewhere.

How social media platforms built advertising around performance

Social media platforms escaped impression economics because they never treated impressions as the product. Meta, TikTok, and YouTube may price ads using CPMs, but they run their ad businesses around results.

On TikTok, ads compete directly with videos in the feed. The platform tests new creative immediately. When people engage, TikTok expands reach. When engagement drops, TikTok pulls back distribution.

Meta works the same way. Ads appear in the feed and either gain exposure or fade out. Meta does not make up for weak performance by serving more impressions. It removes ads that don’t work because poor results hurt revenue. Platforms control the advertising loop from identity to response, which lets them cut low-quality supply without losing advertiser spend.

Publishers operate across thousands of independent sites, which fragments supply, weakens identity signals, and limits access to conversion data. When a publisher removes low-quality inventory, revenue drops immediately. Buyers don’t reward that restraint and move budgets to cheaper reach elsewhere. That imbalance explains the deadlock. Platforms can give up volume and gain performance, but publishers give up volume and lose revenue.

Part of the problem sits outside any single publisher’s control. Most open-web advertising still flows through automated auctions built to trade impressions instead of outcomes. Buyers compare inventory based on price and scale before performance ever enters the picture. When one publisher reduces volume or prices against engagement, budgets can move instantly to another site still selling impressions. So long as the buying infrastructure treats impressions as the unit of trade, individual publishers face penalties for moving first.

But the open web is not standing still. A growing class of independent advertising platforms now operates outside traditional buying paths, packaging open-web engagement in ways that let advertisers buy against interaction and contribution rather than raw delivery. These approaches don’t replace programmatic infrastructure, but they show how outcome-based monetisation can work at the publisher level, even within today’s constraints.

How publishers can restore scarcity with outcomes

Restoring scarcity requires changing what gets paid, how inventory gets designed, and how performance gets defined and enforced.

Change what gets paid

Publishers must stop monetising delivery by default. That change will only scale when advertisers demand it, but publishers control whether such products exist at all. Revenue should accrue only when an interaction produces a meaningful signal.

Publishers need to define clear thresholds for what counts as value, such as time spent, interaction, or movement into deeper content. When an ad fails to meet those thresholds, it should generate no revenue. That single rule pushes low-quality traffic out of the business.

Design inventory that can perform

Outcome-based pricing collapses when formats remain interruptive and disposable. Publishers need ad experiences that reward attention because they serve the reader.

A financial news publisher can embed an interactive earnings model inside a company analysis, letting readers test how changes in revenue or costs affect future performance as they read. A health or science publisher can integrate a symptom explainer or risk calculator into a long-form piece, allowing readers to explore scenarios without leaving the article. These formats generate engagement because they deepen understanding rather than interrupt it.

Sell less inventory, not more

Scarcity returns only when publishers accept that some impressions should generate zero revenue. MFA traffic, accidental clicks, and low-intent visits must stop subsidizing the business. Publishers regain pricing power only when they constrain supply intentionally.

Reframe performance for advertisers

Publishers can stop apologizing for the lack of last-click attribution and instead focus on directional accountability. Attention, dwell time, interaction, and progression show impact even when conversion happens elsewhere. Social media platforms already use these measures internally, and publishers can do the same by selling against contribution rather than completion.

Enforce restraint operationally

Outcome-driven monetisation only works when publishers enforce it in practice. That means limiting inventory, reducing refresh, and removing placements that never earn attention. When sales teams get rewarded for contribution rather than volume, publishers can actually control supply and restore scarcity.

A necessary break

Digital publishing did not lose leverage because audiences moved too fast. It lost leverage because its economics stayed still. The open web does not need to replicate platform economics. It needs to rebuild its own, grounded in attention, intent, and measurable contribution.

Tomas Forsbäck

CEO and Founder, Readpeak

Tomas Forsbäck is the founder and CEO of Readpeak, the leading programmatic native advertising platform operating across 10 markets.

www.readpeak.com

Zero-click advertising: when decisions happen without the click

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 10:47:06 GMT

In the early days of digital advertising, the click ruled everything, but that era is disappearing fast. Thrad.ai's CEO Andrea Tortella explores zero-click advertising what replaces the click, what it means to be “legible to machines,” and the power dynamics that emerge when AI becomes the decision maker.

For most of digital advertising’s history, the click was our north star. A user saw an ad, clicked through to a landing page, and we optimised everything around that journey: bids, creative, attribution, even how we designed the web itself.

In the emerging “zero-click” era, that chain is breaking. People are still discovering products and making decisions – but they’re doing it inside AI summaries, chat interfaces and agents that act on their behalf. The ad, the research, and the decision all increasingly happen in one compressed surface, with no explicit visit to a brand’s website in between.

That’s what I mean by zero-click advertising: outcomes without the traditional detour through a page view.

From pages to decision surfaces

In my work building LLM-native ad experiences, I see the same pattern everywhere: the page is no longer the atomic unit of the internet. The “surface” where decisions get made is now a model-mediated environment – a chat thread, an AI assistant, a product-finding agent.

Ask for “running shoes that won’t wreck my knees”, and you might get:

A conversational explanation
A curated short-list of products
A one-tap way to buy

All inside the same interface. The ad, if it exists at all, is more likely to appear as a contextual suggestion or a ranked recommendation than as a banner. The user doesn’t “click out”; they just move from intent to outcome.

For advertisers, that changes three assumptions we’ve relied on for 20 years:

Targeting – from keywords and audiences to understanding intents expressed in natural language.
Measurement – from clicks and last-touch conversion to “assist” and influence inside model-driven journeys.
Real estate – from pages we own to decision surfaces we participate in.

What replaces the click?

If clicks are no longer the main observable signal, we need new primitives for understanding effectiveness. In a zero-click environment, the key questions become:

Did the model consider you? (Were you in the candidate set?)
Did the user engage with your suggestion? (Hovered, expanded, saved, asked
a follow-up, compared you.)
Did a downstream action happen? (Purchase, sign-up, store visit, or even a
softer outcome like adding to a shortlist.)

Some of these signals are inherently probabilistic. We won’t always be able to see every step of the chain – and honestly, that’s not new. View-through conversions, multi-touch attribution and walled gardens have already forced us to live with incomplete visibility. The difference now is that the “middle” of the journey is inside a model we don’t fully control.

The practical response is twofold:

Double down on first-party outcomes. You still need clean, trusted signals at the edge: purchases, subscriptions, in-product events. That’s how you close the loop.
Get comfortable with assist-based measurement. Not every valuable interaction will be a click; some will be a nudge, a ranking boost, a suggestion the user saw but didn’t immediately act on.

Zero-click advertising won’t give us perfect attribution. But it can give us richer intent signals, if we design for them.

Being legible to machines

One uncomfortable truth of this era is that the most important “user” of your content might be an AI system that never sleeps.

That means your brand has to be legible to models as well as to humans:

Structured, up-to-date data. Product feeds, pricing, availability, reviews, policies – all in machine-readable formats that models can query and trust.
Clear, consistent positioning. If your value proposition is muddled for humans, it will be almost incoherent for models. Ambiguity becomes invisibility.
Evidence over hype. Models are trained to favour information that looks grounded: real benchmarks, transparent methodologies, credible sources.

This isn’t about “gaming” AI engines. It’s closer to brand building for a world where your reputation is partially encoded in parametric memory.

Creative for conversations, not feeds

The formats themselves will change. Interruptive rectangles pasted onto content never made sense inside a natural conversation – and users will have even less patience for that in chat or agentic environments.

Good zero-click advertising will feel much closer to:

A relevant suggestion in response to an expressed need
A side-by-side comparison card the user asked for
A tool or workflow step that removes friction (“draft this”, “configure that”, “simulate this scenario”)

In other words, creative becomes helpfulness plus disclosure. Your best performing “ad” may look like a tiny piece of product design living inside someone else’s interface.

The uncomfortable questions

Zero-click advertising also raises real risks. If a small number of models mediate most decisions, bias and concentration of power become systemic issues, not edge cases. Who gets to appear in those suggestion slots? Whose products are never surfaced at all?

We need:

Clear standards for disclosure when a suggestion is paid or commercially influenced
Guardrails against abusive optimisation (for example, exploiting vulnerable intents at the moment of decision)
Industry-wide conversations about fair access for smaller brands, not just whoever can pay the most to be “in the loop”

These aren’t philosophical side notes; they will shape user trust. And trust is the only durable asset in a zero-click world. If people feel the assistant is “selling them out”, they’ll switch it off or go elsewhere.

Where this leaves us

I don’t see zero-click advertising as the end of our industry. I see it as a compression of the funnel. The research, the comparison, the reassurance and the conversion are collapsing into a single, model-mediated moment.

Our job as advertisers, publishers, and builders is to design for that moment:

Make our brands legible to machines
Make our offers genuinely useful in context
Measure influence honestly, even when the path is opaque

Clicks taught us how to optimise for attention. Zero-click will force us to optimise for relevance. And that might be the healthiest reset we’ve had in years.

Andrea Tortella

CEO, Thrad.ai

Andrea Tortella is the co-founder and CEO of Thrad, an AI ad network built for the

zero-click era. He works with AI-native apps, publishers and marketers to design

ad experiences that feel native to chats, agents and copilots rather than bolted on

from legacy channels. Andrea brings a unique perspective on how conversational

AI is reshaping the future of advertising, and has been featured by outlets such as

the WEF and CNBC for his insights on AI-driven marketing.

Thrad is the AI ad network serving native, contextual suggestions inside LLMs,

chatbots and AI agents. It helps AI products generate revenue without

compromising trust, and gives advertisers a way to reach customers at the exact

moment of intent in zero-click journeys. Learn more at:

https://www.thrad.ai

The Top Adtech Events to Attend in 2026

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 10:24:05 GMT

A comprehensive guide to the best conferences, summits and networking opportunities for 2026

The world of adtech, media and marketing never stands still - and neither do we! After the hugely positive response to last year’s guide, we’re back with an even better round-up of the must-attend events to have on your radar for 2026.

And because we love a bit of future-gazing, we asked the team here at The Digital Voice™ what trends and topics will shape conversations next year, and a few clear themes stood out:

Retail media will step into a new phase of maturity; becoming truly omnichannel, powered by AI and driven by retailers using their data for good
CTV will take centre stage, with the home screen becoming prime real estate with smarter, seamless experiences
Transparency and accountability will dominate, as brands face growing pressure to prove authenticity - from ethical supply chains and environmental impact, to the partners they choose
AI will continue to accelerate innovation, but the focus will shift to breaking open the “black box”, creating more ethical and human-centred approaches to automation

Now, we know what you’re really here for… so let’s dive into the events!

As much as we’d love to shout out every incredible conference, summit, dinner, and mixer on the calendar, there are a lot of them. For the full picture, head to our Industry Events Calendar , a free resource designed to make planning your year a whole lot easier. This time around, it includes some shiny new features, including quarterly tabs (less overwhelm!) and regional filters to help you find exactly what fits.

Hosting an event at Cannes Lions week this year?

January

CES 2026

A world-renowned tech event, CES is where innovation meets opportunity on a global stage. With groundbreaking product launches, exciting keynotes and interactive exhibits, CES is a huge hub for adtech professionals eager to stay at the forefront of consumer tech trends.

Date : January 6-9

Location : Las Vegas, USA

Affiliate Summit West

A global gathering for affiliate marketing professionals bringing together thousands of affiliates, advertisers, publishers, networks and tech vendors under one roof. Featuring deep-dive sessions on partnerships and performance tactics, it’s the ideal place to make deals, uncover the next big thing in affiliate and stay ahead of the curve in performance-driven marketing.

Date : January 12-14

Location : Las Vegas, USA

IAB Techtonic

A one-day London event focused on the technological and regulatory forces shaping digital advertising. From addressability to AI assistive tech, the agenda explores how brands and agencies can stay ready for a cookieless world and build modern advertising ecosystems that respect privacy while driving growth.

Date : January 21

Location : London, UK

February

Ecommerce Berlin

Ecommerce Berlin brings together online retail and marketing professionals to explore strategy, operations, customer experience and tech in the rapidly evolving commerce landscape. Expect panels on data-driven marketing, omnichannel optimisation and the infrastructure behind scaling online businesses.

Date : February 17-18

Location : Berlin, Germany

Adzine Connect

Adzine Connect offers a strong German-language forum for digital marketing and adtech practitioners, combining case studies, tech demos and insightful debates. With its finger on the pulse of the DACH region, the event is ideal for anyone looking to understand local market dynamics alongside global ad innovations.

Date : February 26

Location : Düsseldorf, Germany

March

Beeler.tech Base Camp

Set in San Antonio, the Beeler.tech Base Camp caters to marketers, product teams and tech leaders aiming to break silos and drive cross-channel innovation. Expect a mix of workshops, interactive labs and creative sessions focussed on how brand-tech ecosystems can deliver seamless consumer experiences across devices and contexts.

Date : March 1-4

Location : San Antonio, USA

MWC

A heavyweight in the tech event calendar, MWC Barcelona is essential for anyone working at the intersection of mobile and adtech. From exploring the latest developments in mobile advertising, 5G, and AI, to diving into data privacy issues and future innovations, it’s a comprehensive event for those interested in understanding where mobile marketing is headed.

Date : March 2-5

Location : Barcelona, Spain

Performance Marketing World Unlocked

For digital marketers and growth leaders hungry for results, PMW Unlocked delivers a high-energy two-day experience in London. Featuring practical tactics, real-world case studies and forward-looking discussions on AI, media mix and performance measurement, this event is built for those who want actionable takeaways.

Catch our own Julia Linehan in action on Day 1 moderating a panel on agentic AI and how it will change marketing; followed by an unmissable hands-on workshop on brand safety for our industry, looking at clean spend and safe reach.

Date : March 3-4

Location : London, UK

Connected TV World Summit

An event for the TV distribution marketing attracting an international audience, this summit is known for its thought leadership, insights on market context and tech advances. Featuring discussions on data-driven strategies, CTV and the latest tech innovations, it’s a must-attend if you’re looking to capitalise on the shift to connected TV.

Date : March 10-11

Location : London, UK

D3con

With a laser focus on programmatic advertising and future media, this is the place where advertisers, agencies, publishers and adtech providers converge to explore automation, CTV, retail media, AI-driven strategies and the next phase of digital marketing. Structured across an Advertisers Day (for brand side) and a broader conference day (for the full ecosystem), it’s a must-attend for practitioners bridging data, tech and creative.

Date : March 17-18

Location : Hamburg, Germany

AOP Crunch

AOP's Publishing Tech Talk brings together digital publishers over two weeks to provide them with the information they need to grow their businesses and prepare for the future of digital publishing.
Date : March 19

Location : London, UK

Shoptalk Spring

A heavyweight in the retail and commerce sphere, Shoptalk Spring sees more than 10,000 retail, brand and tech leaders discuss the future of commerce. With a strong emphasis on retail media, AI-powered consumer experience, omnichannel transformation and the intersection of advertising and commerce, it’s a brilliant fit for adtech and marketing pros who want to understand how retail is reshaping marketing.

Date : March 24-26

Location : Las Vegas, USA

Advertising Week Europe

A major and much-loved staple in the marketing and advertising calendar, Advertising Week Europe brings together top industry minds to discuss the future of advertising. Explore everything from programmatic to brand storytelling, alongside an array of networking parties and dinners.

Date : April 24-26

Location : London, UK

April

POSSIBLE

MMA Global’s POSSIBLE conference in Miami brings together leading figures in the marketing world to discuss the future of the industry. With cutting-edge tech demos, insightful keynotes and ultra-cool networking on the beach, POSSIBLE ‘25 is sure to be the ultimate conference experience for advertising and marketing professionals alike.

Date : April 27-29

Location : Miami, USA

May

OMR

A vibrant and fast-growing event, OMR is where marketing meets technology in an inspiring environment. With a mix of keynotes from industry leaders, workshops, and interactive sessions, it's a goldmine for adtech professionals looking to stay ahead of digital trends.

Date : May 5-6

Location : Hamburg, Germany

#DMWF

An event designed for brand marketers, agency strategists and tech innovators to explore how data, AI, automation and content are reshaping modern marketing. With multiple tracks covering everything from digital transformation to influencer and affiliate strategies, it’s a go-to event for anyone wanting to understand the full marketing stack.

Date : May 6-7

Location : London, UK

Brand Safety Summit London

As digital advertising faces ever-increasing scrutiny from regulators and brands, the Brand Safety Summit is crucial for those focused on maintaining a secure and trustworthy ad ecosystem. This half-day gathering features speakers from brands, agencies, platforms and tech companies discussing hot topics such as combatting ad fraud, data privacy and maintaining brand integrity online.

Date : May 8

Location : London, UK

Commerce Media Festival

London becomes the epicentre of retail media, commerce, and connected TV at the Commerce Media Festival. With one ticket, you’ll unlock access to three conferences Retail MediaX , CTV Summit and FMCG Summit , set to cover the hottest topics in retail media, FMCG, and streaming, followed by the second annual RMX Awards .

Date: May 14

Location: London, UK

MAU Vegas

Billed as the ‘grandmaster of mobile app marketing conferences’, MAU brings together top app marketers and mobile industry leaders to explore growth strategies in the competitive app economy. With an international audience, MAU offers a chance to explore the latest in mobile adtech and martech, as well as valuable insights into user retention, performance marketing and mobile ad trends.

Date : May 19-21

Location : Las Vegas, UK

June

Affilifest

Step into a world of roller discos, big wheel networking and an electric atmosphere guaranteed with Affilifest 2026 in Margate. Ramping up from a 1, to a 2 day networking event this year, the event is for the UK Affiliate community, with featured attendance from big player brands and publishers.

Date : June 3-4 2026

Location : Margate, UK

SXSW London

Known for its eclectic mix of tech, creativity and innovation, SXSW brings a unique offering to the table. The organisers announced earlier this year their plans to cross the pond and expand to the UK in 2025 - and we are hype! There’s no doubt there will be much excitement and buzz around this event, and it’s one to add to the essential list for creative and tech innovators alike.

Date : June 1-6

Location : London, UK

Programmatic Pioneers Summit

This event is a trailblazer in the world of programmatic advertising and is essential for those serious about mastering automation, data, and AI in adtech. With in-depth case studies, panel discussions and real-world insights, it’s the perfect setting for learning how to optimise campaigns and drive business growth.

Date : June 2-3

Location : London, UK

Cannes Lions

Cannes Lions is a legendary event for the creative and advertising industries and with good reason - for adtech specifically, it’s a fantastic opportunity to see how data, tech, and creativity converge to create award-winning campaigns. Alongside the jam-packed festival schedule, there are many mixers, seminars, breakfasts, and dinners, organised by various third parties throughout the week, and this is where the real networking happens. It’s truly unmissable!

Date : June 22-26

Location : Cannes, France

July

iPX 2026

Don’t miss this one-day event where leaders in the partnership economy come together to connect, innovate, and drive business growth. From day to night, you can expect plenty of fun and inspiring opportunities to network and mingle with leading brands, affiliates, world-class publishers, tech partners, and agency partners.

Date : TBC

Location : London, UK

MAD//Fest

This dynamic event blends creativity, innovation and technology, and offers a valuable opportunity for adtech professionals to discover bold news ideas and strategies driving the future of marketing and advertising. With cutting-edge talks, live challenges and interactive sessions, MAD//Fest delivers on providing an event experience that is insightful, valuable and heaps of fun at the same time.

Date : July 7-9

Location : London, UK

Affiliate Summit East

The second installment of Affiliate Summit, this time on the east coast. Expect more deep-dive sessions on partnerships and performance tactics, another great opportunity to make deals, uncover the next big thing in affiliate and stay ahead of the curve in performance-driven marketing.

Date : July 27-28

Location : New York, USA

September

ATS London

Another gathering for our programmatic friends! ATS London offers a deep dive into data-driven advertising, providing valuable knowledge on programmatic strategies and the future of ad operations. Featuring discussions on the very latest topics and trends, ATS brings together industry leaders to explore the challenges and opportunities in programmatic.

Date : September 15

Location : London, UK

DMEXCO

As we say goodbye to the summer months, we say hello to autumn with another huge event for the advertising industry. DMEXCO combines exhibitions, keynotes and workshops to deliver a comprehensive look at the future of adtech. From AI and programmatic to data-driven strategies, it’s an essential event for those wanting to explore the latest innovations and trends shaping the digital landscape.

Date : September 23-24

Location : Cologne, Germany

Technology for Marketing

One of the UK’s leading marketing and AI events for B2B and B2C professionals, this is where the latest martech, creative tools and media-technology ideas converge. Attendees will find over 200 solution providers plus insight-driven sessions that help marketers level-up their tech stack, streamline operations and stay future-ready.

Date : September 23-24

Location : London, UK

Programmatic I/O New York

Programmatic I/O is the go-to event for anyone working in programmatic advertising. Offering deep insights into automation, data and ad buying with a variety of engaging session formats including workshops, case studies and panel discussions, it is the ideal forum if you’re looking to optimise your programmatic strategies and stay competitive in an ever-evolving market.

Date : September 29-30

Location : New York, USA

October

AOP Publishing Tech Talk

AOP's Publishing Tech Talk brings together digital publishers over two weeks to provide them with the information they need to grow their businesses and prepare for the future of digital publishing.

Date : October 7-8 & 14-15

Location : London, UK

Advertising Week New York

Originally launched in 2004, Advertising Week New York set the foundation for the series of Advertising Week events that followed (including the Europe edition we included in April). This flagship event combines education, inspiration, and networking attracting a huge global audience of advertisers and marketers alike. For adtech professionals it’s a great place to explore the latest innovations and hear from top thought-leaders on the future of the industry.

Date : October 5-8

Location : New York, USA

PI Live

Widely regarded as one of the top performance marketing events, PI Live delivers not just high-quality content but also a sense of community. It covers everything from affiliate marketing to programmatic and influencer marketing, with a focus on driving measurable results.

Date : October 19-21

Location : London, UK

November

Web Summit Lisbon

Web Summit Lisbon is one of the largest tech conferences in the world gathering top industry voices to discuss the future of technology, including - among much other AI, sustainability and B2B tech-focused content - adtech’s role in shaping the digital landscape. This is the event where adtech meets the broader tech ecosystem to discuss the future of digital advertising.

Date : November 10-13

Location : Lisbon, Portugal

Beeler.tech Base Camp

A staple in the calendar for the European adtech scene, Beeler.tech Base Camp Lisbon aims to break silos and drive cross-channel innovation. You’ll see a mix of workshops, interactive labs and creative sessions focussed on how brand-tech ecosystems can deliver seamless consumer experiences across devices and contexts.

Date : November 8-11

Location : Lisbon, Portugal

Programmatic Pioneers Connect

For advertisers, agencies, publishers and tech vendors focused on programmatic, automation, data and ad-buying evolution, Programmatic Pioneers Connect offers a deep dive into the mechanics and future of programmatic media. Real world case studies, expert panels and hands-on take-aways make this event especially relevant if you’re trying to optimise campaigns and unlock smarter automation.

Date : November 4-5

Location : London, UK

Videoweek Roadmap

A boutique but high-value one-day conference, VideoWeek Roadmap sets out what’s next for video and CTV advertising. Positioned for senior media buyers, ad-tech professionals and brand advertisers, the event focuses on emerging trends like AI in media, CTV fragmentation, budget shifts and how new business models are taking shape.

Date : November TBC

Location : London, UK

December

Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit

A more practical addition to this list, the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit focuses on solving the challenges of programmatic marketing, delivering solutions for adtech and media professionals. From ad-buying optimisation to brand safety, this event offers valuable insight into the programmatic space, making it an essential stop for anyone working in the world of automated advertising.

Date : December 1-3

Location : New Orleans, USA

The Future of TV Advertising

A flagship gathering for the television advertising industry. Expect big-picture themes around streaming, addressable inventory, cross-screen measurement and how tech is reshaping premium video investment. It’s a must-attend if you want to understand where TV sits at the nexus of creativity and performance.

Date : December TBC

Location : London, UK

Don’t forget you can access the 2026 Industry Events collated by The Digital Voice™ for a global list of conferences, summits, mixers and more. We keep this resource up to date throughout the year; if you’d like to see your event included, complete this quick form and we’ll get you added to the list.

What can advertisers do to avoid AI Bias in 2025?

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 11:06:45 GMT

Artificial intelligence has revolutionised advertising, helping publishers and brands create, distribute and monetise content with speed and efficiency. But as publishers and advertisers adopt AI at increasing speed across 2025, a critical issue hides behind the hype: unintended bias in AI systems.

What is AI bias in advertising?

In advertising, AI systems process vast qualities of consumer data to decide who to target, when, and with what message.

Because AI learns from historic data, it risks replicating and amplifying human prejudices, whether by unrepresenting demographics in creative, excluding audience segments, or reinforcing stereotypes in GenAI content.

How does AI bias affect publishers?

For advertisers and publishers, stakes are high. Biased AI outputs can damage audience trust, exclude valuable demographics and weaken long-term brand loyalty. Advertising shapes perception, culture and opportunities. If care isn’t taken to avoid AI bias, it threatens both social impact and commercial outcomes.

So how can advertisers stay ethical in the AI era? Here are four essential advertiser strategies.

How can publishers avoid bias when using AI?

1. Focus on Transparency

Consumers want to know how their data is being used. By prioritising transparency in AI processes from data collection to targeting decisions, publishers can reduce bias, empower better decision making, and build stronger audience trust. Transparency is both an ethical and a competitive advantage.

2. Audit and Diversify Data

AI is only as fair as the data it’s trained on. Advertisers and data collectors should:

Audit data regularly to identify and remove bias

Diversify datasets to reflect current and changing consumer demographics and behaviours

Work with ethical data providers, prioritising partners with fair collection practices

Look for for AI tools that are built with fairness in mind to lower the risk of biased outputs, such as Brandtech Group’s Pencil .

3. Keep it Human

AI can process at scale, but algorithms cannot replace human judgement. Campaigns need to be overseen with a critical human eye, by people with diverse understandings of the social impact and implications of their decisions.

4. Think Contextual

As cookies become less and less relevant to targeting, we have a unique opportunity to embrace contextual targeting , which minimises the risk of perpetuating biases present in data. By aligning ads with relevant content instead of relying solely on behavioral data, publishers can reach wider and more diverse audiences, while reducing the risk of perpetuating systematic bias.

And remember… AI bias in advertising is not a side issue

It’s a defining ethical challenge of our industry in days to come. Left unchecked, artificial intelligence in advertising risks excluding audiences, damaging credibility, and eroding trust.

As publishers and advertisers, we hold the power to shape how people see themselves in the world, and AI sits at the heart of that responsibility.

By leading with human oversight, making fairness and transparency a prerequisite to AI use, we can set a new standard and prove AI can stand for progress rather than prejudice. The choice is ours, and it's one the industry can’t afford to get wrong.

Want more insights on AI in publishing and advertising? Explore Adtech Juice’s Categories for more on Artificial Intelligence and Advertiser Strategies.

Adtech tool hacks: hidden features you’re probably not using (but should be)

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 10:31:29 GMT

Most of us spend hours inside adtech platforms every week, but how often do we really use all the features they offer?

Buried behind dashboards and drop-downs are features that can save time, stretch budgets, and uncover smarter targeting opportunities.

We dug into the lesser-known side of the tools you already use, from GA4 to Meta Ads Manager, to surface a few power moves the pros rely on. (Want to know more about terms in this article? Check out our Adtech Glossary. )

1. Google DV360 - custom affinity segments

What it does:
Custom Affinity audiences let you build hyper-specific interest segments using URLs, apps, or search data, instead of relying only on Google’s pre-baked affinity groups.

Why it matters:
This gives you finer control over who sees your ads. You can mix signals (say, URLs and apps) to reach very specific intent clusters like “users who browse sneaker blogs and run-tracking apps”.

Hack it:
Use your own first-party data (e.g. converters or high-value site visitors) as signals rather than fixed targets. With Optimised Targeting, DV360 treats those audiences as “hints” to find new users who behave similarly.

Watch out for:
Once a Custom Affinity segment is created, it can’t be edited, so plan your inputs carefully.

2. Meta Ads Manager - A/B test tool

What it does:
Meta’s Experiments interface lets you run clean A/B tests without messy overlap between audiences.

Why it matters:
Manual campaign duplication often leads to the same person seeing both versions of an ad, contaminating results. Meta’s built-in A/B tool avoids that.

Hack it:
Run tests on one variable at a time, creative, placement, or audience, and set a minimum seven-day test window to let delivery stabilise. For smaller audiences, this can make or break statistical validity.

Pro tip:
After the test, manually duplicate the winning variant into a new live campaign. Meta’s tool stops test variants once the experiment ends.

3. LinkedIn Campaign Manager - Matched Audiences

What it does:
Upload your contact lists, website visitors, or company names to create Matched Audiences, then layer on LinkedIn’s job and industry filters for precision B2B targeting.

Why it matters:
Titles and seniority filters alone can be blunt. Matched Audiences help sharpen reach and power account-based marketing (ABM) strategies that go after decision-makers, not just demographics.

Hack it:
Use exclusion lists to avoid showing ads to people who’ve already converted, and clean your data to improve match rates. You can also build lookalike audiences from your matched lists to scale efficiently.

4. The Trade Desk – Koa AI recommendations

What it does:
Inside The Trade Desk’s Kokai platform, Koa AI provides real-time recommendations, suggesting bid multipliers, pacing adjustments, and audience expansions.

Why it matters:
Rather than manually tweaking bids or budgets, Koa evaluates campaign data across thousands of dimensions to optimise spend.

Hack it:
Start small. Let AI handle one lever, like pacing, before handing over full control. Feed it strong value signals (e.g. conversion data) so it learns what success looks like for your business.

Watch out for:
If your input data is weak, Koa can over-optimise for short-term wins (low CPMs, high CTRs) at the expense of volume.

Learn more here

5. Google Analytics 4 - exploration reports

What it does:
GA4’s Explorations feature gives you custom funnel, pathing, and segmentation tools beyond the default dashboard.

Why it matters:
It’s a sandbox for deep dives. You can visualise user paths, identify drop-off points, or build funnels around micro-events like scrolls, clicks, or add-to-cart actions.

Hack it:
Use the Segment Overlap report to see how different audiences intersect (e.g. email subscribers who also purchase via mobile). Combine it with Path Analysis to map exactly where conversions leak.

Pro tip:
Chain multiple explorations. Start with Path, then drill down into Funnels or Cohorts for richer behavioural insight.

The big picture

Adtech evolves fast, but most campaigns still run on autopilot; the same audience templates, the same bidding strategies, the same “safe” reports.

The real edge often hides in these advanced features:

Filters most people scroll past
AI recommendations that sit idle
Testing methods nobody has time to try

In short: you’re only as strong as the tools you know how to use.

What Brands Miss About Bilingual Gen Z Audiences (and How Data-Driven Storytelling Can Be Their Secret Weapon)

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 06:51:19 GMT

Reaching the right audience is about precision, nuance, and storytelling that resonates. In this article, Gerardo Ramirez, Head of Ops and Growth of Relevant+, dives deep into the US Hispanic audience and shows how data-driven storytelling can unlock powerful connections. The lessons apply globally: whether you’re targeting a niche or a mainstream segment, weaving insight with creativity is what makes campaigns truly click.

Bilingual Gen Z is one of the most influential, fastest-growing segments in the United States, shaping cultural trends that extend far beyond their own communities. Yet for all their cultural and economic influence, this audience remains misunderstood. Bilingual and bicultural programming is driving engagement rates up to six times higher than industry benchmarks. According to Santiago Solutions Group , half of Hispanic Gen Z often use Spanglish with family and friends, compared to 40% of Millennials and roughly 24% of Gen Xers and Boomers. They actively seek out content that reflects their dual identity across streaming, music, and advertising, but language alone is only part of the equation.

Translation Isn’t the Same as Connection

Where many brands miss the mark is by focusing narrowly on translation, taking an English ad and rendering it into Spanish word for word, without consideration for humor, cultural nuance, platform dynamics, IRL and online cross-over or real-world touchpoints and generational gaps, your grandparents, vs parents vs millennials are not all the same.

The gaps go beyond language. This generation’s media habits are shaped by a cultural context that is often ignored, seamlessly moving between quoting Bad Bunny lyrics in Spanglish, sharing memes that blend cultural nuance, and bingeing both English-language thrillers and Spanish-language comedies without skipping a beat. Campaigns that fail to reflect this complexity risk feeling one-dimensional, while those that tap into shared cultural references, inside jokes, and timely moments send a more powerful message, we see you, and we are you.

Culture First, Channels Second

Brands also miss opportunities by underestimating the importance of where and how this audience engages. Digital and mobile-first, Hispanic Gen Z lives in spaces that are interactive, participatory, and community-driven, with engagement peaking during cultural tentpoles like Latin music festivals or moments of collective pride. Yet many campaigns still rely on outdated channels, generic creative, or miss the opportunity to connect in person at events that matter most to them.

The Multicultural Silo Problem

Organizational structures often compound the problem. In many companies, Hispanic outreach is confined to a siloed “multicultural” team with limited budget and influence, separated from the general market strategy despite Hispanic Gen Z actively shaping what “mainstream” culture looks like. And even when the work is done well, the proof of performance is too often overlooked. The data already shows that ads blending language, cultural cues, and relevant touchpoints outperform monolingual creativity on relevance, trust, and purchase intent, yet those results rarely lead to sustained, scaled investment.

Data is Culture’s Cheat Code

This is where data-driven storytelling becomes the ultimate differentiator. With third-party cookies disappearing, first-party data has become the most valuable tool for understanding and reaching bilingual Gen Z. It can reveal language preferences, platform behaviors, content formats that spark engagement, and cultural moments that drive spikes in activity. Imagine not only knowing that bilingual memes outperform monolingual ones by 40%, but also understanding that engagement peaks during Latin music festival season or around major sporting events. That insight is not just information, it is a strategic advantage. Technology can unify audience data from streaming, social, and owned channels, surfacing patterns that inform both creative and media strategies. Without the infrastructure to interpret these insights, brands risk missing the exact moments when their message could matter most. Data without action is just numbers; data paired with cultural fluency becomes a roadmap. And brands that excel with bilingual Gen Z follow this roadmap. They micro-segment instead of treating the audience as one block. They map creative to cultural moments, from concerts and global sporting events to niche online trends like the coffee rave subculture. They maintain a consistent bilingual voice across channels, adapting format but never diluting identity. And they test relentlessly, comparing bilingual, monolingual, and hybrid creative to see what truly resonates, then scaling the winner.

Brands that get it right understand this intrinsically, because they weave in authentic cultural cues instead of relying on language swaps alone. Take Netflix’s bilingual originals like Narcos and Gentefied, or Spotify’s hybrid playlists, even Relevant+ “Beats Per Mile” as a few examples of campaigns that fully integrate cultural depth. These brands are not just speaking in two languages, they are speaking in two worlds at once, across the right channels, at the right moments, with the right tone.

The Future Is Bilingual. The Future Is Culture

The future of marketing to bilingual Gen Z is not about choosing between languages but recognizing that this audience is multidimensional, living fully in the space where both cultures coexist and where real conversations happen. They do not switch identities depending on the setting; they embody them simultaneously. The brands that meet them there, armed with the right data, cultural fluency, nuanced creative, and the right media partners who understand how to turn insight into impact, will create work that is not only seen but remembered, fostering the kind of long-term affinity and loyalty that extends far beyond a single campaign.

Gerardo Ramirez

Head of Ops and Growth at Relevant+

Gerry Ramirez is the Head of Operations and Growth at Relevant+, where he leads cross-functional teams, drives organizational scale, and helps shape how to deliver impact across platforms and partnerships. A culture-forward expert with over a decade of experience, specializing in building systems that connect brands to multicultural audiences across the digital landscape, helping startups grow to $60MM+ in revenue, delivering award-winning campaigns for brands like Coca-Cola and Capital One, and shaping ecosystems that reflect where culture is going.

Raise Your Hand If You Game – Everyone Is a Gamer

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 06:33:37 GMT

Amit Monheit, Co-founder & CEO of Odeeo, dives into the popular world of gaming from who's playing to where they're doing it, and what advertisers are missing out on if they don't tap into this market.

For years, the image of a “gamer” was fixed: a teenager in a dark room, controller in hand, isolated from the world.

That picture no longer holds. Gaming has become one of the most universal digital behaviors across all age groups, and older adults are leading the charge. According to AARP, 36.6% of adults aged 45 and up play games digitally, and 84% of them choose mobile as their platform of choice. Nearly one-third of all U.S. gamers are now over 50.

It’s time for advertisers to rethink who they picture when they say “gamer.”

The Stereotype Is Outdated

Mobile gaming is not just for Gen Z or millennials. It’s part of everyday life for millions of older adults. AARP research shows that players 50+ spend an average of 12 hours a week gaming, up from just 8.5 hours a few years ago.

And this isn’t passive dabbling. Among mobile gamers aged 65+, 22% play daily, double the rate of 15–24 year-olds. What was once a niche hobby has become a mainstream habit.

Why They Play: Relaxation, Sharpness, Stress Relief

Older gamers aren’t chasing leaderboards or streaming marathons on Twitch. They play for reasons that are deeply human, according to Ipsos :

79% say they play to relax
78% to stay mentally sharp
71% to reduce stress

In other words, gaming has become today’s crossword puzzle, meditation break, and TV unwind, all rolled into one. It’s a ritual for wellness and connection.

For advertisers, this creates a powerful cue: campaigns that align with positivity, relaxation, and mental engagement will resonate far more than ads that disrupt or overwhelm.

What Advertisers Are Missing

Despite their scale, 70% of gamers 50+ feel games aren’t made with them in mind, and 71% say they don’t see themselves represented, according to Axios . That disconnect is a lost opportunity.

Brands that acknowledge older players authentically, without stereotypes, can win attention and trust in an audience that is both highly engaged and underserved. And the channel to do it isn’t pre-roll video or intrusive pop-ups. It’s formats that fit seamlessly into the experience.

Everyone Is a Gamer

The evolution of gaming’s audience should push the advertising industry to evolve with it. When one-third of U.S. gamers are over 50, the question is no longer “Are they gamers?” , it’s “How do we meet them with respect?”

For brands willing to update their definition of a gamer, the opportunity is massive: attention, connection, and outcomes across an audience that is only growing.

Amit Monheit

Co-founder & CEO at Odeeo

Amit Monheit is a seasoned digital leader with over 15 years of experience in sales, advertising, and performance marketing. He specializes in monetization techniques and global growth strategies.

At Odeeo, Amit drives the business strategy and leads end-to-end execution, collaborating with investors, advisors, sales, and product teams. Previously, he was Head of Growth & Monetization at Audioburst and held key roles at ironSource, including Head of New Business Development and VP of Strategic Sales & Global Business Development at DealPly.

Amit holds a B.A. in Business Administration (Marketing) from Reichman University (2004-2007).

Odeeo is building the future of audio advertising. Founded in 2021 by a pair of ad tech veterans, Odeeo is creating solutions for publishers to unlock the fastest-growing segment of marketing spend, while empowering advertisers to reach mobile audiences at scale. Odeeo is based in Tel Aviv with a rapidly growing team across Europe and the US, and is backed by notable investors like Play Ventures and Heracles.

Visit http://www.odeeo.io to learn more about how audio is revolutionizing in-app advertising or find Odeoo on LinkedIn .

Programmatic Relationship Advice: Don’t Let Your Partner Eat Your Business

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 12:14:13 GMT

By David Nelson, co-founder and CEO, Limelight Inc.

In business, the line between partner and competitor can be surprisingly thin. A wholesaler might one day decide to bypass retailers and sell direct. A marketing agency could launch a product that rivals one it once promoted. These scenarios are often theoretical and rarely pursued outright.

But what happens when the conflict isn’t hypothetical? When a company supports your business on one side and quietly competes with it on the other, on an ongoing basis? That’s not just a thought experiment. It’s a common, ongoing reality in the programmatic advertising world.

Here’s an example, plucked not entirely at random. Let’s say a programmatic ad platform signs a contract with you, a publisher or ad network, to host your digital advertising environment on a white-label basis – supplying all the necessary infrastructure, support, dashboard and analytics to underpin your profitable ad business.

But then, in parallel, it proceeds to sell the same inventory you’re selling through its own trading arm – at a discount. So it’s supporting your business, driving your revenues – but also competing with you and taking those revenues for itself. Still glad you signed up?

The underbelly of programmatic has always had issues like these. Right now, this double game appears to be a remarkably common state of affairs among ad platforms and their clients, and I think it’s time we all looked at it a bit harder.

Numerous programmatic operators (yes, a handful of the big names) offer a white-label platform for those who want to trade media, while trading the same media themselves – not just blurring, but thoroughly erasing the distinction between supportive platform and ruthless competitor.

The plot gets thicker

Sometimes, there’s more to the play than just quiet competition. Frequently, a programmatic platform will give new suppliers a little extra-contractual bonus when they sign up: we’ll buy your media from you, we’ll provide you with demand, we’ll give you spend. Good news. But over time, that spend often dwindles. And as it does, the supplier’s ability to trade in the way it once did dwindles along with it.

That’s because, in the meantime, the platform has been consistently selling the same inventory for less – which it can afford to do, because it is charging the poor supplier a tech fee. And that fee is clearly removed from the equation if the platform trades the inventory on its own.

Before long, the supplier finds that the partner who came aboard to give them an exciting new platform has in fact stolen, blocked and eroded their business and made off with their relationships.

Is any of this illegal? Not necessarily. But speaking personally, if I was licensing a platform and I found that platform was competing with me, I would question very seriously the value of that partnership. So what would I advise?

Ask the obvious question: Before you make any agreement, ask your platform if they’re trading media too. If the answer is yes, ask who they’re trading media with. Is it the same people you want to trade media with? One of the major DSPs had a banner at Cannes that said something like, ‘You have lots of competitors. Your tech partner should not be one of them.’ And it’s absolutely true, if you are licensing tech from somebody, your interests should be the most important thing in that relationship. That means no side hustles that conflict directly with your interests.

Know who you’re dealing with: Companies that trade media first and foremost, and offer their platform on their side, are media exchanges. When you sign up to use their white-label platform – even when it’s marketed under another name – you may well be signing up with the trading entity itself. Check your contract. If they’re a media trader, they will probably compete with you.

Don’t get drawn into semantics: So, your programmatic partner is openly wearing two hats, and you invite them to explain how it all works – they have access to your data, after all. Now, beware of offering them space to wriggle out here. They may well tell you that everything is properly siloed, that client teams and trading teams don’t have access to each other’s data. Maybe that’s true. All the same, is it appropriate to pay a partner to support your business when they are also competing with you?

There may be certain legitimate caveats. For the first six months of our business, we traded media, simply because we needed to test and trial, to make sure the software we built was working properly. Then we shut it down, because why would we compete with our own clients?

So, what are the benefits of a platform that doesn’t compete with you?

This is an important question, because a platform that is turning its back on substantial trading revenues, and isn’t plundering your business, may charge you a slightly higher tech fee.

What you should get for that is wholehearted support, and the ability to be entirely transparent with your platform partner. When you are able to share with them exactly what you’re doing, they can help you strategise, they can lean into your business, they can give you more of the insights and assistance you need.

The financial upside isn’t only protection against lost revenue to your frenemy; it’s also about capturing more revenue because you’re getting more support, more intelligence, more familiarity with your business.

We’re often asked, ‘if you don’t trade media, how do you help your clients grow?’ It’s a fair question, and the answer is that while we don’t do their business development per se, we do actively support the formation of trading relationships between our partners. This type of introduction-based commercial growth is sustainable and 100% owned by our partners. And that’s the point: putting our partners first, always.

In summary, it’s not right that any partner should be incentivised to undercut and disenfranchise you, or steal your revenues. We think this odd duality in the market is something that merits more attention – and we’d urge you to give it some more of yours.

Also posted in Advertising Week

The End of Retail Media’s Bottom-Funnel Illusion

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 12:10:46 GMT

Amir Rasekh, Managing Director at Nectar360, argues that retail media has outgrown its bottom-funnel stereotype. With AI-powered platforms like Pollen and unified customer views, retail media is now driving full-funnel strategies, from awareness to loyalty, while reshaping how brands and retailers collaborate.

Retail media cannot be called a scrappy newcomer in the ad ecosystem any longer. It was once positioned as a last-mile sales channel, but the industry has seen it become a strategic nerve centre for how brands engage consumers across the journey. And AI is turning the category from a performance tool into a decision-making engine.

“AI is now playing a central and transformative role in retail media, by turning vast amounts of insight into real-time actionable marketing decisions ,” says Amir Rasekh, Managing Director of Nectar360, Sainsbury’s data insights platform.

“It is enabling marketers to analyse behaviours, optimise targeting and adjust campaigns dynamically across channels as well as access real time reporting.”

The launch of Nectar360’s Pollen platform reflects this shift, using AI to streamline segmentation, creative optimisation, and performance measurement. The result is less guesswork and more precision.

The Unification Problem

For years, retail media promised omnichannel impact but was hamstrung by fragmentation. Data sat in silos, online, offline, and offsite, and brands often struggled to connect them into a cohesive view.

Rasekh is blunt about the solution: “To truly unify online, offline and offsite experiences in retail media, brands need a single view that brings together omnichannel campaigns.” Without it, campaigns risk being efficient in pockets but blind to the bigger journey.

The industry is at a tipping point where unification is the prerequisite for making retail media a long-term growth driver rather than a tactical lever.

Misunderstood Muscle

Despite the hype, retail media still suffers from a branding problem. Many advertisers see it only as a bottom-funnel play, good for coupons, sponsored search, and nudges at the point of sale.

That’s shortsighted, Rasekh argues: “While it plays a strong role in influencing purchase decisions close to point of sale, this view really underestimates retail media’s potential.”

With first-party insights and closed-loop measurement, retail media can do much more, build awareness, drive consideration, and nurture loyalty across physical and digital touchpoints.

This reframe could prove pivotal as advertisers look for brand-safe environments with better accountability than open web buys or social platforms.

The Trust Equation

As retailers become media owners, the question is how to balance monetisation with customer trust.

“Advertising should feel additive, engaging and seamlessly integrated,” says Rasekh. “Striking the right balance between media activation and customer experience is what builds deeper loyalty and long-term growth.”

Here lies retail media’s paradox: the very data that makes it powerful can also undermine it if handled without care. Consumers expect personalisation, but they’re less forgiving of experiences that feel intrusive or transactional. Brands and retailers who get this balance wrong risk undermining the credibility of the channel itself.

From Transactions to Partnerships

Perhaps the most exciting shift is in the brand–retailer relationship. Historically transactional (brands bought inventory, retailers provided access) AI is creating room for strategic collaboration.

“As AI becomes more deeply embedded in planning and measurement tools, collaboration is naturally going to transform,” says Rasekh. Shared insights, unified reporting, and predictive modelling allow both sides to align on growth goals rather than fight over margins. The winners will be those who co-create experiences rather than trade placements.

Retail Media’s Reinvention

The narrative around retail media is evolving. Once dismissed as the last stop before checkout, it is now repositioning itself as one of the most strategic levers in modern marketing, powered by AI, underpinned by trust, and elevated by deeper collaboration.

“Retail media is no longer just about sales,” Rasekh notes. “It’s about creating meaningful connected experiences through the entire customer journey.”

That sentiment may define the sector’s next act: from optimising impressions to orchestrating intelligence and turning retail media into the connective tissue of customer experience.

Also posted in MartechVibe

Five key shifts that changed everything in programmatic ads

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 10:13:34 GMT

European adtech innovator Preciso is celebrating five years as a leader in the busy global programmatic advertising sector. So it’s a timely moment for Larraine Criss, Chief Operating Officer at the company, to take a moment to share five major shifts in the programmatic ads sector since 2020 and also what lies ahead…

Preciso’s launch in 2020 coincided with a massive shift in consumer behaviour, at a time when e-commerce was accelerating rapidly.

Since then, we’ve grown from a team of 35 to over 70 talented individuals working across six countries, and we’re now a leading RTB platform in Europe for small businesses, with a strong presence in China, too.

So, this month marks five years of Preciso, and what a journey it’s been. As we celebrate this milestone, it feels like the perfect moment to reflect on how dramatically the programmatic advertising landscape has evolved during the same period.

Beyond our own growth story, we’ve had a front-row seat to some fundamental changes that have reshaped the entire industry. Here are the five biggest shifts we’ve seen during our short lifetime.

1. Mobile advertising overtook desktop

The biggest change has been the complete flip in desktop versus mobile advertising.

Back in 2020, about 60% of programmatic activity was still happening on desktop, with mobile making up maybe 30-40%. Today, mobile accounts for around 80%.

This isn’t just about numbers, though; mobile users also behave completely differently. They’re constantly checking, scrolling, and moving between apps and websites. Everything happens faster, and you’ve got seconds to grab attention, not minutes.

For us as advertisers, this meant rethinking everything. The creative that worked on desktop simply didn’t cut it on mobile, so the targeting strategies had to change.

Even the way we measure success has had to evolve. That shift from one device to another fundamentally altered the entire landscape for good.

2. Native advertising went mainstream

We’ve also seen a major shift towards native advertising in the last half-decade. Unlike banner ads that stick out like a sore thumb, native ads blend into the content people are already reading or watching. But here’s the catch: native is much harder to get right. With display advertising, you could change the product recommendations in real time, rotate different banners as people browsed.

But native doesn’t work this way. You get one shot to nail the message before it goes live.

This is where machine learning became crucial for us. Our algorithms can now predict the best content, the right product to show, and the perfect messaging before the ad ever appears. Our Ultima platform handles this new complexity, but it took us years as an industry to get it right.

3. Cloud computing opened up new possibilities

The third big change has been what cloud technology can actually do now. We were one of the first companies in Europe to use Google’s Bigtable, and the difference in what’s possible today versus 2020 is night and day.

We can now process data that would have been impossible to handle before, both in terms of cost and technical capability. This means we can make better bidding decisions in real time, learn from millions of interactions, and optimise campaigns as they run through our Smart-Bid Platform . We’ve built a strong machine learning team, including a partnership with the University of Kerala’s digital division. Five years ago, we relied on external consultants for this kind of work. Now we have the expertise in-house, and the cloud infrastructure to support it.

4. E-commerce growth accelerated everything

The pandemic changed the way people shop, supercharging e-commerce in ways nobody expected. People who had never bought anything online were suddenly ordering everything, from groceries to furniture.

This created massive opportunities for programmatic advertising. We’ve seen Chinese companies scaling globally, but also Indian businesses and others following the same path. Cross-border e-commerce has become huge, with companies seeking to reach customers in completely different markets.

Our integrations with Shopify and other major e-commerce platforms like Magento, WooCommerce and BigCommerce have been crucial here. Small businesses can now download our app and immediately access sophisticated programmatic capabilities.

5. Programmatic became accessible to everyone

The fifth shift is one we’re particularly proud of at Preciso: making programmatic advertising work for businesses of all sizes. In 2020, this technology was really only available to big companies with large budgets and technical teams.

We’ve changed that. We removed minimum spend requirements and built platforms that don’t require a computer science degree to use. A small business can now access the same targeting and optimisation tools that enterprise brands use.

In China, this shift is even more pronounced. What we’d call a “small” client there often has over 1,000 employees. But the principle is the same: programmatic technology should be available to any business that can benefit from it, not just the biggest players in the market.

What’s next for programmatic?

These five changes have completely reshaped programmatic advertising. Mobile dominance, native advertising, cloud computing power, e-commerce growth, and making programmatic accessible to all businesses have created the foundation for what comes next. We’re constantly building on these shifts while anticipating the next frontiers of advertising such as clickless search and agentic AI. We’re also working on new products, moving beyond our advertiser focus to include solutions specifically for publishers.

If the last five years have shown us anything, it’s that we can expect even faster developments between now and 2030, and we can’t wait.

Also posted in Mediashotz

How to maximise ROAS by embracing programmatic native advertising

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:18:33 GMT

As the adtech supply chain gets more convoluted and obscure, and ad blindness is becoming a significant problem, brands are looking for ways to build campaigns that cut through the noise, engage consumers and provide ROAS. Dynamic retargeting and native ads are two AI-driven solutions that do just that, so let’s take a look at two companies that embraced this tech to drive impressive results.

Quick Case Study #1: How a leading mother-and-baby brand used dynamic retargeting ads to increase CTR by 48%, and ROAS by 175%

Founded in 2018, the one-stop mother-and-baby brand offers wearable breast pumps, nursing bras, pregnancy pillows, baby monitors, and a broad variety of related accessories. The company serves around 4.5 million mothers in more than 60 countries globally.

BEFORE: Emotive storytelling

The business was looking to turbocharge their programmatic advertising performance – and get ahead of the competition – by implementing dynamic retargeting and acquiring new audience segments. The aim was to increase ROAS, and the brand needed a solution capable of optimizing full-funnel performance, to drive impactful results.

Historically, the business’s marketing efforts leaned heavily on its storytelling, with a focus on empowerment, comfort and emotional appeal. It wanted to maintain this narrative, while driving greater ROAS and reaching new customers and segments.

AFTER: Data-centric technology for enhanced performance

With the help of adtech platform, Preciso, the mother-and-baby brand doubled down on data-centric technology to enhance the performance of its digital advertising.

It integrated AI-driven, advanced retargeting tech with a focus on awareness and acquisition across a range of verticals, including:

Parenting
Women's Health
Health & Fitness – Nutrition
Family & Parenting
Shopping
Technology – Consumer Electronics

Key to the success of the campaign was targeting niche audiences. By using a combination of static, native and dynamic custom formats, the brand re-engaged its audiences with personalised messages that were tailored to their specific stage in the funnel. Real-time optimisation was used to develop custom strategies that continued to increase ad performance over the course of the campaign.

RESULTS: ROAS increase of 175%

The dynamic retargeting and exploration of new, niche audience segments produced fantastic results for the brand’s December 2024 campaign, which brought in three times more revenue than the company’s October 2024 campaign.

The dynamic retargeting and acquisition campaigns also contributed an additional 9978 sales. The tailored strategy also performed wonders for the brand’s site traffic too, driving 328k visits to its various websites. These also enjoyed an increased CTR of 48%.

The campaign was a huge success for the brand, and ultimately resulted in a ROAS increase of 175% between Q4 2024 and Q2 2025.

Quick Case Study #2: How native advertising drove a 52% increase in conversions and a 700% increase in ROAS for a leading green energy outdoors brand

Established in 2012 by a group of pioneering innovators in battery technology, the brand’s goal is to make renewable energy accessible for homes and outdoor experiences alike, supporting a sustainable and more resilient future.

Initially focused on outdoor enthusiasts, the company makes lightweight, durable solar generators, designed for adventurers seeking reliable power in remote locations.

BEFORE: Poor brand visibility

In the ever-crowded sustainability space, the brand was keen to increase the company’s visibility, improve conversions and ROAS. Its programmatic advertising efforts had been moderately successful in the past, but reaching its audience via premium publishers at peak sales events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday had proved a challenge. Cutting through the noise had been very difficult.

AFTER: Native advertising drives performance

The brand enlisted adtech programmatic specialist Preciso to increase its campaign performance. Together, the businesses developed a strategy that hinged on the use of native ads, which were designed to highlight the ease of use and relevance of the brand’s products, while also being engaging and relatable. Native ads were deemed suitable for the campaign as consumers look at them 53% more than traditional display ads, with an 18% increase in purchase intent.

The strategy focused on continuous creative testing, focusing on two core KPIs: CTR and Conversion Rate (CR). Multiple banner types were rotated and optimised in real-time, with underperforming variants swiftly replaced by higher-performing alternatives. By tailoring creative assets based on behavioural insights, the company maximised engagement and downstream conversions.

RESULTS: 700% increase in ROAS, and 52% increase in conversions

The brand’s campaign was a huge success on a number of fronts. CTR exceeded 2.4% on native formats, compared to 0.5%–1% on display. Seasonal promotion campaigns during Q4 2024 performed above expectations, with the brand enjoying a 700% year-on-year increase in ROAS.

In early 2025, the business built on this momentum, and its native ads proved particularly effective, achieving a 53% user engagement rate. Its engaging campaigns were continuously optimised for full-funnel strategy, subsequently increasing conversions by 52% in the first half of 2025, compared to the previous year.

Also posted on The Drum.

The Next Frontier: Navigating zero-click search and the Agentic web

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 09:14:02 GMT

For decades, SEO was the lifeblood of digital publishing and advertising, ensuring consumers found and visited websites and were exposed to the ads there.

But search as we know it is being dismantled by AI. You only need to look to Google to see it. At the top of your web searches, you can now expect to see a Gemini AI summary that brings up the answers for you: consumers are finding information and discovering products through these summaries, chatbots and digital agents, without needing to visit a single link.

AI-driven search results are replacing search with a zero-click model. Bain & Company found that about 80% of search users rely on AI summaries at least 40% of the time, reducing organic website traffic by around 15-25%. Similar reports place the numbers even higher.

For consumers, it’s a far easier search experience. No trawling through sites for answers, battling cookie opt-ins and pop-up adverts that cover the content. But for publishers and advertisers, traffic is down and ad impressions are shrinking. With no clicks, publisher ad space is worth less, and the financial model that supports them starts to break down.

This is the agentic web , the next great frontier in search and discovery.

Whether we like it or not, AI has rewritten the playbook and become the new audience. But in the wake of it, a new buzzword has cropped up: Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO. Where SEO was about winning the clicks, GEO is all about earning the citations that come with AI-generated answers. Being trusted by the LLMs so that you appear in generated recommendations.

It’s one of the largest shake-ups in digital advertising to date. AI isn’t going anywhere fast, so getting to grips with what comes next is going to be key to staying on top.

The evolution of search

SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, was designed for simpler times. The term came into the public consciousness in mid-1997, and became popular over the next three years as more companies became interested in optimising their websites to get more attention and inbound traffic. It relies on a simple algorithm of feeding in keywords and building backlinks to increase visibility. The user journey was predictable, with people searching and choosing which site to visit based on headlines and page descriptions.

AI search flips the logic. With generative AI, the user might not choose a site at all, instead reading a quick and clean summary of the content. If you get lucky, your content might fuel the answer.

This shift is part of a broader evolution known as the agentic web. Instead of browsing for answers, consumers are increasingly relying on AI to filter, decide and even act for them when it comes to search. Agentic means being capable of achieving outcomes independently, or simply put, acting as an agent.

To visualise the difference:

Before: You‘re looking for new trainers on a budget, so search for “best trainers under £100” and browse for 20 minutes through 10 websites that were SEO-optimised to appear at the top of the results, before choosing one that catches your eye
Now: You ask an AI agent to “find you the best trainers under £100” and get the answer you need after the AI agent checks reviews, compares prices, and finds you a pair of trainers you can order (or in some cases, the agent can order) with no browsing required

It’s seamless and efficient for consumers, but for publishers and advertisers, it collapses the traditional discovery funnel.

An existential threat

Publishers are already feeling the pain. The Professional Publishers’ Association (PPA), which advocates for UK publishers, has described the rise of AI search features as an “existential” challenge, warning that AI Overviews and Google’s new AI Mode are undermining referral traffic by turning search visibility into citation with no engagement.

Meanwhile, Google is disputing the claim, insisting traffic remains stable and now focuses on quality, but without providing any hard data to prove it. (Read more in: The Media Leader )

The backlash isn’t confined to industry bodies. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has proposed to designate Google with ‘Strategic Market Status’ (SMS) in general search and search advertising, a move that enables imposing conduct requirements on Google to address competition concerns, including those related to AI search features.

But in the meantime, publishers and advertisers have to take a new tack. This is where GEO comes in.

GEO: a lifeline?

GEO, or Generative Engine Optimisation, means to optimise your website for AI engines and platforms. The GEO conversation is still in early days and how to best go about it remains to be seen, but here’s what practical GEO might look like:

Improving clarity, structure, and authority, all of which are rewarded by AI systems. Content that is vague, clickbaity or poorly sourced is less likely to be cited by AI. LLMs like Google’s AI Overviews or ChatGPT are trained to give privilege to content that comes from identifiable, credible humans and web domains over anonymous or generic pages.
Exploring partnerships and licensing could be a solution. Some publishers are licensing content to AI platforms (such as Associated Press and OpenAI) while others are experimenting with APIs to provide structured data directly to AI systems, at cost.
Rethinking ad strategy. If fewer users are clicking through, advertisers need to meet them earlier in the funnel, inside conversational interfaces, product recommendation agents, or branded AI tools.
Keep an eye on MCP (Model Context Protocol). This was developed and released in open-source in November 2024. It standardises how an AI application connects to external sources, acting as middleware for data reaching LLMs. In theory, it could help users access publishers’ content in the AI tools of their choosing. More on this on Digiday .

The big concerns

Optimising your content for AI sounds a little bleak in an industry that’s fighting to stay connected and human-first. And there are other big unanswered questions too. GEO runs a high risk of being inequitable, giving the biggest brands and publishers all the power whilst smaller players have less and less chance of being visible.

On top of that, the funding model for quality journalism is at risk. AI engines are scraping freely available content without compensation, and quite often without attribution. How can publishers monetise their ad space to support their platforms when that ad space is rapidly losing value? Models like MCP offer some solutions, but the bar is getting higher.

And it raises concerns not just financially, but on regulation as well. Intellectual property and usage rights have to be called into question. Will regulators push for more than transparency? What about content licensing, revenue sharing?

Whether AI is copyright infringement is another whole debate, but the danger here is that the web is being hollowed out. If AI systems feed off content that is no longer economically sustainable to produce, then without intervention, there’ll eventually be no more content to feed off. The ecosystem risks cannibalising itself with contradictions.

Adapt to survive

One thing is for certain: nothing in this scenario is future gazing. Search is changing fast, shaking up a long-standing system of visibility and value. AI and the agentic web are rewriting the game. While regulators like the CMA are taking steps, publishers and advertisers shouldn’t wait for rescue. Although SEO won’t disappear overnight, the data shows that its value is diminishing by the day.

But adapting to survive is something the advertising industry has always done. Something humans have always done. This is far from the first time the industry has faced disruption like this.

From the dawn of programmatic to constantly evolving channels, adtech has always found a way to evolve and thrive. Zero-click and the agentic web simply represent the next frontier. There’s time now to experiment and collaborate. Push for transparency and play a part in controlling the outcome.

Either way, the advertising challenge remains the same as it always has: how do we ensure content, brands and products get discovered, whatever the environment people are searching in?

Additional Reading

"PPA asks CMA to require greater transparency of Google’s AI search features" – The Media Leader

The Professional Publishers Association requests conduct requirements for Google and other nascent AI search platforms.

"WTF is Model Context Protocol (MCP) and why should publishers care?" – Digiday

Model Context Protocol, or MCP, standardises how an AI application connects to external sources.

"CMA takes first steps to improve competition in search services in the UK" – GOV.UK

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is proposing to designate Google with 'strategic market status' (SMS) in general search and search advertising.

"UK and US publishers say Google AI is harming website traffic" – Press Gazette

Leading US online publishers reported an average fall in referral traffic from Google search of 10% in May and June compared to a year earlier.

Consistency & Credibility: How to Stand Out on LinkedIn

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 11:59:19 GMT

Our latest episode of the Legends of Adtech podcast starred the brilliant Paul Gubbins, VP of Sales and Programmatic Partnerships at Tubi. As a long time industry force, you’ve probably seen a Paul Gubbins LinkedIn post or two no matter how long you’ve been in the adtech world.

You can hear more from Paul on Episode 6 of our podcast Legends of Adtech – out now!

As Paul explains to us in the episode, he’s been posting daily since 2009.

From our point of view, he seems to have found a magic formula. But he’s not doing it for vanity metrics or to go viral. Instead, for Paul, he says his constant posting is “a form of educational soft selling.”

“I'm increasingly finding myself in an industry that is about data,” Paul explains on Legends of Adtech . “It's about ad operations. It's about product. These are all areas that aren't necessarily core competencies for me. I'm a salesperson. I'm great at telling stories and building relationships.”

In this guide, we’re going to break down Paul’s attention-grabbing secrets, and share a few tips of our own. At the other end of it, you’re going to be an attention expert… and you’ll be surprised at just how simple it really is.

Be consistently present, not presenting

Paul’s daily presence on LinkedIn means his network sees and hears from him regularly. In a noisy, algorithm-driven environment, that familiarity compounds over time until it becomes trust.

It’s not a new concept, by any means. The ‘Rule of 7’ marketing concept has been around since the 1930s, and suggests if a customer sees your brand 7 times, they’re more likely to buy. It’s not an exact science, but it’s easy to understand why interacting with something more often makes it more memorable as it builds trustworthiness and credibility. The same concept applies to posting on LinkedIn. Make yourself a regular presence to become memorable.

For Paul, consistency isn’t just about frequency, either. It’s about staying present in conversations that matter to his audience.

This long-term habit has helped Paul become a go-to voice for clarity in a complex ecosystem: “It’s about providing authentic educational insights that they’re going to learn from,” he explains.

Juicy Tip #1: Plan a mix of content to keep your audience engaged

Share a quick insight or takeaway from something you’ve read
Explain a lesson you learned from a project
Share industry news with your own comment or take
People love personal, so tie a personal anecdote in with your professional angle
Don’t forget to be curious! Ask questions to your audience for their takes, and be sure to respond back to them

Be more human

If there’s one thing adtech doesn’t need anymore of, it’s jargon. In an industry obsessed with data, acronyms, and rapidly evolving tech, Paul’s posts are refreshingly human. He writes from the perspective of someone figuring things out alongside his audience.

“I write through the optics of somebody else in a similar position to me in an adtech company, trying to figure all of this out,” says Paul. “I think that's what's really resonated with the people that follow me on LinkedIn.”

His honesty is part of the reason why his posts do so well. People buy into people. They follow others they relate to. When people can recognise themselves in your content, they’re more likely to take an interest.

Juicy Tip #2: Feeling nervous about getting too personal on LinkedIn? Start small. Share a behind-the-scenes moment where you can tag others, and link it to a practical insight for your audience.

Focus on value over sales

Paul is famous for his polls, which turn his feed into a free resource.

“I publish all the findings [of the polls] at the end of the year. The purpose of those really is just to help educate everyone else in the market, figure out what’s going on in this space. I think that’s why they’re so well received, because everyone can see the data. It all gets shared,” Paul explains. “There’s no real commercial agenda behind them.”

If you want to be known for grabbing attention, you have to be offering more than a sales pitch to make your feed worth following. Authentically offering up knowledge and value without an agenda will keep people coming back time and again. Generosity is key to building trust. As a free resource, all of us at Adtech Juice can vouch for this approach!

And Paul explains that the business wins follow naturally: “People actually feel that they can approach me to ask questions or to come in and help train their teams, and a byproduct of that has been a halo effect for the companies I’ve represented.”

Juicy Tip #3: Wondering what value you have to add? Think of something you’ve only learned about recently. Chances are, there are plenty of others who haven’t learned that yet… So why not be the one to share it?

Engage like you mean it

Building LinkedIn credibility takes effort. But one of the easiest wins has nothing to do with what or how often you post. Instead, you need to focus on responding.

Stay in the conversation by engaging thoughtfully with comments on your content and other people’s posts. Join discussions and add insight (without hitting LinkedIn’s auto-reply “thanks for sharing!”) to show you’re part of the community you’re trying to attract, not just broadcasting into it.

Juicy Tip #4: Look for posts where you can add a fresh perspective. If you can spend 15 minutes a day engaging with other people’s content, you’ll be surprised how quickly it boosts your visibility.

Storytelling your way to attention

Paul’s successful career proves that stories stick. Whether on stage or online, he leans on his talents as a storyteller to cut through the clutter and complexities of the adtech industry.

“Lots of adtech can look very similar, but you need to be in a position to tell compelling stories, take people on a journey, and really bring your product team's roadmap to life to help the company that you represent really differentiate in a very crowded market.”

Frame your insights as stories to bring them to life too. Set the scene: why are you sharing this insight? Add the twist of what you discovered, and share the takeaway. The very best of LinkedIn posts are journeys, not statements. Get that right, and you’ll be well on your way to stealing the spotlight.

Of course, there’s no shortcut or overnight hack to building influence. Paul’s consistency has spanned well over a decade, and it’s a fantastic example of the combined effort of lots of small, steady actions.

Paul’s career and LinkedIn reputation prove the rewards are worth the effort. And in the crowded landscape of LinkedIn, it’s the people who keep showing up and keep staying authentic who stand out.

It’s a long game, for sure. But what have you got to lose? The time will pass anyway.

It’s human intention that fuels AI, not the other way round

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 10:22:11 GMT

Rumours of the death of human usefulness at the hands of artificial intelligence have been greatly exaggerated, especially in adland.

In fact, it’s the reverse, says Lauren Barnett, Head of UK Sales at Samsung Ads , who insists the rapid rise of the new technology still has its limitations, and will continue to be fuelled by human intention and purpose…

Artificial intelligence in programmatic advertising is nothing new. For years, unbelievably sophisticated ML (machine learning) models have been trained on billions of data points each day to inform critical revenue decisions.

But today, AI is dominating the conversation around achieving a much broader level of efficiency across digital advertising – for example using agentic AI to streamline workflows or LLMs (large language models) to make sense of complex reports.

But alongside the hype comes anxiety: that AI will replace the human touch and that creativity will be lost. In fact, the reality sits somewhere between the two extremes.

AI is here to stay, and yes, it’s transforming workflows. But it’s not making revenue and marketing teams redundant. And as I mentioned recently on a panel at MAD//Fest , that’s because AI is only as effective as the human intention behind it.

So how is the adtech world, and particularly Connected TV (CTV) – balancing AI with the human element? And what does a productive partnership between the two actually look like?

Moving beyond scale to strategy: a lesson in precision

While AI can perform everyday tasks at scale, it’s important to remember that when it makes mistakes, those will also often be at scale.

As my co-panelist James Macdonald from Limelight Inc pointed out, “if you’re just a degree off with your AI, the outcomes will be 10 degrees off – it will have a massive impact”.

So it’s really human intention and supervision that ensure AI is deployed in a useful way, rather than high-volume outreach with little targeting finesse.

Take recruitment as an example – how often do we receive completely irrelevant job opportunities based on out-of-date or inaccurate information?

I still receive openings for casual bar work a number of years after leaving university, due to recruitment agencies playing the numbers game and using automation tools to flood the workforce – or half the LinkedIn population.

This is automation at its laziest – prioritising scale over strategy – and it happens in advertising too. If automation is deployed without human input or oversight, it essentially generates advertising spam.

As MarTech aptly put it: “while automation enables volume, it cannot replace strategic design or nuanced messaging.”

This is especially important in programmatic CTV. Without human guidance, AI can churn out generic placements at scale, but it will miss the contextual, behavioural, and emotional cues that actually drive viewer engagement.

Finding the AI sweet spot in advertising

The CTV-first model gives us a unique lens into how people discover content – and brands – on the biggest screen in the house.

For many viewers, the TV interface is now a discovery engine, with 37% of viewers expecting it to suggest content that aligns with their interests.

At the same time, we often see brands coming to us with a very clear set of target audience demographics in mind. But that initial targeting only scratches the surface.

The real opportunity lies in uncovering adjacent or unexpected audiences with similar behavioural patterns or content affinities – something only possible through sophisticated AI models fed by rich, cross-device data.

The ability to overlay vast ACR-based (Automatic Content Recognition) CTV data with mobile insights opens up new high-potential audience segments that human media planning teams may not have identified.

For example, when one content partner asked us to build lookalike models based on users who had previously clicked through, they saw a 58% increase in app open rates and a 13% drop in cost per acquisition.

That’s the AI advantage: scalable personalisation that drives real-world outcomes.

But even these results didn’t happen by letting the machine run wild. They came from careful calibration of AI tools by media strategists who understood what the client needed and where the untapped value lay.

Fuelling AI with human intention

Technology can tell us what audiences are doing and when, but it can’t fully explain why. That’s still the domain of human insight.

Advertising, and especially CTV, thrives when it taps into cultural relevance and shared emotion.

Just look at Glastonbury. Every year, hundreds of thousands gather for a shared live experience that feels personal, even magical.

Alongside this, every screen we looked at over that weekend showed that desire for human connection hasn’t changed.

If anything, it has intensified, and CTV is uniquely positioned to deliver those shared, high-impact moments in a personalised way – it provides the perfect backdrop for brands to understand what makes people tick, and to tap into human emotions in order to attract and retain their audiences.

But it requires storytelling rooted in empathy, not just data. So while AI can help identify the right time, place, and audience for an ad, the message still needs to feel crafted, with intention, creativity, and a deep understanding of human motivation.

Those are things no algorithm can replicate.

When AI is directed by smart strategic thinking, it becomes an engine for discovery, relevance, and performance. It doesn’t replace the marketer; it amplifies what they do best.

So yes, AI is a powerful tool. But it is human purpose and insight that should always fuel the system.

Also posted in Mediashotz

If Personal AI Agents Can Reshape Adtech, Surely We Can Accelerate the Payment Chain, Too?

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 11:26:39 GMT

The buzz around AI has recently taken on a new dimension. Where Generative AI was previously the main subset under discussion, Agentic AI is increasingly entering the conversation. And it is this type of technology that appears set to redefine adtech.

Agentic AI refers to systems that can operate independently – making decisions, initiating action and pursuing outcomes-based behaviour – often with limited human supervision.

AI agents are autonomous, adaptable and able to collaborate with other systems. That means they are the AI most of us are likely to engage with most often in the coming years: the system that controls your smart home, streamlines your day or monitors and manages your health.

Agentic AI puts consumers in control

In advertising, the possibilities of agentic AI are huge – think real-time, autonomous campaign management, hyper-personalisation at scale, brand agents, and strategy and insight generation.

But the real significance of agentic AI for advertising may well be on the consumer side of the equation. The future of digital engagement is shifting. For years, ads and affiliate recommendations have been optimised for brands, not individuals. Algorithms track users, push products, and flood feeds with retargeting. And people are tired of it.

The next era won’t be about shouting louder or spending more. Instead, personal AI agents will take control on behalf of users – filtering ads, curating offers and deciding what gets through based on user preferences. The most important relationship won’t be between brands and consumers anymore – it will be between individuals and their AI agents.

This will mean 1. personalised, intent-driven advertising, instead of mass-market targeting; 2. AI-curated affiliate placements, where trusted agents pick winners; and 3. a push-to-pull transformation, where users actively request value, rather than passively receiving it.

Brands who adapt – building transparent, high-quality offerings that earn AI agents’ trust – will get their messages through to consumers. Meanwhile, those who rely on traditional ad bombardment will be left behind.

But rocket ships aren’t compatible with carrier pigeons

We believe agentic AI is going to be transformative. But as we look to an AI-driven, laser-fast future in terms of the technology being used to reach consumers, it is hard to ignore the fact that critical elements of the adtech ecosystem’s underlying infrastructure – such as its antiquated payment methods – could do with a future-proof transformation of their own.

To put it another way, we need to be careful that we are not building a rocket ship for ad delivery, creativity and AI, while using a carrier pigeon behind the scenes for supply chain payment and business opportunities.

The industry’s payment processes underpin the business, now and in tomorrow’s AI-driven world. But the adtech supply chain is long and complicated, with brands at the top, agencies, DSPs and SSPs in the middle, and publishers and content creators at the bottom.

Each link in that chain introduces a delay in payments, and since brands and agencies tend to hold onto funds for as long as possible, those at the bottom get squeezed the hardest. It is not uncommon to see small, valuable players waiting 90 or 120 days to be paid for their contribution to the advertising lifecycle.

Overcoming the adtech payment challenge with data and AI

When businesses struggle with cash flow, they can’t scale their operations, invest in marketing, or pay their own suppliers on time. That creates a domino effect that stifles growth across the entire advertising industry – even if AI is turbo-charging processes elsewhere.

But here, too, there are transformative technologies available. Using a data-driven adtech finance platform, businesses can receive their sales revenue as soon as it’s earned, rather than waiting weeks or months. Real-time transaction data enables the advancement of payments before an invoice is even raised. This model is based on transparency, automation, and flexibility – helping businesses get paid faster without taking on debt or navigating lengthy approval processes.

Naturally, we welcome tools such as agentic AI, which promise to deliver digital marketing into a new, more effective and efficient age. And as it does, we are confident that the same kind of automation will permeate the business at all levels, ensuring that those who are striving to scale operations at speed will receive their own rewards at a similar pace.

Also posted in MarTechSeries.

Retail Media 101: A No Nonsense Guide

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 09:13:05 GMT

Retail media is much discussed and easily misunderstood, but most predictions put it at the heart of the evolving media landscape. So what are we dealing with?

What is retail media?

Retail media is a fast-growing advertising and marketing opportunity built around the media assets and first-party data of large retail chains.

Working with brands, retailers use their physical platforms (such as in-store screens and shelf-edge displays), their digital platforms (websites, apps and email) and their data to build and target full-funnel campaigns in-store, online and in the broader digital space.

Retail media allows advertisers to engage consumers across various touchpoints through the shopping journey and potentially “close the loop” - ie. connect advertising spend directly to customer purchases.

What are the numbers?

The sector is booming. According to IAB UK's Futurescape Barometer , digital retail media is expected to reach £8.6bn in 2030, up from £4.4bn this year. Data from the National Retail Federation puts worldwide retail media ad spend on track to surpass £80bn ($100bn) this year, making it “bigger than TV”, according to a widely reported claim made last year by Tesco.

Retail media’s growth is actually slowing, in relative terms, but it will still outpace all other digital formats for some time to come. The 30.8% surge of 2023 was an unrepeatable boom, but annual growth will remain in the teens - usually ahead of digital video, display and search - for the next few years, according to eMarketer forecasts.

Why is retail media growing so fast?

In challenging economic conditions, marketers are prioritising platforms that drive measurable outcomes. That means ad spend is drawn away from the top of the funnel - say, CTV or online branding campaigns - and instead flows into channels with very evident returns, including retail media.

For retailers, retail media networks represent a valuable way to monetise customer data and site traffic. For brands, retail media networks offer something even the major tech platforms lack the capability to do: robustly track offline sales against online and multichannel marketing.

By connecting ad exposure directly to sales outcomes using retailers’ first-party data, retail media creates a full-funnel attribution model, from awareness to conversion, allowing brands to clearly measure return on their ad spend.

Who is driving it?

Most significant retailers are well into the process of building a retail media network (RMN) of their own. And though consolidation will surely come, this will take time. According to estimates, there are around 275 RMNs and counting. The top RMNs include US giants such as Amazon, Walmart and Target, while in the UK, retailers such as Sainsbury’s Nectar360, Tesco, Asda, Ocado and Boots lead the line.

What’s also changing is the depth and breadth of brands’ engagement with the retail media opportunity. Brands on average engage with six RMNs today, according to Skai’s State of Retail Media study , but they expect to have added a couple more by the end of this year, and to be doing business with eleven by the end of 2026. 82% say retail media delivers good or excellent results.

On a global level, the UK and US are leaders in the space, but with different strengths. The US’s leading retailers bring vast scale, and are heavily sophisticated in digital, while the UK is highly evolved in in-store retail media and using insights to integrate campaigns across in-store, onsite and offsite.

What does the future hold?

“All media will have become retail media by 2030,” according to IAB UK. That means that more and more media platforms, including TV and other channels, will incorporate shoppable formats and use retail data for targeting and measurement. And meanwhile, the distinction between "traditional" media and retail media will diminish as retail media networks expand and integrate with various media platforms.

CTV represents an obvious partner for transactional retail media data. At the same time, e-commerce is expanding in a parallel direction. TikTok Shop sales in the US were recently reported to have increased 120% year-on-year. Amazon is the biggest retail media titan of all, and its Amazon Retail Ad Service lets other retailers use its ad tech to manage contextually relevant campaigns on their own sites.

For the physical retailers, measurement around incrementality and ROI is the nut to crack, and RMNs that can prove their value will be the ones that make it to the next round.

A Day in the Life of: a Programmatic Ad

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 09:06:22 GMT

A programmatic ad’s day lasts only 200 milliseconds, yet it packs a remarkable amount into that time. Let’s take a look at the nuts and bolts of how an ad is served

In the early ’90s, at the dawn of the digital advertising era , the first online ads were produced, sold and delivered in much the same way as traditional media such as TV, radio and print - manually. The process literally involved advertisers and publishers picking up the phone to do deals on digital ads, before uploading them to the relevant sites.

It quickly became obvious the process could be dramatically more efficient if it was automated. In the mid-90s, ad servers and ad networks started to deliver on this promise, but it wasn’t until the mid-’00s and the arrival of SSPs and DPSs that programmatic, real-time bidding (RTB) transformed the industry.

Today, RTB allows the dynamic buying and selling of digital ad space. Incredibly, the whole process - from a viewer opening a webpage, to an ad delivered to that space - takes less than 200 milliseconds. Here’s how programmatic works, in six steps:

The click: The process begins when anyone opens a webpage or an app, or starts streaming a TV show. For the purposes of this article, we’ll stick with a webpage as our example.

Bid requests: The publisher of the webpage (for example a news site or online retailer) has an ad server that is alerted to the arrival of someone on the page. It will then contact its Supply Side Platform (SSP). This manages the programmatic auction and connects to buyers, providing information about the ad unit and the opportunity available. This might include anything from the ad size to audience details. This information is collectively called a bid request, which is sent to various Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) where buyers are digitally loitering, hoping to place their ads.

Find the best placements: The DSP is designed to help advertisers and their agencies find the right ad placements for their campaigns. When the SSP bid request pops up, a starter gun is fired for those buyers looking at the publisher's proposition. This is all automated at mind-boggling speeds - DPSs use advanced machine learning algorithms to work out which advertisers are best placed to bid for the webpage in the context of their pre-decided campaign goals.

Auction time: At the critical moment, the SSP analyses the bids it has received from DSPs and runs an auction to determine who wins the right to display their campaign on the webpage’s ad space. Bid price is a consideration in deciding the auction’s winner, but so are factors like audience match. Either way, the goal is to maximise revenue for the webpage’s publisher, while also providing value for the advertiser.

Winner decided: Once the SSP has decided which bid to accept, the winning DSP sends the advertiser’s creative through the SSP to the publisher’s ad server. This then presents the advert to the webpage’s viewer, and the process is completed, in around 200 milliseconds.

Analytics and optimisation: That’s not the end of the story, though, because tracking pixels integrated into an advert’s creative can give feedback to the DSP as to how the campaign is performing. These pixels can register a user click, or acknowledge a consumer completing a desired action, like a purchase, and pass this information back to the advertiser. This allows marketers a constant, near real-time ability to monitor an ad campaign, understand its performance, and optimise strategy for the future.

Technological advances and innovations have created a fearsome ecosystem for advertisers looking to place their adverts across various online environments, channels and ecosystems. In a fraction of a second, digital ads are auctioned, displayed and analysed, all using machine learning and automation.

For more insights about the digital advertising industry, be sure to explore Adtech Juice University .

Shaken AND stirred (up): How to integrate this year's biggest adtech trends into your event theme

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 11:40:58 GMT

2025 is a year rich in trending adtech themes, new products, innovation, and bombshell news. We’ve seen the ruling on Google’s open web monopolisation , increasing consumer calls to champion privacy, culture and authenticity, the rapid ongoing expansion of the partnership economy and the meteoric rise of CTV - among many others.

Needless to say, these topics will be the focus of many events in our industry. But as an organiser, how do you connect the dots across content, delivery and the guest experience to create an event that sticks in the mind? After all, that’s the goal - no one wants to organise an event that's forgotten before the canapés have even been digested.

To keep that from happening, we’ve put together a list of ideas on how you can tie some of this year's top trends, news items and topics into a physical event. These will help deliver an extra twist on the event's theme, and ensure you stand out from the crowd. Let’s take a ride through some funky event ideas…

The big C’s: CTV, curation, contextual

The topline: While we could write a book about each of these topics, there’s one big thing they have in common, and that’s the careful creation of a particular consumer experience. Whether that’s within contextual advertising, the connected TV experience, or an audience curation service that boosts advertising performance. It’s all about the consumer.

Why not try…

A photobooth opportunity for guests where different props and elements build a different context and customer experience for each photo.
An activation or presentation in which different versions of an ad or campaign are displayed to attendees. Have your audience vote and ask them: which stands out to you as the most creative? Which speaks to you the most in connection with the message of the ad? How would you change it to boost performance?

Authenticity, culture & creativity

The topline: These powerhouse topics are engaging the emotive side of advertising in 2025. Along with AI, they’re shaping much of the conversation around the adtech industry. Consumers crave authenticity, the human touch and the feeling of true meaning and experience, and so do your guests.

Why not try…

Have your guests submit, via poll (Slido is always effective), an ad campaign that really resonated with them, and why. Now, ask them to type that rough storyline or brief into ChatGPT, and see what it comes up with. Have them feed back on the results, see what they think: does AI really overtake when it comes to that human touch? Personally, the John Lewis Christmas adverts never miss when it comes to exemplifying the values of family and the emotions around Christmas for me, and I can’t imagine that getting any better!
Reiki or aura clearing: If the format fits, could you have someone practicing reiki or aura clearing on your guests? This works as a relaxing and rejuvenating experience which can encourage space for creativity for your guests.
Bake with a celebrity: What better way to encourage true experiences, connection and creativity than a VIP baking class with your team and prospects? This works well as a more intimate way to connect and celebrate culture, creativity and authenticity outside of a standard corporate setting.

The rise of the partnership economy

The topline: The partnership economy has been working its magic to generate revenue for a few years now. But as it hits the mainstream, we need to consider a few ways we might shape the theme of a partnership event, and give it some sparkle.

Why not try…

Incorporating fun combinations of food that demonstrate how two or more good things can combine to become greater than the sum of their parts. Ice cream flavours or ice cream rolls are a great hit for summer events, or even a ‘create your own smoothie’ bar with various combinations of fruit to symbolise partnership success.
On the subject of drinks, unlikely cocktail and mocktail flavour pairings are a fun way to spice up a partnership event - caramel and miso espresso martini anyone?
A puzzle game - guests form word or physical combinations to solve a problem, and win a prize

Of course it goes without saying that the above topics are a drop in the bucket of all of the incredible news and developments we’ve seen across adtech in H1 of this year, with so much more we could explore for event ideas and themes.

The key takeaway here, however, is to find a creative direction that leans into your content, and pairing it with a unique attendee experience for your guests. There’s always scope to put something completely different out there, and really make your mark on the delivery of new and exciting topics.

The Open Internet is at Risk – and It’s Time to Act

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 12:45:54 GMT

Emma Newman, CRO EMEA at PubMatic and winner of The Wires' Adtech Personality of the Year, writes on the risks to the Open Internet and journalism, and how digital advertising can save the day. You can hear more from Emma on Episode 1 of our podcast Legends of Adtech – out now!

The internet is at a crossroads. Not from the rise of AI overlords, but from a subtle, profound shift in how we access, trust and engage with content. AI-driven algorithms are reshaping search behaviours, traffic to publishers is declining and vital historical information is quietly disappearing. Meanwhile, social media platforms are retreating from content regulation and user-generated content is increasingly being hidden from public view just months after it’s posted (Pew Research Center).

This isn’t just about broken links or missing posts – it’s about the very future of the open internet.

Walled gardens, AI content filtering and bias insertion threaten to erode the transparency, accessibility and diversity that have made the internet one of the greatest forces for democracy, culture and human progress. And adding to this crisis, professional journalism, the heartbeat of a well-informed society, is under siege. In just the first few months of 2025, over 900 journalists have lost their jobs (Press Gazette). These warning signs are flashing brightly.

Yet there is a powerful force that can reverse this dangerous trend: digital advertising .

Advertising: The Lifeline of a Thriving, Open Internet

At the heart of an accessible, affordable and open internet is digital advertising. Without it, we risk losing the high-quality journalism that holds power accountable, the entertainment that inspires millions and the information ecosystems that empower citizens and fuel economies.

The numbers are staggering: digital ad spending on the open internet is forecasted to hit $513 billion in 2025 (dentsu). This funding is not just monetary support, it is what enables Pulitzer Prize-winning investigations, groundbreaking entertainment and world-shaping innovation to flourish.

Without advertising, what happens to our shared cultural moments, our collective history and the vibrant communities that form around trusted content? What would the world look like without the investigative journalists who expose corruption, the documentaries that challenge us to think differently or the sporting events that unite entire nations?

Introducing: #FundedByAdvertising

At PubMatic, we believe it’s time to act. That's why we are proud to launch the #FundedByAdvertising campaign. A movement to champion the publishers, journalists, creators and innovators who shape the culture of the open internet every day.

#FundedByAdvertising is a rallying cry. A reminder that good advertising doesn't just sell products, it sustains free access to information, supports creativity and drives societal progress.

Great advertising respects user privacy, promotes transparency and enhances user experiences through innovative formats like contextual and interest-based advertising. It protects user trust while ensuring publishers can continue producing the vital content society depends on.

Advertising is more than just commerce - it’s culture.

Champions League: A Watershed Moment for Live, Streamed Culture

The landscape of media consumption is undergoing a dramatic transformation as live sports and major cultural events increasingly migrate to digital platforms. These shifts are not only changing how we access content but are also redefining the very nature of shared cultural experiences.

Take the UEFA Champions League as an example. In 2025, for the first time, major Champions League matches, including key semifinals, were broadcast live exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in Germany, reaching millions of viewers outside traditional TV.

These matches weren’t just streamed – they were supported by advertising , with pre-game, halftime, and in-stream ads creating a vital revenue stream that helped keep access affordable and content accessible. This watershed moment underscored the growing demand for live sports through digital platforms, and the critical role that advertising plays in sustaining these culture-defining events.

Digital advertising doesn’t just fund broadcasts; it keeps these moments accessible to all, democratising experiences that otherwise might have been paywalled or restricted.

The Rise of FAST and CTV: New Frontiers for Storytelling

The migration of content to Connected TV (CTV) and FAST platforms offers another powerful example of advertising’s positive impact. In 2025, an estimated $32.82 billion will flow into the CTV advertising market (eMarketer), fuelling a golden age of digital storytelling.

This year's Oscars recorded its largest digital footprint yet, with 1.65 million viewers streaming via mobile or desktop – part of a total audience of 19.7 million , the highest in five years (NBC News).

Platforms like NBCUniversal, Paramount, Roku, and Warner Bros. Discovery are leading this revolution, making award shows, scripted series, and live events accessible without sky-high subscription fees – thanks to the support of digital advertisers.

By embracing #FundedByAdvertising, we celebrate these partners and ensure that cultural storytelling remains diverse, vibrant, and affordable.

Journalism: The Foundation of a Healthy Internet

Without strong journalism, the internet risks devolving into a chaotic, credibility-free zone.

The massive layoffs across Euronews, Axel Springer, and Tamedia serve as a stark warning: if we do not actively fund professional reporting, we risk silencing the critical voices that hold the powerful accountable.

At PubMatic, we’re proud to support publishers like The Guardian, The New York Times, Vox Media and many more through privacy-conscious, ethical advertising. Our commitment remains clear: an open internet without quality journalism is no internet at all .

Channel 4’s call for a "trust mark" to help audiences identify credible news sources reflects the kind of innovation needed to rebuild trust in a fragmented digital world but it will only succeed if we sustain it with robust advertising investment.

Consumers Understand the Value and Expect It

Recent research from IAB Europe revealed that consumers receive, on average, €212 worth of free digital services every month thanks to advertising. Moreover, 60% of Europeans support a “pay or consent” model — but only when the value exchange is made crystal clear.

This is our opportunity. We must transparently communicate the essential role advertising plays in maintaining a free and open internet. When consumers see the real value they receive, they are far more willing to support the ecosystem.

New Voices, New Opportunities

Advertising doesn’t just sustain the status quo, it opens doors.

At Advertising Week Europe, GroupM’s Chris Keenan shared how GroupM doubled its investment in women’s sports advertising. Over 20 brands increased their commitments, unlocking new revenue streams and elevating underrepresented athletes and communities.

This cultural shift, towards greater equity, visibility, and innovation was made possible by brands willing to invest through smart, ethical advertising strategies.

It’s a powerful reminder: the open internet isn’t just a marketplace of ideas. It’s a thriving garden of stories, creativity and possibility and it needs our collective support to flourish.

Join the Movement: #FundedByAdvertising

This is more than a campaign. It’s a movement.

Advertisers, agencies, publishers and consumers alike must stand together to protect the open internet. An internet where information is accessible, creativity thrives and human connection remains at the centre of the digital experience.

At PubMatic, we have been connecting advertisers and publishers for nearly 20 years, moving nearly $10 billion through the ecosystem to support journalism, storytelling and innovation.

Now, we’re proud to be the voice behind #FundedByAdvertising. But this isn’t about us — it’s about all of us.

Let's celebrate the journalists, the artists, the athletes, the storytellers. Let's invest in the open internet and preserve it for future generations.

Because when we get this right, we don’t just protect the internet — we make it better .

Join us. Share the message. Support the cause.

The future of the open internet is #FundedByAdvertising .

Emma Newman

CRO EMEA, PubMatic

Emma Newman is CRO EMEA for PubMatic, a global digital advertising technology company for premium content creators. From her early grounding in trade and product marketing, digital communications and business development at Microsoft, Emma has driven change and empowered organisational health for digitally focused organisations.

In 2010, she landed at AOL to lead the UK marketing function during a critical transformation period, building and leading the business operations function and driving sustainable growth. It led her to develop the marketing strategy and lead the overall programme management as part of the senior team who launched the Huffington Post in the UK.

At PubMatic, strategy, change and bringing people together to help them work smartly, continue as the central themes in her career. Emma is also deeply passionate about diversity, inclusion, and supporting women to become the best versions of themselves.

What is an Adtech Stack, and How Should You Go About Building One?

Thu, 22 May 2025 07:19:32 GMT

Digital advertising is a whirlwind of acronyms and unusual terms. From SSPs to IVT and ROI, those new to the business can find it a confusing place built on abbreviations, advanced technologies and fast-moving innovations. Getting to grips with these can be a challenge.

And what about ‘adtech stack’? The elusive entity that houses the acronyms, platforms and solutions that enable brands, advertisers and publishers to engage in advanced digital advertising? That’s what we’re going to look at today; it’s not as complicated as it sounds.

What is an adtech stack?

For those who assume an adtech stack has some kind of physical form - this is not the case.

An adtech (or advertising technology) stack is simply the collection of tools, platforms and solutions that a publisher, brand or advertiser employs to digitally advertise its goods or services. Some of these tools are proprietary ones, built in-house. But for the most part, these solutions are licensed from specialist third-party technology companies for a fee.

Numerous third-party tech companies offer many diverse adtech solutions that do everything, from helping publishers to sell their inventory and marketers to buy it (such as Limelight, a programmatic ad platform), to launching a new affiliate or influencer marketing campaign (through the likes of impact.com, a partnership automation platform). Regardless of the particular solutions employed, they are collectively called an adtech stack.

What does an adtech stack do?

That very much depends on the tools employed, but broadly it helps marketers and publishers create, launch and optimise digital advertising campaigns. An adtech stack usually includes technologies that facilitate the buying of ads, audience targeting, audience tracking and performance analytics. An adtech stack is about generating revenue, and doing so in a privacy-centric way that is also easily scalable.

But an adtech stack might also contain specialist products that measure a campaign’s effect on brand performance, or a product that uses AI to analyse and recalibrate ad creative in real time to boost campaign performance. As we’ve seen, third-party tech companies offer a multitude of innovative digital advertising solutions, the majority of which can be added to an adtech stack.

Who needs an adtech stack?

Any marketing department engaged in digital advertising will, over time, organically develop an adtech stack that caters to its unique needs, but this will vary in scale and complexity from company to company. At a time when budgets are tight, and marketers need to prove their value, digital advertising encompasses a highly effective group of marketing methods that deliver great results and can offer highly accurate attribution.

A publisher might employ an adtech stack to maximise ad revenue and help to sell its inventory. For example, a brand or advertiser might build an adtech stack from tools that help distribute its campaigns cost-effectively, target its audience contextually, and design amazing ad creative. They can also be used to protect brand safety in advertising, and increase ROI.

Limitations to be aware of

Digital advertising moves fast, and as new products and players come to market the industry only becomes more complex. This means the digital advertising business - and every adtech stack - can struggle with transparency, which has left it vulnerable to exploitation, especially in the programmatic space.

Invalid traffic (IVT) is a real concern for marketers, as is sustainability. The digital advertising industry produces huge amounts of carbon. In the UK alone it annually emits the same quantity of CO2 as 56 coal-fired power stations. It is critical that marketers employ tools in their adtech stack that actively aim to reduce advertising’s carbon footprint.

How to build an adtech stack

An adtech stack should contain the tools and solutions you need to run your ad campaigns. Depending on the scale and size of your marketing activities, this could range from a small selection of solutions, to a hugely complex programmatic setup designed to run a vast number of different campaigns across different segments and channels, including mobile, video and CTV.

Here are some key principles:

Understand what you want to achieve: Before building your adtech stack, think about your objectives, and the outcomes you are looking for. Are you hoping to drive sales, brand awareness or web traffic, for example?
Understand your audience: You need to understand your audience to build an adtech stack that has a good chance of reaching them. If you know their triggers, needs, interests and preferences you will have a good chance of doing that.
Consider the components: What tools, platforms and solutions on the market will help you achieve your above objectives and successfully engage your audiences? A Supply-Side Platform (SSP) will help publishers monetise their placements, while a Consent Management Platform (CMP) will help a brand to manage user consent across various platforms.
Analysis and optimisation: The final piece of your adtech stack puzzle is to ensure it has the wherewithal to give a full, detailed picture of its own performance. This will allow you to optimise the stack, making changes you need to streamline your ad campaigns and increase their chance of success.

An adtech stack doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does need to serve your needs effectively and efficiently. The world of digital advertising can be a confusing one, but understanding your adtech stack, optimising as you go, and embracing its full potential will quickly deliver results, and boost your advertising performance.

Is authenticated web the future of advertising or just another myth?

Fri, 16 May 2025 09:56:12 GMT

Everyone’s talking about the authenticated web—but will it really change the game or is it just more hype? Human Algorithm's Shawn Lim poses the question.

Universal identifiers (ID) like ‘authenticated web’ have emerged as a potential lifeline for publishers who want to avoid using third-party cookies. However, it is a complex and often misunderstood concept.

At its core, authenticated web involves users verifying their identities—usually by logging in—to access content. This creates a system where publishers can collect first-party data, which is valuable for targeted advertising.

Unlike the open web, where third-party cookies dominate, and publishers have limited control, the authenticated web promises a more direct role for publishers. They could leverage their data to build premium ad marketplaces. However, achieving this requires overcoming significant hurdles, including user reluctance to log in, technical challenges, and regulatory constraints.

The Trade Desk, a significant proponent of this model, argues that even a tiny percentage of logged-in users could make the model viable. Critics, however, point out that this approach has scalability and privacy issues, questioning whether it offers a meaningful improvement over third-party cookies.

Publishers are at a crossroads. While some have successfully built ad businesses using login data, many struggle to achieve the scale needed to attract significant ad spend.

Moreover, ad tech vendors, like The Trade Desk, play a dual role—advocating for the authenticated web while benefiting from its success. This dynamic raises questions about who ultimately controls the narrative and value in this new ecosystem.

The authenticated web offers publishers a path to more significant influence over their data and advertising strategies, but it’s no silver bullet. Success will depend on their ability to navigate identity data challenges, choose the right partners, and balance privacy with monetisation.

The challenge for brands and agencies

Brands and agencies looking to maximise the potential of first-party data from the authenticated web must adopt a strategy beyond simple targeting and cultivate a personalised and reciprocal relationship with consumers.

This approach requires offering tangible value in exchange for user data, such as exclusive content, unique offers and experiences that resonate with each consumer's interests.

For instance, Hiren Kumar, media strategy director for Singapore at Jellyfish, suggests considering a travel brand that uses authenticated web data to enhance customer journeys. Instead of a generic campaign, the brand could offer personalised rewards like loyalty benefits, bespoke travel itineraries, or priority access to discounts based on previous destinations and preferences.

These actions strengthen immediate engagement and foster trust and loyalty, providing deeper insights to drive even more precise future lower-funnel campaigns.

“Ultimately, by turning data-driven insights into meaningful experiences, brands can increase conversion rates while establishing a foundation for long-term customer retention,” says Kumar.

In addition, most brands and agencies' lower-funnel strategies often include ad retargeting. A crucial component of ad retargeting campaigns is identity. If brands and agencies can’t identify the users at the bottom of their funnel, converting them will be more challenging.

All brands and agencies face this challenge now due to the decline of third-party cookies in significant web browsers.

For this reason, brands and agencies should invest in the authenticated web for these lower-funnel strategies to ensure they can maintain the results of their ad campaigns.

However, Michael Sweeney, head of marketing at Clearcode, cautions that many brands and agencies find it challenging to get the data to participate in the authenticated web.

“Many brands don’t collect email addresses; if they do, it’s once a user has purchased something,” explains Sweeney.

“To solve this problem, brands and agencies must devise strategies for collecting this first-party data earlier in the customer journey and using it for the authenticated web.”

The challenge for publishers

Publishers face significant challenges in scaling the authenticated web, impacting the availability and cost of high-quality ad inventory.

One of these challenges is user resistance to logging in, mainly because people grow weary of creating and managing multiple accounts.

Even with single sign-on (SSO) options, which streamline the login process, privacy concerns still deter some users from opting in. This reluctance presents an initial barrier to building a robust, authenticated web.

To succeed, they must implement a comprehensive login strategy and establish incentive programs to encourage users to log in and manage these logins securely. They must also uphold user privacy, ensuring data safety and the ability to unsubscribe if desired.

Managing director of Utiq, Sara Vincent, notes that only 10-15% of the open internet is ever logged in, with variation across publishers. This low rate of authentication presents an ongoing challenge.

In addition, she says publishers must address churn rates. If users log in through one route, like a competition entry, that data might not permit broader marketing or retargeting efforts.

“Relying on logged-in users to grow an addressable audience is challenging, as users tend to be selective about where they log in and often use secondary or unverified email addresses. This limits addressability and reduces the audience size available for advertisers, which generally results in lower CPMs for addressable inventory,” explains Vincent.

“As platforms like Facebook adjust their algorithms, publishers experience fluctuations in traffic, making it essential to maximise revenue per user. This is why reliable user identification has become critical for sustaining revenue and scaling the authenticated web.”

In addition, technical challenges add to the complexity, as publishers need secure systems to handle sensitive data while seamlessly integrating these with existing operations.

With rising privacy regulations, Kumar notes that publishers must also ensure that data handling complies with legal standards. This makes managing authenticated users costly and intricate.

“If login adoption remains low, the result could be a constrained supply of high-quality, consent-based ad inventory, potentially driving up costs,” explains Kumar.

“However, this scarcity might work to an advertiser’s advantage; authenticated inventory becomes a premium asset, valued for its quality, compliance and targeted reach.”

What should advertisers do?

One of the most significant changes introduced by the authenticated web has been the relationship between publishers and ad tech vendors. When third-party cookies were available on all major web browsers, ad tech vendors conducted user identification.

Now that third-party cookies are less available, publishers play a critical role in passing on their users' identification to ad tech vendors, making publishers the identity gatekeepers.

The term ‘premium inventory’ traditionally refers to inventory on a website's high-traffic places, such as at the top of the home page. While this is true for most publishers, many advertisers view premium ad space as an identifiable inventory.

“As it’s getting harder to identify website users, publishers and advertisers must redefine the definition of premium inventory to ensure they’re on the same page. Ultimately, publishers and advertisers should aim to show the right ad to the right person at the right time for the best price. Whether this can be achieved through the authenticated web or other means shouldn’t matter,” explains Sweeney.

The premium nature of authenticated web inventory naturally results in higher costs. However, advertisers can justify the higher costs of premium authenticated web inventory by partnering with technology solutions that enhance the scale of identifiable or authenticated audiences.

Authentication does not always require users to log in, as there are technologies that allow publishers to achieve high levels of addressability comparable to logged-in users without needing personally identifiable information.

For publishers, this scalable addressability increases the opportunity for monetisation. It enhances the value of their sought-after premium inventory, offering advertisers an effective way to maximise ROI in these high-quality environments.

“Advertisers can leverage storytelling and emotionally engaging campaigns to elevate the quality of interactions, turning each premium impression into a meaningful brand experience,” explains Kumar.

“These narratives can strengthen brand affinity and make higher investments worthwhile when paired with the precise targeting of authenticated inventory offers. Additionally, reserving premium inventory for exclusive products or time-sensitive offers creates a sense of urgency and exclusivity that encourages immediate action. This approach is efficient for high-stakes campaigns or product launches where capturing a focused, engaged audience is crucial.”

In addition, A/B testing across premium placements is essential to optimise ROI further. Experimenting with messaging, creative formats, and calls to action allows advertisers to fine-tune strategies for maximum engagement and conversions.

By tracking metrics such as engagement and conversion rates on these premium sites against baseline data, brands can directly assess the value delivered by higher-cost placements.

“The authenticated web's brand-safe, trusted nature enhances brand perception. By positioning ads in these environments, advertisers can strengthen long-term brand equity, making premium investments a strategic asset that pays off in sustained consumer trust and loyalty,” adds Kumar.

A potential cookie replacement in the future?

While there are varying opinions on the effectiveness and privacy benefits of the authenticated web, industry stakeholders, particularly publishers, should conduct thorough due diligence when evaluating third-party identity solutions to determine their actual value beyond simply replicating the issues of third-party cookies.

Key steps include asking potential partners specific questions about their privacy practices and data use, such as: Is the solution compliant with all applicable privacy regulations in its operating regions? Has it been independently validated for data privacy compliance? Does the solution genuinely deliver on its promises regarding data privacy?

“Regarding the consumer, these stakeholders should also ask: Can consumers easily locate, control, and manage their data? Is it clear where their data resides and who has access to it?” says Vincent.

“Reviewing case studies, externally verified results, or testimonials that validate the technology’s effectiveness is also a good way to stay current on solutions. In addition, stakeholders should consider the potential for “integration fatigue,” assessing whether implementing multiple ID solutions could strain resources or complicate workflows.”

Adtech platforms like Onetag also tap into first-party data providers, universal IDs, semantic data, and tools like Google’s Privacy Sandbox. Given the limited reach of authenticated logins on most news sites, the platform sees the potential in combining these methods to offer a holistic, cookieless solution.

Moreover, Keith Arrowsmith, Onetag's global product marketing director, says sell-side curation provides a powerful route for activating these options at scale, offering more addressability than traditional demand-side approaches alone.

“We view these combined strategies as the way forward in a world where authenticated consent can’t reach every user,” says Arrowsmith.

“The key for stakeholders evaluating third-party identity solutions is to consider them within the broader framework of cookieless tools rather than as standalone fixes. It’s about assessing how these solutions contribute to user privacy and targeting effectiveness without replicating third-party cookies' drawbacks.”

Ultimately, Sweeney says the easiest way to assess whether an identity solution works is to test it. However, he cautions all industry stakeholders that they will need to understand the unique challenges of using universal IDs, one of the main ones being scale.

“Although universal IDs are the closest alternative to third-party cookies, they don’t provide the same scale and aren’t as easy to create,” explains Sweeney.

Originally posted in Human Algorithm.

Shawn Lim

Human Algorithm

Shawn Lim is the founder of Human Algorithm, a storytelling-led media platform and personal brand studio that helps creators, leaders, and one-person businesses grow with clarity, authenticity, and purpose. He is also the host of The Human Algorithm Podcast, where he speaks with founders, creatives, and underrepresented voices, redefining leadership and communication in the digital age.

Shawn brings over a decade of journalism experience, having served as Tech and Media Editor at Campaign Asia and a senior writer at The Drum. His reporting spanned digital transformation, ad tech, and agency innovation across the APAC region, strongly focusing on the future of media, work, and creativity. Throughout his career, Shawn has consistently amplified underrepresented communities, spotlighting stories around LGBTQIA+ rights, mental health, gender equity, and the evolving nature of work.

Whether he is writing, coaching, or collaborating, Shawn’s mission is clear: To help thoughtful people use storytelling to build trust, visibility, and transformation in a world that often rewards noise over nuance.

CTV Bridges Traditional TV and Streaming Gaps

Wed, 14 May 2025 09:44:54 GMT

CTV is blurring the lines between old-school TV and new-age streaming – here’s why that matters to marketers and viewers alike.

The growing prevalence of connected TV (CTV), coupled with an increasingly fragmented streaming space, creates an advertising landscape reminiscent of the pre-streaming era. CTV combines the reach of traditional TV advertising with the precision of social media campaigns, presenting unique opportunities and challenges for advertisers. “The fragmentation of the streaming ecosystem has revolutionized viewing habits,” remarks Jon Hewson, managing director at Audience Store.

The distinction between traditional linear TV and connected, on-demand TV is blurring as audiences consume content across multiple platforms without differentiating between them. Established platforms like Netflix and Disney Plus now face fierce competition from numerous niche and freemium services. The oversaturated market has led to a decline in streaming’s momentum.

Netflix UK, for example, saw its subscriber growth drop from 20% annually to just 4% in 2022. “SVOD fatigue is now real,” says a former VP of CTV strategy & marketing at Publica by IAS, highlighting a shift towards free or low-cost ad-supported streaming services (AVOD & FAST). These platforms are gaining popularity, with viewers spending an average of 1 hour and 40 minutes per evening on them.

Paid services are also introducing ad-supported subscription tiers and raising prices. “The lines between traditional TV and CTV are blurring fast,” Gubbins notes.

Bridging traditional and connected TV

CTV advertising is becoming integral to modern TV, combining live TV with on-demand streaming. CTV covers any internet-connected television capable of streaming video content, including smart TVs, set-top boxes, and gaming consoles. CTV ads—like traditional TV ads but smarter and data-driven—are rapidly growing.

“CTV ads combine traditional TV’s broad reach with the precision of data-driven digital ads,” Gubbins explains. In the UK, more than three-quarters of households now own a smart TV, making CTV increasingly ubiquitous. For advertisers, the challenge lies in navigating the fragmented CTV ecosystem while leveraging data and programmatic technology like DSPs and SSPs for effective ad targeting.

Audience measurement and attribution are still evolving, but advertisers are already seeing significant value from CTV advertising. “Focus on the audience, not the platform,” advises Hewson. Wallace adds that CTV offers a more immersive experience compared to other digital channels like social media, presenting a unique opportunity for advertisers to capture higher engagement levels.

So, has the tech industry reinvented the crab again? The resurgence of old models with new technology suggests a synthesis of past and present, potentially leading to a more stable era for entertainment and advertising.

Also published in: DMN

Sentiment Is Everything – Why Contextual Intelligence Means More Than Just Ads

Thu, 01 May 2025 08:26:42 GMT

James Donovan, Client Strategy Director, GumGum, explores how contextual intelligence captures cultural sentiment, enabling brands to align messaging with real-time audience moods.

The best technology is rarely only useful for one thing, which is why there is a rich history of spin-off innovations that find essential applications of their own. NASA’s space programme, for instance, can famously take credit for memory foam, scratch-resistant lenses, cordless vacuum cleaners and more.

In the same way, contextual advertising technology is starting to open the door to other possibilities. While it was developed for one, admittedly sophisticated purpose – to place ads, guarantee brand safety and optimise user attention, without any need for invasive third-party data – its ability to scan and interpret the whole of the open web, in real time, is leading to other, equally compelling use cases.

The applications of a tool that can interpret not only what people are reading, but also intuit the sentiment behind that action, are truly intriguing – especially in a world in which cultural moments, played out in real time through a chain reaction of live events, online impacts and real-world escalations, can suddenly and meaningfully shift the world in which we all operate.

Earth-shaking moments and quiet tremors

Every day offers up new examples, of which some are earth-shaking and many more are quietly significant. When Grammy winner Taylor Swift was seen cheering on the Kansas City Chiefs – confirming her relationship with the NFL team’s star player, Travis Kelce – she redefined the audience for Sunday Night Football in an instant.

This summer, during an animated Paris Olympics, Simone Biles became the most decorated American gymnast in Olympics history while French swimmer Léon Marchand took two gold medals in one evening. A tweet about the new Charli XCX album briefly appeared to have the power to influence the US Election, and events from the Glastonbury festival to The Met Gala hijacked the news cycle.

Some of these will interest you, some won’t. But such moments create waves of public consciousness that can build or change in a heartbeat. And, in the same way that contextual technology is able to interpret contextual signals to perfectly align brand messaging with mood, it can also stay one step ahead of these complex audience dynamics.

Contextual intelligence hears everything

Contextual intelligence can act as a powerful barometer to the ebbs and flows of key cultural moments. This means that, as an advertiser or agency, you can put your finger on the pulse of emerging trends or stories just as the momentum around them builds.

It’s a capacity that echoes Google Trends – not through the prism of people’s search terms, but via their consumption of content. This insight, in turn, hands advertisers the power to creatively and strategically adapt their campaigns in real time, plan ahead more effectively and extend into new, unexpected audience segments.

The benefits of such insights are about far more than simply piggybacking on breaking news – they have major implications for audience sentiment analysis and brand safety.

When ’90s superstars Oasis announced their reunion tour after a 15-year feud this summer, GumGum research found a massive swell in brand mentions, followed by a 26% spike in negative sentiment – no doubt driven by the ticketing fiasco that followed. At the same time, 85% of inventory mentioning Oasis was found to be brand-safe.

All of this forms a rich tapestry of mood-based insights on which brands can capitalise, as they reap the benefits of a dynamic surge in online debate.

If you understand sentiment, you understand everything

Understanding sentiment is core to brands making the most of cultural moments that are hard to predict, and contextual technology is the key to reading it. By using data to assess the large- or small-scale public reaction to live, paradigm-shifting moments, brands can understand how to lean into, or out of, certain talking points. They can also identify where the opportunities lie to augment a particular campaign.

The application of contextual tech to evaluate the meaning of content across the open web is broadening. It remains, of course, a platform for watertight brand safety and targeting precision. But in parallel, its capacity to channel enormous volumes of credible, reactive data around the cultural conversation represents a secret weapon for advertisers who know how to apply it.

Also pubished in: Advertising Week

James Donovan

Director Client Strategy EMEA at GumGum

Adtech: A Short History

Thu, 01 May 2025 08:04:37 GMT

Advertising has been around for millennia. Ads appear in Indian rock art paintings dating back 6,000 years, and in ancient Greek and Roman papyrus scrolls from 2,000 years ago.

It is generally accepted that the first newspaper advert appeared in Samuel Peck's Perfect Diurnall, published in London in November of 1646, around the time of the English Civil War. Throughout the 1800s, printing technology developed, media became mainstream, and the advertising industry expanded in tandem.

As innovations such as radio and television arrived, so did new and exciting ad formats that played to each channel’s strengths. By the 1980s the advertising industry was a behemoth responsible for vast, iconic campaigns based on consumer research and Nielsen-driven performance metrics that reached millions of people. Print, radio and TV were the dominating channels.

If you're looking for jargon explanations, check out our Adtech Glossary.

Nineties chaos: the birth of digital media

The first digital ad appeared in 1994. It was an AT&T ad that appeared on hotwired.com , and achieved a click-through rate (CTR) of 44% - the kind of performance most contemporary digital advertisers would sell a kidney for. Today, most ads achieve a CTR of between 0.02% and 2%.

The formative years of digital advertising were a chaos of sidebar banner and popup ads of questionable quality, as the industry fumbled towards effective, efficient methods of online marketing. Initially, campaigns were booked manually by advertisers and publishers, as they had been for many years across other media. In 1995, the arrival of central ad servers - the first of which was FocaLink Media Services, later AdKnowledge - led to increasing automation of the process. Ad networks - including DoubleClick, but more on them later - appeared a few years later, enabling campaigns to be sold at scale.

In 1996, the IAB was founded, which brought a degree of ad format standardisation and some guidance for advertisers around the burgeoning technologies that were shaping the industry. A degree of control was achieved over the chaos, but the space still lacked any real transparency, or the kind of effectiveness and efficiency the digital media landscape enjoys today. It was simply moving too fast.

2000s: the bubble bursts, but mobile and programmatic take flight

The following decade was to produce some of digital advertising’s truly groundbreaking moments. But first, a reality check. During the late 1990s, investors had plunged millions upon millions into adtech companies, many of which had no real demonstrable revenue model. Reality bit hard between 2000 and 2002 when it became obvious that these companies were hugely overvalued. Many subsequently imploded, triggering a stock market collapse. The disastrous merger of Time Warner and AOL in particular became symbolic of the bursting of the dotcom bubble.

Full-throttle mode resumed shortly after, and in the mid-2000s supply-side platforms (SSPs) arrived, enabling publishers to sell their inventory quicker and easier. A little later, Demand-Side Platforms (DPSs) followed to combat inefficiencies in the ad-buying process. Both of these remain critical cogs in the digital ad world today.

Towards the end of the decade, SSPs and DSPs enabled the creation of real-time bidding. Finally, advertisers could buy impressions on a publisher’s website, using automation, in real time - programmatic advertising had arrived. This vastly increased an advertiser’s ability to target an audience at scale, with greater transparency, speed and efficiency than ever before.

The latter part of the 2000s ended with a bang. Apple delivered the iPhone in 2007, mobile internet became reliable enough to deliver quality video ads, and mobile ad networks (such as AdMob) were the catalyst for the rise of the smartphone as a portable ad platform.

2010s: social media arrives

The digital advertising industry moves faster than ever during this period, but the 2010s were characterised by an acknowledgement that a certain degree of refinement was required for its products and services to appeal to the broader marketing world. For example, in 2010 Google launched DoubleClick for Publishers. This product gave advertisers new control over their campaigns. From one location, advertisers could now track metrics, analyse performance and optimise their ads.

Between 2012 and 2014, social media became a force to be reckoned with in adtech. Facebook acquired Instagram, and the former launched promoted content, with video ads, across both platforms. Twitter and Snapchat did the same shortly after, and by 2016 Musical.ly (TikTok’s predecessor) was gaining huge popularity.

2016 was also the year mobile internet usage exceeded desktop usage for the first time globally, demonstrating the world’s move towards a truly multichannel status. This gave brands and advertisers a new raft of opportunities to engage consumers in multiple places and at multiple times, in different ways.

In addition to social media, brands were finding campaign success through YouTube, which had been acquired by Google in 2006. By 2014, the video-sharing platform generated over $5bn in ad revenue, and by 2019 that had risen to $15.1bn.

2020s: AI, consumer privacy and ongoing development

The last few years have been characterised by adtech’s maturation. The industry of 35 years ago had a touch of the Wild West about it, but as platforms and solutions develop their offerings, consumer consent and privacy regulations tighten and the space pushes for greater efficiency and transparency, adtech has never been in such a good place.

And meanwhile the innovations keep coming. AI and ML are doing everything from shaping ad creative to increasing attribution accuracy, and the rise of the partnership economy, CTV and retail media show that the space is more creative than ever in helping advertisers reach consumers.

Attribution has always been one of digital advertising’s greatest challenges, but adtech is proving powerful in helping progress the space. With its mountains of data, analysis and optimisation capabilities, adtech is helping to track the new, multichannel user journey, bringing greater insight to marketers, helping them build campaign success powered by technology.

The Alchemy of Audience Trust

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 10:09:05 GMT

Trust is the secret sauce in advertising. Discover why building it with your audience is critical, and how to do it well.

Trust is complicated topic. There is a wealth of factors that feed into whether or not we decide to trust in an individual or an organisation and different groups will prioritise different elements when forming their opinions. On top of that, it is far easier to lose trust than it is to gain; one wrong move could undermine decades of brand building.

Audience trust has always been important for publishers, but as AI ramps up the speed and virality of misinformation and disinformation, it is increasingly critical to make sure that foundation is solid. We reached out to our Associate partners to discover what they considered to be the key factors in building trust with your audience. From privacy management, to a streamlined ad experience, to fact-checked and reliable content, here are the eleven areas that should be top priorities for publishers right now.

Educate audiences on privacy and the value exchange needed to fund quality content.

By providing transparency and choice, publishers can build trust with their readers and drive a more engaged and enriched customer experience.

How can this be achieved? By being clear and concise on the value exchange that is required in order for the publisher to continue to provide fact-checked, unbiased, verified professional journalism. This starts with clear and transparent consent and is followed by respect for that consent in line with privacy regulations. Getting this right is the gold that grows trust, and a better user experience. A consented and trusting audience will drive better outcomes all round; more engagement, more interaction, more brand loyalty, in an era when audiences are on the decline, and every single reader matters.

Catherine Murray, Head of Partner Services UK, Utiq

Adopt measurement solutions beyond third-party cookies.

To build audience trust, publishers must prioritise transparency, especially in data handling. A privacy-first approach demonstrates they are committed to respecting audience expectations at a time when concerns about online privacy are growing. This also extends to measurement. By adopting measurement solutions that are free of third-party cookies and do not capture personal information, publishers can deliver meaningful insights, whilst also protecting user anonymity. Educating audiences about these practices fosters greater confidence in the platforms they engage with. Trust is built when publishers show they value both effectiveness and ethics in their campaigns, reassuring audiences that their privacy is never compromised.

Sean Adams, CMO, Brand Metrics

Also published in AOP.

Q&A: Taking control of programmatic: 5 minutes with… Pierre Orlac’h

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 10:13:07 GMT

Publishers face challenges on a number of fronts, but are reasserting themselves and taking control of their own destiny. Pierre Orlac’h, chief supply officer, Sparteo, explains how.

Q: What’s the biggest challenge facing publishers right now?

A: Publishers face many challenges. The first is the need to work hard to maintain or grow their audience, and ensure they are accessible not just on the web, but on other social and, in some cases, offline platforms. At the same time, they need to monetise in a fragmented and complex programmatic ecosystem, where we see too many intermediaries who dilute revenue streams.

On top of all this, they have to adapt to deliver transparency, performance and sovereignty to keep their key stakeholders — advertisers and audiences — happy. Finally, there is the omnipresent threat from the walled gardens, who routinely seek to leverage the high-quality, independent content produced by publishers on the open web, without any adequate form of compensation.

Q: What excites you most in the publishing space?

A: I’m excited by the rise of publisher-led adtech initiatives such as supply path optimisation that are helping publishers to take more control of programmatic and reclaim value from the ecosystem. This is opening up the potential for more high-quality relationships between publishers and advertisers. When publishers work with one trusted partner who can help them maximise the value of their inventory, it enables them to reduce their reliance on a plethora of unnecessary intermediaries.

I’m also excited by the number of publishers who are entrusting the control of their infrastructure to one trusted partner, rather than relying on big cloud services. This is part of a wider move towards true digital autonomy among publishers and other players in the programmatic space, and into a world in which they are much more in control of their destiny. Finally, the use of advanced AI tech to optimise yield in real time is opening up new revenue opportunities for publishers.

Q: AI seems to be impacting everything. What impact is it having on publishers?

A: AI is impacting all aspects of adtech, from targeting to creative, campaign execution, measurement and attribution. From a publisher perspective, it is becoming an essential tool to maximise revenue-per-impression and manage complex ad inventories. Its ability to crunch data in vast quantities in next to no time is revolutionising the way in which publishers are able to extract the greatest possible value, both from the inventory they supply and the audience data they hold.

The intelligent application of AI enables smarter, real-time decisioning and predictive analytics that optimise ad placements based on both a wealth of historical data, and on likely future outcomes. Publishers can see their revenues in real-time at the URL level. This automation of yield optimisation reduces the burden on ad-ops teams, leaving them free to think more strategically and package up their inventory in ways that will make it more attractive to advertisers.

Q: Infrastructure dependencies and digital sovereignty are becoming hot topics in Europe — how should publishers be thinking about these issues?

A: European publishers are reassessing their reliance on U.S.-based platforms, and increasingly opting for sovereign infrastructure, prioritising European solutions that align with local regulations and values. Working with tech partners that offer sustainable, in-house infrastructure and sovereign hosting gives them a greater degree of digital independence, which in turn gives them a long-term competitive advantage. It also leaves them less vulnerable to the impact of decisions taken by governments in other countries that can have a profoundly negative impact on their business.

Q: Are the days of the intermediaries inserting themselves into the programmatic supply chain and taking a cut of publishers’ revenues coming to an end?

A: Thankfully, yes. For too long, a variety of intermediaries have come between the publisher and the advertiser, each taking their cut of the ad spend so that, in some scenarios, less than half of every ad dollar spent ends up in the publisher’s pocket. But a shift is happening now, as publishers demand more control and transparency. We are seeing a growing preference for leaner, more efficient supply chains. Continued market education is essential, but the momentum is clearly in favour of disintermediation — putting the publisher back in control.

Q: What’s in the pipeline from Sparteo?

A: We plan to continue our international expansion, especially in the UK and key European markets, underpinned by a strong focus on R&D to stay ahead of the curve on AI, data science and infrastructure innovation. As part of these plans, we have developed Meetscale, a next-generation Supply-Side Platform focused on performance, sovereignty, and AI-powered yield optimisation. That is something we feel the market is currently lacking, and we have already seen extremely compelling results. These are exciting times.

Also published in: Inpublishing

Why curation is the smart approach for independent agencies

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 10:21:18 GMT

Curation is changing the game for independent agencies. Here’s how it drives efficiency, control, and results, by Dan Scherer, SVP global sales, demand, and partnerships at Onetag

A defining strength of independent media agencies is their agility in embracing new ways of working. This enables them to move quickly and capitalize on market shifts. Their start-up and scale-up mindset helps them rapidly align with emerging tools and technologies to seize new opportunities. This entrepreneurial DNA drives the adoption of new smart, efficient, and scalable solutions to compete with larger agency networks – while delivering superior results for clients.

Curation is the major new market shift, and agencies are moving fast in response to the phase-out of third-party cookies, with open web addressability now declining to less than 20% according to the IAB. In our recent article , ‘From buzzword to better advertising, why supply-side curation is the smart approach in 2025,’ we outlined how curation platforms give buyers direct access to inventory at the supply source for programmatic deal creation and activation. This new, easy way to optimise across all data signals achieves greater scale for high-value impressions and stronger campaign outcomes.

Independent agencies are uniquely positioned to benefit from adopting a smart curation approach to programmatic planning. Here’s how:

Easy access to premium inventory

Traditional programmatic buying has favoured large media groups with bulk-buying power, making it harder for independents to secure top-tier, brand-safe inventory. Curation solves this by giving direct access to pre-vetted, high-quality inventory through curated deals – without requiring direct publisher relationships or massive spend commitments.

Leading services, such as the Onetag Smart Curation platform, are immediately available with zero tech fee, ensuring there is no barrier to entry.

Smarter, more efficient ad spend

Curation switches media creation and activation to the inventory source, enabling far greater user matching, addressability, and scale for campaigns.

Smart curation technology also accelerates media buying by automatically filtering out low-quality and inefficient supply – before a single bid is placed.

AI and data-driven optimization

Independent agencies can instantly benefit from best-in-class smart curation technology founded on real-time AI, without needing to invest precious time in building and training their own capabilities.

Curation puts independents on an immediate level playing field with bigger networks, which also require curation platforms to provide access to the most efficient, high-performing supply paths.

Simple and intuitive control

Unlike the traditional programmatic marketplace – where media quality, tech fees, and supply chains are opaque – curation helps independent agencies remove intermediaries, and take control of performance.

Partners using the Onetag Smart Curation platform consistently tell us it’s the easiest and most intuitive UI, enabling them to launch and manage campaigns in moments. With time more precious than ever, our focus is on driving performance and giving you time back.

Customisation and differentiation

Curation gives agencies the keys to precisely select and target the programmatic inventory they require, tailored to their clients’ KPIs. Alongside the suite of inventory targeting options, Onetag Smart Curation platform features also include easy-performance KPI sliders and APIs for immediate deal deployment at scale.

This combination of easy customisation and scale ensures agencies deliver strong results with operational efficiency.

Reduced bidstream bloat

DSPs (demand-side platforms) can only process a fraction of available impressions in the bidstream. Without effective curation of inventory, they are limited to just buying what they already know, and at a general rather than individual seat level. Curation lets independent agencies carve out only the most performant impressions they want to buy in the bidstream.

What’s more, curation doesn’t just improve campaign outcomes – it significantly reduces the environmental impact of programmatic advertising. For independent agencies wishing to share this insight with interested brand marketers, carbon data reporting is now available from Onetag and other leading smart curation platforms.

Faster activation, better results

Traditional approaches to demand-side data deal creation are broken, due to the impact of low user matching and disappearing cookies. Curation at the supply source offers rapid activation and a faster path for pre-optimized impressions to reach your DSP seat – leading to better campaign results.

By removing setup pain points, smart curation technology frees up time for independent agencies to focus on client strategy, creativity, and growth.

In summary, supply-side curation – and its smart technology foundation – is the ready-made solution for better programmatic planning and buying. Independent agencies are moving quickly to unlock its benefits, and with the Onetag Smart Curation platform, we are proud to provide the plug-and-play solution that helps you win for your clients and get time back.

It’s time to compete smarter, not harder.

Also published in: The Drum

Q&A: How trading efficiency and AI will drive the programmatic roadmap

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 10:39:04 GMT

Limelight’s co-founder and chief revenue officer, James Macdonald, talks about the future of programmatic and explains how the company is rethinking the optimization landscape to drive greater trading efficiency.

Welcome James. What do you see as the key issues for programmatic right now?

JM: Supply chain optimisation (SCO) has been with us for some time, and as such, there are many approaches that promote and enhance trading efficiency. For us at Limelight, we know through supporting hundreds of partners successfully, that having a clear strategy on SCO – with tools to support that – delivers results.

We think there needs to be a renewed focus on SCO, and specifically, trading efficiency. For ad networks, we’d define that as the ability to generate the strongest revenues possible with the supply and resources available. That has advantages for their demand relationships, as well as their publisher side commitments, and promotes better commercial outcomes. It also means operating in a greener way. All of these are key components of what makes the trading model financially successful.

QPS (queries per second) is generally considered the currency of programmatic trading, and that is a big part of this. Most large-scale DSPs (demand-side platforms) manage their overhead by managing out any underperforming QPS allocated to ad networks and ad exchanges. Essentially, as a supplier, ad network, or publisher, this means you need to maximize the impact of your allocated QPS through good results – or risk having the quota reduced.

Demand sources are more amenable to suppliers and supply-side partners who are not inhibited by limited volumes of QPS in the initial stages of any campaign or demand action. Ultimately, the ability to experiment to locate and secure the right impressions requires flexible QPS allocation. From the Limelight perspective, offering unlimited QPS, with no cost implications on the demand side, provides our partners with the ability to attract demand with scalable and flexible QPS allocation, making them more attractive as supply partners.

What is your take on AI and the role it has to play in programmatic?

JM: AI is already heavily influencing the direction in which programmatic is evolving. That said, AI is only as good as the people that the machine is learning from, and it’s still people that are the driving force behind good ideas – not the machine. It’s that ability to merge technology and human touch that will still be very important for programmatic trading efficiency. We call it “technology with a heartbeat.”

It’s also important to remember that our AI doesn’t control the supply you receive, and so a great deal of optimization occurs outside the influence of your machine learning. Our approach is to create tools that enable people to use AI to enhance their existing strengths, using their own ‘real intelligence’ to differentiate them from competitors. We provide them the means to better understand their supply chain – and what they’re sending their demand – and to enact change at a speed and scale they couldn't achieve as a human. It’s a potent and effective combination of technology and human power.

So, AI has a huge role to play, but it doesn’t allow for the bespoke elements needed to support a healthy and varied programmatic landscape. Ultimately, if everyone uses the same AI, there will be no creative ad networks doing innovative things in the future, because they are unable to communicate their uniqueness. There is no one-size-fits-all option, and nor should there be.

You mentioned the connection between efficiency and sustainability. Can you spell out the relationship between the two?

JM: While we adjust to and define our relationships with AI, and continue to adapt to the various challenges and opportunities around first-party data and consumer privacy, the industry also needs to maintain a consistent focus on sustainability. We ought to be finding ways to help one another do better, targeting efficiencies for environmental as well as economic motivations.

Allowing ad networks to optimize in real time – reducing the usage of server capacity, and in turn lowering carbon emissions – keeps green credentials rightly at the forefront, and again feeds into the reputational aspect of being an efficient and successful trader.

What’s new at Limelight?

JM: Our most recent development, which is in beta at the moment, is a ‘real intelligence’ engine driven by optimization rules, designed to empower our partners who include ad networks, exchanges, publishers, and SSPs (supply-side platforms), to be more efficient – while remaining true to their unique ideas, attributes, and values. In other words, we’re enabling them to combine ‘real intelligence’ – their own character and USPs – with AI to create a unique trading environment based on efficiency.

In essence, it is a toolkit that allows partners to automate actions that they would otherwise do manually on the platform. While in the past, they had to download, analyze, and extract data by hand, our optimization allows them to automate that process. That includes being able to set up specific time intervals and granular KPIs, such as increasing the volume of traffic being sent to a chosen advertiser, or even blocking traffic that isn’t performing well.

It’s at an exciting stage because, through initial testing, we are seeing different clients engage with it in totally different ways, and dreaming up highly efficient, optimized trading practices that we might never have considered. Not surprisingly, there is also a tangible and significant commercial upside emerging that is very exciting to our partners.

Also published in: The Drum

A Newcomer's Guide to Multichannel Advertising

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 10:30:06 GMT

As anyone in digital marketing and advertising will tell you, it’s a multichannel game these days. But for those just starting out in this industry, the experience is more likely to be a monochannel one.

Maybe you specialise in search; maybe social; maybe something else. So, what’s all the other stuff? What do people mean when they talk about contextual? Is retail media just adverts in supermarkets? What is CTV exactly? Alright, wait, so what’s linear TV then?

Anyway, here’s a nuts-and-bolts channel guide for those wandering into the business with big, blinking eyes and hoping one day to master it all –– complete with conversation starters to get you networking!

If you're looking for more jargon explanations, check out our Adtech Glossary.

CTV

CTV, aka Connected TV, is the term we use to describe the ecosystem of smart/connected screens that access content on the web and via online streaming services. Just as on-demand viewing is booming, so is advertisers’ enthusiasm to reach its audiences. Connected TV appeals to brands as it combines the reach and scale of TV with the targeting and measurement potential of digital advertising, and it has a reputation for greater engagement than traditional TV advertising.

While streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime and others are the CTV services most people think of, they are not the only ones, as CTV also includes free ad-supported services (including Freevee, Pluto TV and Samsung TV Plus) as well as opportunities via niche apps, live sports and gaming platforms. Linear TV, as your granny will tell you, is TV delivered via satellite or cable where you basically just have to watch what’s on. I know .

Conversation starter:

“I can easily picture CTV spend reaching £3bn by 2028.”

Learn more with IAB UK

Retail media

Retail Media is all about the emergence of retailers as media networks in their own right. That means they - particularly supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s, Walmart and others, but many other chains too - can offer brands the opportunity to reach audiences in stores and through their e-commerce properties, while also leveraging rich transactional data to target audiences online, via personalised, omnichannel campaigns.

In a time when traditional, third-party-cookie-based targeting methods are widely regarded to be intrusive, retail media gives brands direct access to engaged, often opted-in consumers, including loyalty programme participants. And unlike most advertising, it also offers advertisers the ability to “close the loop” - to track and analyse the entire customer journey, from ad exposure to purchase.

Conversation starter:

“All media will have become retail media by 2030.”

Learn more with IAB UK

Partnership marketing

Back in the day, brands often worked with affiliates - online publishers who worked hard to generate traffic or sales for you, in return for a commission. Time went by and other organised ‘ partnerships ’ began to flourish - with creators, customers who refer their friends, publishers who create commerce content, mobile and B2B partners and others. Collectively, they became known as ‘the partnership economy’. What typically unites these partners is that they offer opportunities for brands to talk to audiences in a way that bypasses traditional advertising, and hopefully harnesses the trust and credibility that an influencer, or a well-regarded publisher, or even another brand, has built with their followers.

Conversation starter:

“Traditional advertising is dead.
Strategic brand partnerships are the new paradigm.”

Learn more with impact.com

Email marketing

The use of email to promote products or services. This might include newsletters, promotional and transactional emails, and while it may sound old-fashioned, it really isn’t. In the post-cookie age, email is regarded as a significant unique identifier for an individual, giving the email address a renewed significance for practitioners of targeted marketing.

Conversation starter:

“As a channel, email marketing is powerful because advertising in the inbox works.”

Learn more with NewDigitalAge

Contextual advertising

A means of targeting advertising based on the context in which the ad appears, without the use of any data the advertiser holds on the individual. Today’s contextual targeting is based on AI-driven understanding of signals including text, image, audio and video, and while it continues to build in sophistication and uptake, it is undeniably already one of the leading means of cookieless targeting.

Conversation starter:

“What I hear is that we’re seeing more and more agencies kicking the tyres of contextual.”

Learn more with Digiday

Social media

You know what social media is: online platforms on which users can share and create content and connect with each other, and brands attempt to get in on the act too, with a wide range of results. Social media runs through the marketing of every brand at some level. Some have the wit to jump on trends, memes and communities; others use creators to achieve a similar effect. Then there’s video content on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and others, and targeted campaigns within the broader ‘walled gardens’ of Meta, Amazon and Google, guided by rich user data of a kind not easily found elsewhere since third-party cookies went out of fashion. Some suggest such platforms have lost a little of their charm since their partisan role in the crowning of the current US President.

Conversation starter:

“Facebook remains the biggest social network, followed by YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram, but did you know six of the Top 15 are Chinese?”

Learn more with Dreamgrow

Search

A collective term for forms of advertising and marketing built around search engines, particularly SEO and PPC. Search engine optimisation (SEO), also known as organic search, is the practice of improving a website’s visibility in search engines. By using relevant keywords, correctly configuring the technical aspects of the site, optimising the user experience and building good-quality links to other websites, SEO can improve the volume and quality of traffic the site receives.

Conversation starter:

“Google is expected to fall below a 50% share of the US search advertising market in 2025, under pressure from challengers including Amazon and TikTok (though Google still has 91% of the overall search volume).”

Learn more with emarketer

Programmatic and curation

Programmatic advertising is the automated process of buying and selling digital media using technology and algorithmic tools. This involves a real-time auction conducted between a DSP (representing the advertiser) and an SSP (representing the media owner) that takes place when a user visits a website and concludes, within fractions of a second, with the winning ad served on the page. The majority of advertising is now bought and sold programmatically - partly because the majority of advertising is digital, but also because channels such as digital out-of-home (DOOH), CTV, mobile, video and linear television have picked up the habit.

While highly efficient, programmatic advertising isn’t perfect, and grapples with issues such as ad fraud, brand safety and huge amounts of mysterious lost spend - leading to the development of services such as supply-side curation, which packages safe, accurate supply chain data and inventory from the open web.

Conversation starter:
“Supply-side curation allows publisher inventory to perform better within the confines
of the open auction and in custom deals, all without the need for cookies.
At least that’s what I take from it.”

Learn more with InPublishing

Digital out-of-home

Outdoor advertising, as it was once known. Not just billboards, but urban panels, bus shelters, screens on buses, trains and tube escalators, and networks in bars, shops, petrol stations, gyms and so on. And while out-of-home in its original form was the preserve of the man with big sheets of paper and a bucket of paste, these days DOOH is dynamic and often programmatically targeted - a sub-medium known as prDOOH. You’re right, we need a better name for that.

Conversation starter:

“PrDOOH has reached an inflection point where we can finally discuss it with

the same data sophistication as other digital channels.”

Learn more with Mediashotz

In-game advertising

Picture a racing game. Now picture a billboard beside the track, with an advert for a real brand on it: that’s in-game advertising - or one face of it, at least. There are approximately 3.32 billion active video game players in the world, across mobile and console games, and of course it would be good to reach them with ads, but to do so without making them cross is a tricky business. In-game advertising (IGA) most often involves integrating advertisements into video games - as banners, video ads, even product placement. The point is to reach players in a non-disruptive way, generally to build brand awareness.

Conversation starter:

“Once a fringe channel for advertisers, gaming has recently attracted an influx

of demand from marketers seeking new avenues for engaging younger consumers.”

Learn more with the Drum

DOOH breaks out: Programmatic growth fuels global ad push

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 10:18:02 GMT

Digital out-of-home is exploding, and programmatic is behind the surge. Here’s what advertisers need to know.

From the U.S. to Germany to the U.K., the digital out-of-home (DOOH) market is booming, fueled by a wave of commercial activity and tech improvements attracting ad budgets.

Just in the past few months, in the U.S., T-Mobile acquired OOH media company Vistar in a $600 million deal; in Europe, Bauer Media Group snapped up Clear Channel Outdoor Europe-North , Ströer is in talks to sell its OOH business to private equity in a €4 billion deal and JCDecaux plans to double its London footprint of roadside screens.

Industry leaders say DOOH’s unique appeal – especially with the integration of programmatic buying – is driving this activity.

“[OOH’s] position as the only remaining mass medium without audience reach degradation or fragmentation all contributes to more deals being done,” says Wade Rifkin, EVP and GM of programmatic and commerce at Clear Channel Outdoor.

“When you focus in on the Vistar deal specifically, programmatic DOOH has been on a growth track that outpaces the OOH industry, and it’s been bringing incremental investment into the space,” Rifkin adds.

Data collated by Outsmart, the trade body for OOH advertising in the U.K., shows spending reached £1 billion during 2024, a 12% increase from 2023. The DOOH market in APAC is predicted to surpass $30 billion by 2030. Meanwhile, a global study by GroupM predicts DOOH could make up 42% of all OOH revenue in 2025.

Tech advancements are key to this growth, according to Vaughn Ericson, SVP of activation strategy at True Media.

“The rapid growth of technology built into digital screens from higher resolution, video capabilities, interactivity, real-time dynamic creative capabilities and personalization has made DOOH ads more relevant, engaging and effective for advertisers and audiences,” he says.

Research by the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) found that 76% of American consumers have taken an action after being exposed to a DOOH placement.

Programmatic DOOH is another growth driver. Real-time buying and selling has simplified entry to the market and enabled messaging that is timelier and more engaging. “Programmatic DOOH has achieved critical mass in both inventory supply across formats and venue types, and in buy-side utilization,” Rifkin says.

DOOH is also becoming a key part of omnichannel campaigns, allowing brands to use first-party data to segment audiences and tailor dynamic messages by location or demographic details.

“The combination of audience-based planning on top of the premium and high-quality contexts that OOH offers is a powerful one-two punch,” Rifkin says.

“You can’t truly be omnichannel, in the sense of reaching customers across the totality of their daily journey without OOH. It’s a channel that makes the rest of the mix more performant, and ultimately, that’s what marketers care about,” he adds.

And DOOH is integrating with another fast-growing channel: connected TV (CTV). “DOOH extends the campaign’s reach beyond the living room, effectively turbocharging results by reaching audiences in dynamic, high-impact environments,” says Thomas Allemand, VP for adtech and supply at Jellyfish.

Allemand says DOOH works particularly well with younger consumers who aren’t as reachable with traditional TV.

“Moreover, with TV ad costs rising, I see advertisers increasingly leaning into DOOH for its flexibility and cost-efficiency,” Allemand says. “Brands are increasingly viewing DOOH and CTV as parallel digital video channels, using DOOH to fill the gaps where TV reach is declining.”

Also published in: The Current

Taking the Initiative: A Guide to Advertising’s Campaigning Side

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 10:12:47 GMT

Does the advertising and media industry like anything better than a taskforce? Well, it can’t say no to a cross-industry initiative, and it loves an action group.

Collectively, industry initiatives paint a thorough and revealing picture of exactly where the industry would like to see change, what it cares about, where the money is getting lost, and what it fears might get unpalatably regulated if those on the inside don’t get on top of it first.

Every trade association, of course, has its own set of campaigns and issue-focused committees. And then there are the collaborative drives, the stand-alone bodies and the government-driven working groups. Here are some of the key ones:

Ad Net Zero

The purpose: to help tackle the climate emergency by reducing ad-related emissions

Ad Net Zero is the advertising industry’s drive to reduce the carbon impact of developing, producing and running advertising to real net zero. Its action points focus squarely on methods of reducing emissions right across the wider advertising industry, starting with business operations and following on with ad production, media planning and buying, awards, events and a broader push to use the the cultural influence and creative power of the advertising industry to drive positive change in every sector of the economy. Ad Net Zero is supported, at least in principle, by every holdco, industry body and tech giant of note.

Learn more about Ad Net Zero

To learn more about the industry's climate impact, check out our sustainability page.

Advertising Unlocked

The purpose: to hook smart kids into advertising

The IPA’s advertising open day sees agencies across the UK open their doors to the next generation of talent, providing students with a window into adland through workshops, interactive discussions, office tours, and creative challenges. Last year, 77 advertising and media agencies hosted about 2,000 schoolchildren across 14 towns and cities.

Learn more about Advertising Unlocked

AI Taskforce

The purpose: to get the best out of AI in advertising without letting it burn the house down

The Advertising Association’s AI Taskforce is far from the only AI Taskforce in the world - AI being the kind of opportunity/challenge/existential horror threat that seems to call for as many task forces as you can drum up. UK advertising’s AI squad was established in September 2023 to develop a cohesive industry approach towards the technology. It is co-chaired by Google and VCCP, with its participants drawn from the Advertising Association’s wider membership. Its inaugural report, published last summer, includes a 12-point checklist for responsible AI adoption.

Learn more about the AI Taskforce

All In

The purpose: to improve inclusion and representation in the UK advertising business

All In is the industry’s workforce inclusivity initiative, set by the Advertising Association, the IPA and ISBA and more than justified by troubling insights from its own census. These include the fact that 29% of women believe that gender hinders career progression; 30% of black people are likely to leave the industry due to lack of inclusion and experience of discrimination; and 20% of people in advertising and marketing are working class, compared to 40% of the total population. [source: All In Census 2023)

The All In action plan takes aim at discrimination and inequality due to race, gender, disability, class, age, mental health and sexual orientation, and as of March 2025 its census is now running for the third time, having last time drawn more than 18,500 responses. Initiatives such as the Advertising Association’s BRiM (Black Representation in Marketing) working group sit within the All In hub.

Learn more about the All In Census

Online Advertising Taskforce

The purpose: to protect the kids and tackle harmful forces in the online ecosystem

The Online Advertising Taskforce, first convened in summer 2023 and guaranteed to operate until at least the end of 2025, was set up as a collaboration between government and the advertising sector to address illegal harms and the protection of children in relation to online advertising.

It breaks down its efforts via six groups - Age Assurance, Gold Standard, Influencer Marketing, Information sharing, Research and Intermediary and Platform Principles (IPP), IPP maintains a set of principles to which major companies operating in the digital advertising supply chain agree to adhere in support of the ASA’s regulation of online advertisements.

Learn more about the Online Advertising Taskforce

UK Advertising Exports Group

The purpose: to make all the other countries buy our advertising talent

The UK is a creative and digital innovation hub and operates a significant trade surplus, exporting more than £7.9bn annually, according to ONS figures. Founded by the Advertising Association, IPA, APA, BPMA, Creative Industries Council and the Department for Business and Trade, the UK Advertising Exports Group promotes British adtech, creative, production and post-production, research and data companies around the world, and it has a report to prove it.

Learn More abut UKAEG

UKSAFC

The purpose: to stop all the money leaking out through ad fraud

Ad fraud is a global problem of mind-boggling scale, responsible for lost revenue of anywhere between $80bn and $120bn. The UK Stop Ad Funded Crime (UKSAFC) group was set up in 2023 to highlight the scale and threat of ad fraud in the UK, and to coordinate a multi-stakeholder response, with the parallel goal of creating a template other countries can adapt.

The UKSAFC’s taskforce (which includes advertising professionals, policymakers, technology providers and agencies) is seeking to encourage the Government to commission research into the definitive scale of advertising-funded crime, draw up a plan of action with the ad industry and ensure law enforcement agencies take the issue seriously. Recent campaigns include 2025’s Know Your Customer (KYC) initiative, which invites all players in the programmatic advertising supply chain to carry out due diligence checks on every company they deal with. Full disclosure: we do their press and comms.

Learn more about UKSAFC

The AI Revolution and How a Human Touch Will Save Us

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 09:36:58 GMT

Few things divide our opinions these days quite like AI. While there's no denying the incredible potential of automation in our industry – especially when it comes to tasks it can outperform humans at – it also raises some big questions.

The key takeaway? There's plenty to be excited about, but success hinges on using AI responsibly and training it thoughtfully to ensure it truly works in our favour.

For decades, artificial intelligence has been a topic of fascination and it’s finally stepping off the Sci-Fi silver screen into our everyday lives – from everyday integrations like Siri and Alexa to self-driving cars, personalised healthcare, and advanced robotics, the possibilities seem endless. But as the tech advances at alarming speeds, its unchecked development brings with it a new set of ethical questions that society must grapple with – from privacy to morality, copyright to existential dread, do the benefits of AI really outweigh the concerns?

I’m going to be bold and say Yes with a capital Y – and I’ve been a lifelong technology sceptic. My thoughts on the rise of machines can be summed up in this one Calvin and Hobbes comic strip from 1995:

It comes down to one simple factor: we can’t rely on the tech to do everything. When it comes down to it, AI can’t fully replace the “Human Factor” in creativity. I set about writing this article with the intention of letting ChatGPT write every other paragraph and only asking at the end if you could tell which sections were AI-generated, but when I started with the opening paragraph it quickly turned disastrous. The writing style was oddly uncanny – it read a little like a plagiarised school essay – and according to ChatGPT, the risks of AI are a full-on robot apocalypse (should we be nervous that the AI itself is suggesting that?)

So I generated a few introductory paragraphs, took inspiration from the parts I liked, cut the rest, and wrote it myself.

And as it turns out, that’s exactly how we should be using AI. In three simple steps, we can turn AI technology into an endless resource.

Step One: Humans inform AI – so inform it right

All that data mining that allows software like ChatGPT to create something out of nothing works by observing, analysing, and copying human creativity and speech patterns. It learns from pre-existing outputs and collected data. Artificial intelligence cannot mimic humanity on its own, because AI needs to be fed information on how to act.

And if we educate it well, AI has limitless potential. But there’s also a significant responsibility involved on the part of the developers to ensure AI like ChatGPT is learning from the right sources to better understand the nuances of humanity – for example, if you were to ask ChatGPT for a political opinion, it’d draw the answer from dozens of human opinions shared across the internet, collating them into something new.

That’s perfectly fine as long as those opinions are varied to the point of being unbiased, but add a little partisanship into how the AI has been taught and suddenly some unsuspecting ChatGPT user is posting prejudiced views out into the world in their AI-generated social captions. There’s something to be said about society if that outcome were to happen – AI is like a mirror, reflecting back at us what we put out into the world. If the outputs are controversial, it’s our own fault, and we could all use some reflection to look at ourselves and how we present ourselves online.

But even if machine learning is picking up some of humanity’s less savoury habits, we still have a safety net with steps two and three.

Step Two: Let AI take on the workload

Remember the comic strip above? For the last thirty-odd years, every development in technology has sped up our lives. Everything you could ask for is at the click of a button, and so the demand for instant gratification is through the roof. For the first time since the tech revolution began in the ‘90s, something is buying us back our freedom, and that’s AI. A little AI support can release you from that blank page syndrome that keeps you from starting a project. It can cut down the number of steps to a finished product by doing some of the legwork for you and thinking outside the box of human logic. Taking inspiration from an AI response is no different to spending hours researching from other people’s work, it simply cuts down the time spent and reduces the chances of accidental plagiarism. AI is there to assist us, not to replace us.

And AI assistance isn’t just about creativity, but also data analysis and countless other factors. P itting the event audience against the machine in choosing where to run particular ads to reach the right people, Rob proved that human opinion was polarising and varied, and the data-backed reality was different to the majority vote every time. As individuals, we’re informed by our own experiences, creating bias behind our logic no matter how hard we try.

The truth is, everyone is going to be using AI in the future to some degree, whether we like it or not. And at the end of the day, it’s what we do with the AI outputs that really matters.

Step Three: Bring it back to Human Touch

At least in terms of content creation, it is rare that we should accept an AI output as a finished piece. It can give you a template, but you need to tailor it with a human touch.

Let’s face it – AI can produce some really odd or bland content. It’s bound to happen when AI is learning from so many sources, because – at least for the time being – any personality behind the machines is just mimicry of the real thing. To make it work for us, we need to treat AI creations as a base to build off, not a replacement for human brilliance.

“Humans paired with machines is what creates the best results. AI on its own does not produce

good quality content – the technology should be the starting point, not the endpoint.”

Amy Wright, Automated Creative ( Humans vs. Tech 2023 )

When it comes to creative outputs, that’s the final line. Humans and machines are a dynamic duo, as long as we allow it. We could waste a lot of time arguing againsrt the use of AI, but that would do little more than slow the tide of its inevitable use – I say have a little more faith in humanity. It’s a wild west out there right now, but AI will never replace human creativity for good. In fact, it’s bound to make us value it even more.

Driving brand consideration through the power of native

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 10:24:41 GMT

Native isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a powerful tool to boost brand love. Here’s how to make it work for you by Sean Adams, Chief Marketing Officer, Brand Metrics.

When brands determine how and where to channel their advertising budget, they generally have their own specific KPIs and desired outcomes. Where do they need to to see results, and what would campaign effectiveness look like to them ?

But the key question is: which format is most likely to deliver on their goals? For instance, in digital, while display ads have often been the default, native ads have grown to take a more prominent place in marketing strategies, as they integrate a brand's message seamlessly into a publisher context in a creative way, leveraging both the context of the environment and the trust of the audience.

With little data available, however, to inform how and when native can be used to best effect, progression has been somewhat stifled. Until now.

Display vs native - the lowdown

We are all, as internet users, familiar with display as a means to reach large audiences, over and over. This is also known as "push" advertising, as it delivers messages with a simple message to generally quite broad audiences who happen to be browsing online, and not necessarily looking to receive communications from the brand.

By contrast, as a more targeted "pull" style of advertising, native is characterised by seamless integration with content that is likely to resonate with those who have an interest in the category or brand. Native ads are designed to be seen by fewer people, but served to those who have already shown some interest in the brand or product - because they are much more likely to engage with relevant, intentionally placed advertising than generic campaigns.

Measuring the impact of native advertising can prove challenging, but recent research , based on 2,000 campaigns and responses from over 500k surveys, shows that, on average, native had an overall brand lift of +20.6%, compared to +10% for display campaigns.

The same data also provides a more granular level of insight to help marketers optimise their native campaigns.

If brand consideration is the goal, native is the channel

At Brand Metrics, we measure campaign effectiveness against four KPIs: awareness, consideration, preference and action intent. The latest consolidated data tells a revealing story about how format impacts performance in each of these areas.

First, we can see that display works best to drive stage one - awareness - among consumers and delivers brand uplift across that metric through high-frequency, short-duration exposure.

Conversely, the efficacy of native relates more to duration than frequency. In fact, users dwell much longer (almost 40% are exposed to native for more than 30 seconds, with only 11% engaging for that long with the display ads).

The result of that extra time is significant and reflected in uplift in the mid-funnel, most notably in stage two - consideration . It drives more established and meaningful interactions and brand relationships - a hard-won and often much-desired outcome when seeking repeat custom and reputational advantage.

How native performs across different categories

Having established the power of native for driving consideration, let’s take a look at how it performs across categories. The lowest brand lift from native campaigns is seen in those categories that are less likely to have a personal or emotional relevance to the consumer, such as the energy sector.

Meanwhile, industries such as travel and real estate, closely followed by automotive - which are often associated with important lifestyle choices and large-scale, irregular investments - benefit most from the prolonged user engagement of native ads. As consumers, we respond best to targeted, interactive content related to the purchases that mean the most to us.

So there are many reasons why a brand should incorporate native ads into their strategies, with branded content delivering a notably higher overall brand uplift than display. However, if the main objective of a campaign is to increase consideration, then native is more than a nice-to-have - it is an essential component.

Whatever the goal, as the latest findings tell us, consistent measurement data is the key to strategic and creative optimisation, empowering marketers to establish and maintain effective, flexible and compelling native ad campaigns.

To read more about the research undertaken by Brand Metrics in association with Native Advertising Institute, download the full whitepaper .

Also published in: Marketing Donut

After the €150 million fine, Apple’s ATT faces its hardest questions yet

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 10:47:30 GMT

Apple’s privacy policies are in the hot seat. What’s next for ATT, and what does it mean for marketers?

In a ruling that could rattle the scaffolding of digital advertising, France’s competition authority has fined Apple €150 million ($162 million) for what it deems an antitrust violation disguised as privacy reform.

At the heart of the matter is Apple’s App Tracking Transparency framework, the marquee feature of its privacy push — hailed by some as a principled stand against surveillance capitalism and by others as a velvet-gloved power grab. The decision marks a rare European rebuke of Apple’s dominance and raises larger questions about who truly benefits from the era of so-called privacy.

What follows is a closer look at the questions this decision surfaces — not just for Apple but for the entire advertising ecosystem built on the promise (and pretense) of privacy.

What happens next won’t be swift

Talk of ATT being rolled back entirely is premature. The regulator made clear it’s not condemning ATT itself — it’s the self-serving rollout that crossed the line. Apple, the ruling said, gave itself preferential treatment under the guise of protecting users. Or, as competition law phrases it: abuse of dominance.

Now the company has to stop doing that. But when it actually will is anyone’s guess. Apple is unlikely to move until other parallel investigations in Germany, Italy, Poland and Romania run their course.

When those decisions go down, the consequences won’t be confined to Apple. France’s ruling injects real friction into a privacy movement that increasingly serves the platforms more than the public. And if Apple can’t hide behind the rhetoric of user protection, others — Google included — may think twice before using privacy as a Trojan horse for market power.

“Whilst we welcome the French competition authority’s ruling, it merely confirms what we’ve known all along: Apple weaponized privacy concerns to gain competitive advantage,” said Will Harmer, chief product officer at ad tech vendor Utiq. “There’s simply no justification for the double standard Apple created — strict consent requirements for third parties whilst using preferential language for their own tracking. Yet we must remember that even with consent, Apple’s IDFAs, like browser cookies, provide consumers with minimal protection against excessive data collection. True privacy requires both fair competition and stronger data protections.”

Apple’s remaining regulatory challenges in Europe

Aside from the ruling earlier this week, as of early 2025, Apple faces mounting regulatory challenges in the EU and U.K. over ATT as well as its wider mobile ecosystem.

In March 2025, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (FCO) won a court case affirming its designation of Apple as a company with “paramount cross-market significance for competition.” This classification allows German authorities to impose proactive restrictions on Apple’s conduct under national competition laws.

The FCO has specifically scrutinized Apple’s handling of user tracking and third-party app access to data. The court’s decision opens the door to further regulatory actions, including mandated interoperability or restrictions on self-preferencing.

Apple is facing antitrust scrutiny and investigations in the U.K., primarily concerning its mobile ecosystem, including the App Store, operating system and browsers. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority is investigating whether Apple holds “ strategic market status .”

More broadly, the EU’s Digital Markets Act , which has been in effect since November 2022, seeks to ensure fair competition within the digital sector by imposing obligations on “gatekeeper” companies, a.k.a. Big Tech. This means Apple’s DMA obligations include:

Permit alternative app stores on iOS devices
Allow users to set third-party apps as defaults for functions, such as web browsing
Facilitate interoperability between its services and those of third parties

Under DMA rules, Apple must allow app sideloading and alternative app stores, provide options for default third-party apps, and ensure data interoperability. Non-compliance risks fines of up to 10% of global annual turnover. As ATT is seen to affect data portability and competition, the DMA could compel Apple to modify or broaden access to its tracking consent mechanisms.

Similar regulatory challenges in the U.S.?

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Apple is facing charges from the Justice Department and several states including a March 2024 lawsuit accusing the company of monopolizing the smartphone market. According to U.S. regulators , Apple enforces restrictive policies on app distribution, in-app payments and interoperability with rival services.

However, as of the start of 2025, its ATT framework had not been the subject of significant regulatory challenges in its domestic market, with many there championing its privacy-preserving measures.

But it’s noteworthy that the profile of the companies on which ATT had a substantial impact, such as Meta, and whether the current political climate might lead to a less zealous approach to privacy from the iPhone manufacturer.

Given the potential outcome of applying ATT may include significant fines, required changes to privacy settings and structural shifts in how Apple engages with third-party developers (both across the EU and potentially in the U.S.), some wonder if a switch in policy may appear soon.

Google’s own foray into the murky waters of user consent

Currently, it’s hard to say what impact the ruling against Apple will have on Google. There’s just not enough to go on when it comes to its promised feature to let Chrome users decide whether they want to be tracked by third-party cookies. Nearly a year on since the move was announced, basic questions remain unanswered: will users need to opt-in? Or out? Or will the whole thing dissolve into the browser’s background, another checkbox most will never see?

For now, all anyone can do is speculate. The current sense is that if Google decides to mirror Apple’s approach closely then it could attract the ire of regulators again.

“Google is in a different position to Apple in so far as it’s working with a regulator [the U.K’s Competition and Markets Authority] on its own plan to ask people for consent on whether or not they want to be tracked,” said Davide Rosamilia, vp of product at alternative identity provider ID5. “So its hard to say the ruling will have an impact on whatever Google has planned for third-party cookies. What this might impact is Android’s Privacy Sandbox.”

A courtroom reckoning

The €150 million fine won’t undo Apple’s privacy play, but it does open the door to something potentially more destabilising: civil lawsuits from those in the ad industry who say they were collateral damage in the rollout.

Publishers and ad tech vendors, many of whom saw revenues crater in the wake of ATT, have long alleged that Apple’s framework didn’t just kneecap third-party tracking, it kneecapped competition. France’s regulator just gave them ammunition. By concluding that Apple’s privacy changes were “neither necessary nor “proportionate” and created an unfair playing field, the decision could embolden aggrieved parties to seek compensation through the courts.

So far, no formal suits have been filed. But sources in the legal and ad tech communities say its no longer a fringe possibility. If regulators have cracked open the door, don’t be surprised if litigators push it wide open.

Also published in: Digiday

The future of adtech is frictionless – removing financial barriers to innovation

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 10:42:34 GMT

Chris Pettit, CEO of Revving, explains why a complex programmatic supply chain and a pattern of late payment holds back adtech companies – and how this is starting to change.

Waiting for money is a universal frustration – whether it’s the paycheck at the end of the month, the invoice stuck in the system, or the refund taking weeks to process. If that money arrived the moment it was due, we could all plan ahead, invest, or simply move forward without the friction.

Adtech companies have the same dilemma, and the same dream, but with a lot more opportunity for friction. Not only does the money come slowly along the programmatic supply chain – frequently two or three months, often as long as 180 days – but the spider diagram of interdependent businesses only ever grows more sprawling and complex.

In a supply chain with so many contributors, payments are an elaborate chain reaction, and very hard to speed up. For a publisher, agency, affiliate, cashback specialist, or any other company in adtech, the thought of what they could do right now with all the money stuck in the pipeline is hardly worth considering.

Less friction, more freedom

But if the friction was relieved along the supply chain, what kind of opportunities would that present? If you, as a company in that chain, had sufficient cash flow every month, on time, when you needed it, what would that allow you to do?

In the most general sense, you could grow the business. Plan more effectively. Escape your reliance on delayed payments. You could develop a profitable new product, change your commercial structure, free up marketing budget, or provide the sales team with a pool of liquidity to grow revenue.

Wherever digital media is being monetised, there are gains to be made in removing friction from the system and letting companies focus on innovation and growth. And if you remove friction right along the chain, you unleash the potential for growth across the industry as a whole.

Where are the pain points?

In the simplest case, a brand advertiser deals with an agency, which deals with a DSP, an SSP, and ultimately a publisher – all of them juggling costs, all waiting to get paid at some point.

Each link in that chain brings a delay in payments. And since brands and agencies tend to hold onto funds for as long as possible, those at the bottom get squeezed the hardest.

Perhaps the brand at the top pays its bills in 60 days, but its agency pays upfront for the brand’s media, shouldering a debt in the meantime. Further along, companies work hard to build and maintain their commercial relationships in spite of their cash flow challenges: DSPs and SSPs might accept less in order to get paid faster; perhaps paying their debts when they themselves haven’t been paid, or risk losing long-term business.

The payment chain favours bigger companies, who usually require rapid payment but settle up slowly. Meanwhile, some companies operating at the end of the supply chain have numerous debtors at once. An affiliate, for example, might have 100 debtors at any given time.

How do we ease the friction?

Injecting cash into the system might seem simple; banks, factoring firms, and lenders all offer short-term solutions. But those institutions typically lack insight into the unique complexities of the programmatic ecosystem.

At Revving, we understand publishers and adtech businesses and their cash flows. We’re the only capital funding platform purpose-built for adtech, that integrates direct to source. As we are able to capture and verify sales data right along the programmatic supply chain, we can provide instant access to advances against revenues.

That enables companies to access earnings almost instantly, at market-leading payment terms. Our technology integrates with digital marketplaces and platforms, consolidating payments to present a clearer picture of what is owed and when. We remove the cash flow bottleneck, and offer clarity and liquidity.

Short-term credit carries a cost, but so does waiting months for money to be paid. Companies that weigh the numbers tend to find that the cost is more than justified by the return and enjoy enhanced cash flow, speed, agility, and performance.

Businesses that can speed up their cash flow enable growth and reinvestment at a time when it’s sorely needed. And anyone, anywhere along the chain, can understand why that is a cause for excitement.

Also published in: The Drum

Q&A: Frictionless Payments for Publishers: 5 Minutes with Chris Pettit

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 10:28:39 GMT

Payments should be easy. Here’s how frictionless tech is helping publishers get paid faster and fairer.

Q: What's the core problem that needs solving in the digital media industry right now?

A: The biggest issue is the unfair and outdated payment system that forces publishers, affiliates, and other players to wait months to get paid. In the digital media and adtech ecosystem, payment terms routinely stretch beyond 120 days. That means the very businesses that fuel the industry with content and ad placements are left out of pocket for an unreasonably long time.

Now there is a way that enables companies to access their earnings almost instantly, rather than waiting in an unnecessarily long queue — via technology that integrates directly with digital marketplaces and platforms, verifying revenue in real time and unlocking payments straight away. Essentially, it’s removing the cash flow bottleneck.

Q: Publishers often feel they're at the bottom of the adtech food chain. Is that a fair assessment?

A: Absolutely. If you look at the adtech supply chain in its simplest form, you’ve got the brands at the top, then agencies, DSPs, SSPs, and finally, at the very end, the publisher or content creator. Each link in that chain introduces a delay in payments, and since brands and agencies tend to hold onto funds for as long as possible, those at the bottom get squeezed the hardest.

This creates a fundamental imbalance. While big corporations can dictate their payment terms, smaller players have no leverage. Many publishers and ad networks end up in a cycle of financial strain, unable to reinvest in their growth because they simply don’t have access to their own money when they need it.

Q: What's the wider impact of delayed payments on the digital media ecosystem?

A: It’s significant. When businesses struggle with cash flow, they can’t scale their operations, invest in marketing, or pay their own suppliers on time. It’s a domino effect that stifles growth across the entire advertising industry — but also the wider economy.

For instance, affiliate marketers and media buyers often have to pay for traffic upfront — sometimes from major players like Google and Meta — while waiting months to receive ad revenue. This means they’re financing these big companies while their own businesses take the financial hit.

We see this in programmatic advertising too. SSPs and ad networks are forced to extend payment terms to keep publishers happy, even if they haven’t been paid by brands or agencies yet. It’s a broken system that needs to be fixed.

Q: With adtech margins already tight, is using an intermediary fast-tracking service financially viable for companies?

A: Yes, and that’s because it’s not just about getting money faster — it’s about using that money strategically. These companies don’t just opt to take early payments for the sake of it; they use it to reinvest and generate higher returns.

On average, such a platform will charge a percentage of the transaction value over a 30-day period, depending on the debtor’s credit risk. For most businesses, that cost is far outweighed by the revenue they can generate through reinvestment.

For example, if you’re running paid ad campaigns, you might be able to double or triple revenue over a short cycle. By accessing funds sooner, companies can reinvest faster and drive more growth.

Q: Are you seeing shifts in the industry's attitude towards financial innovation?

A: Yes, and it’s long overdue. There’s growing recognition that extended payment terms are not just inconvenient, but actually harmful to the industry. More businesses are looking for ways to stabilise their cash flow and operate on their own terms, rather than those dictated by large corporations.

We’re also seeing regulators and trade bodies take more interest in the issue. There’s increasing pressure on brands and agencies to be more transparent and responsible with their payment practices. While I don’t expect the big players to suddenly start paying faster, new payment solutions are giving businesses an alternative to being stuck in a system that doesn’t work for them.

Q: What's your message to publishers struggling with long payment terms?

A: You don’t have to wait. The industry has made it seem like slow payments are just part of doing business, but they don’t have to be. There’s a better way. If you’re tired of waiting, or are struggling with cash flow, or just want to reinvest in your growth, there is help.

Q: How does Revving help businesses avoid these cash flow issues?

A: Revving acts as an intermediary that fast-tracks payments. Using our platform, businesses can receive their revenue as soon as it’s earned, rather than waiting weeks or months. Unlike traditional invoice factoring, which is analogue, inflexible, and often requires corporate security and personal guarantees, we leverage real-time transaction data. That means we can advance payments before an invoice is even raised. Our model is based on transparency, automation, and flexibility — helping businesses get paid faster without taking on debt or navigating lengthy approval processes.

Also published in: InPublishing

Q&A: Measuring brand lift: 5 minutes with… Ben Chesters

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 10:51:04 GMT

Ben Chesters, MD clients at Hearst UK, explains why brand lift data appeals to advertisers and what makes it a must-have campaign optimisation tool.

Q: Is this the first time Hearst UK has used brand measurement? If so, why is now the time to commit to the metric?

A: While we’ve used brand measurement tools in our work, we’ve never done so at this scale. Previously, it’s been a very expensive series of metrics to measure, but the likes of our partner, Brand Metrics, make it accessible.

It’s clear from our conversations with advertisers that they want to invest in our trusted brands, and there’s never been a more important time to demonstrate the power our premium content delivers. The metrics themselves add a whole new level of nuance, colour and understanding of campaign performance — way more so than traditional measurements such as viewability, for example.

Q: What is it about brand measurement that particularly appeals to you as a publisher?

A: Our brands, which include Good Housekeeping, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire and Men’s Health, have spent decades building deep relationships with their audiences, so being able to provide metrics beyond digital performance alone, and incorporating areas including consideration, preference and action intent, is a powerful tool. These metrics provide real insight and a truly holistic idea of a campaign’s performance.

We can really understand if a campaign worked, and why. Obviously, this is especially useful when a campaign doesn’t meet performance expectations because we can optimise towards future success.

Q: What value will brand measurement offer to the agencies and clients you work with?

A: Brand measurement demonstrates the value of every pound spent on every campaign. With budgets tightening across marketing departments everywhere, it is really important we can prove our worth to our partners. Investing in a third-party, independent provider ensures we aren’t marking our own homework.

As we continue to build more direct relationships with our clients and agencies, having the ability to understand which are the best performing ads and pieces of content during the lifecycle of a campaign is extremely valuable. This ensures we’re able to provide ongoing optimisation and it arms us with proof points to help shape future campaigns. We can even mix brand lift data with other datasets to gain extra insights, which allow us to shape the strategic and commercial direction of future work.

An unexpected benefit of measuring brand lift has been the enhanced working relationships with our partner agencies. The new information has brought closer collaboration between our various departments, including planning, research, data and insights teams, as we all work toward delivering fantastic, high-performing ad campaigns.

Q: How will your audiences ultimately benefit from the insights you derive from this?

A: By taking an always-on approach with our partners, our audiences will receive a more personalised experience, where they are served the most engaging and relevant advertising. This is because brand lift data gives us a greater understanding of our audiences, which in turn allows us to monetise them better for our partners.

And the way we measure brand lift data is unobtrusive. It’s panel-free, and the audience is simply served one quick question relating to the content they’re seeing, and that’s it. Minimum inconvenience for the audience, but maximum performance in terms of ad experience.

Q: Is Hearst UK seeing increasing demand from brands and agencies for brand lift measurement insights?

A: This is certainly true for our industry, and it’s a conversation we’ve been driving. Typically, brand lift measurement insights have formed part of large-scale campaigns, where there is a need to warrant spend, but now it’s part of every campaign we run.

The optimisation potential is really attractive for agencies and clients, as is the ability to use brand lift data to build long-term brand equity for advertisers. Over time, this generates greater audience affinity for a brand, resulting in more brand recognition, referrals and repeat purchases. All these increase revenue for a brand in the long and short term.

Q: What’s the next step for Hearst and Brand Metrics after this initial phase?

A: Combining Brand Metrics with AURA, Hearst’s first-party ad targeting tool, and our new Mega Hero ad format, is something we’re excited about exploring. We estimate the new data will be particularly powerful to deliver for our brand and agency partners.

Also published in: InPublishing

The Top Adtech Events to Attend in 2025

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 09:39:51 GMT

The world of adtech moves quickly, and staying ahead of the game means being in the right place at the right time to make those all-important connections. Attending a good event can open up unparallelled contacts and insights, as well as sparking ideas for growth and success. But with so many options out there, how do you decide which events are right for you?

Good news! We’ve done the legwork for you with the launch of our 2025 industry events calendar - a go-to resource to keep you in the loop throughout the year. We know it’s a HUGE list with plenty to explore, but we’ve gone the extra mile and pulled together some of the big highlights that should definitely be on your radar.

From the biggest global conferences to smaller, more focused summits, these are the must-attend events for adtech professionals determined to stay ahead of the latest trends and build valuable relationships. Ready to make the most of events as a growth channel for your business? Take a look at our top picks below and start planning for the year ahead.

January

CES 2025

Date: January 5-7

Location: Las Vegas, USA

February

Campaign TV Advertising Summit

A specialised event where attendees can explore the power of TV advertising in the digital age, offering a deep dive into evolving broadcast strategies, CTV and cross-platform advertising. The Campaign TV Advertising Summit is perfect for anyone seeking to understand the intersection between traditional TV and digital technologies, with insight from top industry experts and plenty of networking opportunities.

Date: February TBC

Location: London, UK

March

MWC

Date: March 3-6

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Connected TV World Summit

Date: March TBC

Location: London, UK

April

Advertising Week Europe

Date: April 1-3

Location: London, UK

POSSIBLE

Date: April 28-30

Location: Miami, USA

Brand Safety Summit London

Date: April TBC

Location: London, UK

Affiliate Huddle

A refreshingly open and collaborative event, Affiliate Huddle is where affiliate marketers and adtech enthusiasts come together to discuss the latest trends and strategies. Known for its informal yet content-rich approach, it provides a great platform to explore new affiliate techniques, network with key players and tackle challenges in performance marketing.

Date: April TBC

Location: Brighton, UK

May

Affilifest

Not your average marketing event, Affilifest is where affiliate marketing meets festival fun! Packed to the brim with practical strategies, insights and the latest trends - this event not only gives attendees the quality content they seek, but is also breaking the mould offering a unique experience with theme park rides, amusement arcades

Date: May 1

Location: London, UK

OMR

Date: May 6-7

Location: Hamburg, Germany

MAU Vegas

Date: May 20-22

Location: Las Vegas, UK

June

Programmatic Pioneers

Date: June 5-6

Location: London, UK

Cannes Lions

Date: June 16-20

Location: Cannes, France

SXSW London

Known for its eclectic mix of tech, creativity and innovation, SXSW brings a unique offering to the table. The organisers announced earlier this year their plans to cross the pond and expand to the UK in 2025 - and we are hype! There’s no doubt there will be much excitement and buzz around this event, and it’s one to add to the must-attend list for creative and tech innovators alike.

Date: June 2-7

Location: London, UK

July

MAD//Fest

Date: July 1-3

Location: London, UK

September

DMEXCO

Date: September 17-18

Location: Cologne, Germany

Programmatic I/O New York

Date: September 29-30

Location: New York, USA

ATS London

Date: September TBC

Location: London, UK

October

Advertising Week New York

The premier event for discovering the intersection of marketing, tech and culture, and how this shapes the future of the ad landscape

Date: October TBC

Location: New York, USA

PI Live

Date: October TBC

Location: London, UK

November

Web Summit Lisbon

Date: November TBC

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

December

Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit

Date: December TBC

Location: TBC, USA

Don’t forget you can access our industry events calendar for an exhaustive, global list of conferences, summits, mixers and more. We keep this resource up to date throughout the year; if you’d like to see your event added to the list, get in touch with the team today at hello@thedigitalvoice.co.uk.

A Short History of AI: Could AI be Brilliant? We Asked a Chatbot…

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 09:36:33 GMT

It is sobering to consider that the concept of artificial intelligence - that 2020s embodiment of thrilling technological progress or existential dread, depending on your outlook - is actually older than rock & roll. But unlike rock & roll, AI’s peak years unmistakably lie ahead.

The history of artificial intelligence (AI) dates back to the 1950s, when computer scientists like Alan Turing and John McCarthy laid the foundations for AI as a formal academic discipline. Turing’s work on machine intelligence, including the famous Turing Test, and McCarthy's coining of the term "artificial intelligence" in 1956 at the Dartmouth Conference, marked AI's early conceptualisation.

Over the decades, AI experienced waves of progress and setbacks, from early rule-based systems to more advanced machine learning techniques. Key milestones include the development of expert systems in the 1970s, neural networks in the 1980s, and the rise of deep learning in the 2010s, culminating in AI applications like AlphaGo, self-driving cars, and large language models like GPT. Today, AI is central to industries ranging from healthcare to finance, with growing discussions about its ethical and societal impacts.

That’s ChatGPT’s short version of the official history of AI to date, proving that, while AI may get the facts straight, it doesn’t necessarily tell them in a way that makes them more interesting.

AI: what is it?

When we talk about AI, what we are describing is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human processes, including learning, comprehension, problem-solving, decision-making, creativity and autonomy - to paraphrase IBM’s own definition. In other words, AI is human intelligence, exhibited by machines.

In today’s world, AI is now so deeply entrenched in so many processes, businesses and industries, we barely recognise it as AI anymore - given that it powers and enhances your smartphone, your Amazon Echo, your social feed, your online shopping recommendations and your email spell-checker, just for starters.

As a client of The Digital Voice once sagely observed, “AI these days basically means ‘uses computers’”. AI isn’t the future - it’s all around us right now, and the transformations it heralds are already taking place quietly behind the scenes, within technologies and platforms we have already welcomed into our lives.

AI in ad tech

In the ad world, AI makes a set of particular promises. ChatGPT sums them up, and hits most of the key notes: AI can help advertisers create more targeted, efficient and impactful campaigns by optimising budget allocation, enhancing personalisation, improving ad content and protecting against fraud. Instead of replacing human creativity, AI enhances it, allowing advertisers to focus on strategy and storytelling while AI handles data-driven optimisations.

Some degree of AI involvement nowadays is table stakes for publishers, advertisers and their many intermediaries, as advertisers attempt to improve returns through dynamic content creation, precise customer segmentation, dynamic budget allocation, interactive ads, automated fraud detection and prevention and numerous other practices. No ad tech company is without some degree of AI back-up, though all will stress that AI is worth relatively little without smart people to apply it.

Where is AI going next?

Lord only knows. In the name of progress, it is critical to note that AI is fuelling potentially world-shaping breakthroughs in fields such as autonomous systems, robotics and healthcare. More visibly, Generative AI - models that generate images, text and music, including DALL-E and ChatGPT - is “pushing creative and conversational boundaries”. That quote comes from ChatGPT, which certainly has a horse in this race.

But clearly, there are also grave dangers here: the potential hollowing-out of whole sections of the job market, specifically those focused on repetitive, low-skilled tasks; widening inequality driven by the AI supercharging of wealthier countries; not to forget industrialised misinformation and deepfakery, environmental damage from the energy it all sucks up and all manner of moral and ethical questions. While we may be using AI all the time, nobody seems at all certain that we’ve got a firm grip on the reins.

Our conversational AI friend makes no effort to hide any of this, seemingly because the inevitable impact of AI on our lives feels very much like a fact, not the kind of subjective opinion ChapGPT tends to avoid.

AI has incredible potential for good , the bot reflects , but its downsides highlight the need for responsible development, regulation, and ethical considerations. The key is not to avoid AI but to guide its use in ways that minimise risks while maximising benefits. Addressing these concerns will require a combination of technological solutions, thoughtful policy-making and ethical standards to ensure AI serves humanity in a fair and equitable way.

So as long as we’re on top of all that, we’ll be absolutely fine.

Six Trends Shaping Adtech in 2025

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 09:34:20 GMT

We’re not far into 2025, and yet we’re already seeing some clear adtech trends starting to take shape. Marketing budgets are under intense scrutiny, making effectiveness and efficiency two watchwords for the year ahead. As a result, brands and advertisers are more keen than ever to ensure their activity can prove its worth, and that their work reaches and engages audiences. To do this, they are turning to some of the most innovative platforms on the market, and these solutions are helping to shape this year’s narrative. So, here are six of the top trends shaping adtech in 2025.

1. Referral Marketing

The rising cost of customer acquisition has long been an issue of growing concern across the digital and performance advertising space, even as results from traditional advertising are proving harder to achieve. The partnership economy has established itself as a highly innovative and successful solution, and referral marketing is the latest product making waves in the space.

Referral marketing allows brands to reward their own happy customers for spreading the word about their products and services, with companies like impact.com and its /advocate technology pioneering the space. Specifically, it ingeniously streamlines customer referral marketing, with its ability to drive customer advocacy and community and attract new customers entering the discovery phase, and does so alongside the huge power of broader partnerships on the same platform.

2. Semantic data

Nothing personifies digital advertising’s ability to regroup and evolve quite like its use of semantic data. This is data used by platforms like Onetag and GumGum to further the power of contextual advertising, using machine learning to truly understand the sentiment of a piece of content and place appropriate ads there accordingly.

Not only does semantic, contextual intelligence allow brands to meet their audience at the perfect moment, but it also helps publishers to achieve their full inventory potential and boost revenues as a result. Semantic data is also future-proof, in that it is entirely privacy-compliant, and works with all formats, demand partners and devices.

3. Outcomes data… and CTV

As technology develops, marketers have access to greater quantities of data with which to measure their campaigns. One of the most exciting, new kinds of data is outcomes data, which can be used to analyse the effect advertising has on various brand metrics, especially in the conversion phase of the consumer journey. Traditional performance advertising metrics will tell you how successfully a campaign was delivered, and how it performed in driving results, but outcomes data will tell you how consumers perceive a brand, providing nuanced, in-flight context for a campaign’s overall performance.

When it comes to brand lift specifically, platforms like Brand Metrics are able to provide outcomes data and analysis for CTV, offering insights into a fast-growing, highly appealing sector in need of good data.

4. Retail media: Structure for success

Retail media has been troubling the top of most adtech industry trend lists for the last few years. But, as it becomes a more established and better understood form of marketing, advertisers are having to look at how they operate to make the most of this exciting form of advertising. Often, their approach will depend on the staff they have and the ways they already understand, but coming from an in-store or wholly digital perspective has the potential to create siloed campaigns, when the true potential of retail media is to cover the entire purchase journey, on- and offline.

Loyalty, insights and media services agency Nectar360 acknowledges there are numerous potential approaches, but advocates for a structure capable of surveying the entire landscape, perhaps led by a dedicated head of retail media, and integrating both in-store and digital disciplines.

5. Walled gardens become unsavoury solutions

Once considered places of brand and advertising safety, walled gardens run by the likes of Google, Meta and Amazon are increasingly the object of brand safety-conscious scepticism because of their owners’ well-publicised political leanings. As a result, the open web is returning as a refuge for brands of all types looking to engage vast, untapped audiences away from the associations some of the walled gardens bring.

Digital advertising solutions like GumGum are using proprietary technology to help brands reach these audiences safely, combining context, attention measurement and high-impact creative to drive advertising success for their clients.

6. The evolution of the ad network

Ad networks have been around since the dawn of digital advertising - connecting publishers and advertisers for nearly 30 years. The secret to their survival has been the ability to remain relevant and evolve as the market has advanced. Today, they offer a wide variety of powerful tools and solutions for everything from contextual targeting and effective attribution to enhanced sustainability and privacy-first targeting. The potency of advanced programmatic platforms such as Limelight means they’ll have increasing influence across the industry in 2025.

So there you have it, our top six trends to look out for in 2025. This year has all the makings of a fine vintage for the digital advertising world and we hope you enjoy watching it unfold as much as we will.

Zero-Party Data: How to Make it Work for You

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 10:58:12 GMT

With the cookiepocolypse upon us and privacy violations making brands vulnerable, zero-party data adoption could be the silver lining to help marketers thrive. Can your brand tap into ZPD to thrive in a post-cookie, hyper-personalised world? In her latest feature, Avya Chaudhary talks us through...

For years, marketing strategies were built around tracking cookie sessions, piecing together disparate data, and hoping for the best. Even now, 64% of B2C marketers lean on website data to boost brand awareness and cut churn. But that stronghold has been slipping away, as per the latest report by Porsch Group Media . Around 57% of marketers are now putting their bets on zero-party data (ZPD) sources like surveys and social media polls, where customers willingly share their preferences instead of intrusive data collection.

“Unlike first-party data , which observes behaviors, zero-party data is voluntarily shared by the target audience, like style preferences or event plans,” says Brian Lim, CEO and co-founder of iHeartRaves. With self-declared preferences in hand, the label can take control of their own data narratives and build stronger, more lasting relationships. Say a customer selects "fitness enthusiast" in a survey, you can use this insight to offer tailored rewards - discounts on smartwatches, rowing machines, or treadmills - instead of blanket offers

around electronics.

The rise and rise of zero-party data

As of now, third-party data sources are crumbling, digital advertising is in turmoil, and 54% of marketers are under pressure to rethink how they engage with audiences post cookies . “Brands need to shift from passively collecting data to actively engaging customers for insights,” warns Brett Cella, VP of Martech Americas at Jellyfish. With cross-site tracking fading away, companies are turning to zero-party data to fill the gap.

For marketers, though, the real advantage of ZPD lies in understanding intent. Traditional first-party tracking sees a shopper returning to a luxury handbag page but doesn’t explain why they’re not purchasing: are they hesitant about the price, waiting for a sale, or just exploring? The focus will be on customer action over intent and the reasoning behind it.

ZPD, collected through surveys, preference centers, and social listening, helps answer these questions. If a shopper indicates in a quiz that “interest-free installments” are a deciding factor, marketers can use that insight in CRM segmentation and offer exclusive no-cost EMI offers or credit card discounts.

Many brands are also eyeing ZPD as their golden ticket to rebuild their relationships when trust in brands is at an all-time low and privacy rules are tightening up fast. After all, 75% of consumers won’t buy from brands that violate their privacy. ZPD takes care of the problem by putting “ consent ” front and center without scaling down experiences that customers actually feel good about.

Tim Ringel, founder and CEO of Meet The People, explains that while first-party data might seem like a safer choice in this aspect, it’s not always as reliable as it looks. “When you buy third-party data and polish it through engagement, it technically turns into first-party data, but it’s still missing real consent,” Ringel says. Zero-party data, on the other hand, is fully consented to and comes with a bonus: it sparks genuine, positive sentiment from customers who know their preferences are truly respected.

Marketers are betting big on zero-party data – and it’s paying off

Epsilon’s Esme Robinson details how her team designs interactive experiences that help marketers collect insights, engage customers, and deliver actionable results, “These quizzes and surveys appear as website overlays,” Esme explains. “A travel brand might ask users about their dream vacation, while an apparel company could collect size preferences.”

What makes this type of approach so effective is that the data collection feels intuitive rather than intrusive and can be leveraged to "send out a welcome email journey that's tailored to each individual." That’s exactly why major retailers like iHeartRaves have doubled down on it. “Not only do these strategies help with lead generation, but they also make our product recommendations more relevant among first-time buyers.”

Brian shares that the team currently uses email sign-up discounts, post-purchase surveys and style quizzes to collect zero-party data. And it’s working. iHeartRaves’ retention rates are soaring, and email campaigns now account for a solid 25% of total sales. More importantly, customers keep coming back because they get style and event suggestions that actually match their vibe.

Over at UpPromote, Michelle Nguyen sees ZPD as a way to remove the disconnect in affiliate incentives. Instead of applying one-size-fits-all incentives, her team goes straight to the source and asks affiliates what they value most: competitive commission tiers, special product access or long-term, sustainable collaboration. Her team then uses this intelligence to build a program where rewards match real motivations and find affiliates who actively push the brand.

Challenges and risks

Brett’s seen it happen time and again: brands collect zero-party data but have no idea how to use it. They gather this valuable info but don’t know how to fit it into their ad strategy, and that’s where things go wrong. Right now, activating ZPD at scale requires connecting it to cookieless identity solutions : Google Ads and Privacy Sandbox, Meta , The Trade Desk and UID2, and CTV/streaming platforms. But if your marketing budget is already under pressure, this is just more money spent with no immediate return.

The risk gets even more complicated when the data is trapped in silos. Marketing may gather rich ZPD, but if sales or customer service teams can’t access or act on it, the whole effort falls apart. Instead of creating personalised experiences, you end up with fragmented data that leads to disconnected buyer journeys. Customers might update their preferences online, only to have to repeat them in-store or during a call. For Brett, this is where ZPD stops being a targeting solution and turns into just another survey.

Add data decay to the mix, and marketers risk turning ZPD from a valuable tool into a disaster. Michelle at UpPromote knows this challenge all too well. Without regular updates, you end up relying on outdated information that doesn’t reflect what consumers really want right now. Consumer preferences are constantly shifting, and if ZPD isn’t kept up-to-date, it quickly loses its effectiveness.

Add data decay to the mix, and marketers will get the perfect disaster of ZPD working against them rather than in their favour. Consumer preferences are always changing, and ZPD can lose its value if not kept current. Michelle at UpPromote has had her share of challenges keeping data fresh. Without constant updates, you end up using outdated information that doesn’t speak to what consumers actually want right now.

But the lines around zero-party data are starting to clear up. Esme puts it perfectly: “The real shift is about complementing different data sources with ZPD, not replacing one with the other.” As brands build their customer databases, understanding identity signals and how to engage across different touchpoints will be crucial. To form genuine connections, the best approach is to use the data that users willingly share. “This creates a clear, mutually beneficial relationship where the user actively decides to provide their info.”

Also pubished in: ExchangeWire

The 222% cost increase, attribution anarchy and other industry challenges

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 10:54:50 GMT

Rising costs, broken attribution models, and complexity overload: here’s what the industry must tackle next, by Suzanna Chaplin, CEO of esbconnect.

The digital advertising industry has always been a fast-moving beast. But the speed at which technological innovation and audience behaviour are currently evolving brings a set of increasingly complex challenges.

Consumers generally have less money now… but more choice as to where they can spend it, making it more difficult for brands and advertisers to reach – and engage with – consumers. Increasingly stringent consumer consent legislation, the loss of addressable data, skyrocketing acquisition costs and attribution hell are all making the contemporary marketers job a tricky one. Let’s take a look at the challenges we all face, and how we might combat them.

Consumers have it tough, which means marketers do too

Consumers are struggling financially at the moment, and this has a direct effect on their ability to spend. A KPMG UK study published last year suggests that 52% of consumers have cut non-essential spending, and that only 3% are spending more on non-essential items. If consumers are unable to buy, even with a great deal, digital advertising has an uphill battle in persuading people to part with what cash they have available to spend.

Exacerbating the issue is that consumer attention is spread across more channels and touchpoints than ever before. The consumer journey has transformed in recent years, and any sense of linear progress through some kind of funnel is outdated. Discovery, consideration and purchase are now multidimensional, free-flowing concepts that interact freely in both the digital space and in-store. That a significant chunk of product research is carried out online, yet 83.8% of customers buy in store , shows the scale of the challenge digital advertisers face in tracking the modern consumer.

The cost of customer acquisition is also increasing. In fact, research by SimplicityDX shows that between 2013 and 2022, the cost of acquiring a customer increased by 222%, and that rate shows no sign of slowing. As a result, higher ad prices are hitting profit margins hard, and with less targeting data available to reach consumers, advertisers are investing more into retargeting and personalised ads, which all increase the cost of acquisition.

There are many consumer-centric challenges for digital advertisers, but it’s not all doom and gloom. Innovative advertisers will successfully reach their audience. Focusing on standout creative and personal marketing channels (such as email), that speak directly to customers, is a great place to start.

Navigating the new customer journey is perhaps marketing’s greatest challenge, but understanding where consumers spend time, and making conversions possible in those places, is at the core of the solution.

Data, privacy, and the biggest tech challenge – attribution

If reaching consumers is one challenge, then tracking them is another. We live in a privacy-centric world, and it is right that people have control over their data, and are protected from unethical, illegal marketing methods.

However, recent legislation designed to provide this protection, such as the UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, has made access to addressable data and other targeting signals harder. Advertisers have to think again when it comes to the data they use to reach consumers, and work hard to persuade an audience their information is worth sharing. The loss of targeting signals is even slowing machine learning’s ability to feed algorithms and model audiences across the industry.

Attribution is a long-standing problem for digital advertisers. Privacy legislation shares a degree of responsibility for that, as does the nature of the multi-device, cross-platform world we live in. As we’ve already seen, just over 80% of customers still buy in stores. Consumers are simply harder to follow around an increasingly fragmented ecosystem, and there’s a risk of running badly aligned marketing campaigns influenced by lost insights that have no understanding of the customer’s path. The fact that 69% are also being introduced to new products weekly makes it important for brands and advertisers to stand out from the crowd.

AI, simultaneously a game-changing opportunity and a terrifying end-of-level boss, is proving a significant disruptor for the industry in numerous ways. For example, as a browsing agent, it will affect the visibility of traditional display ads, resulting in spend migrating to immersive formats inherently immune to this kind of influence, such as podcasts, video and OOH. This will have strategy, demand and cost repercussions across the industry.

Rising to these challenges won’t be easy, but brands that work hard to build their first-party data in a compliant, safe and transparent way while developing advanced attribution tools should navigate these waters with relative ease.

As always, the cream of the digital advertising industry will rise to the top, and platforms and solutions that address attribution, the customer journey and consumer privacy – while committing to producing better ad creatives – will flourish in the space.

Also published in: Martech360

COVID lockdown 5th anniversary: Ad industry leaders share lessons and learnings

Sun, 23 Mar 2025 09:45:05 GMT

Five years since COVID’s first lockdown, ad industry leaders reflect on lessons, growth, and resilience.

23rd March was five years since Britain was plunged into its first lockdown as a result of the global COVID pandemic.

It seems so long ago, but much has changed since those days when we were all forced ‘work from home’ and find new ways to stay sane amid a – hopefully once in a lifetime – change to the way we all lived and worked.

Ahead of Sunday’s anniversary, we asked industry leaders from the advertising, media and marketing world’s to share how the lockdown affected them, their business and their workplace culture, but more importantly the lessons they learned and how it’s changed the way they work today…

Nick Fettiplace, Managing Director UK, Jellyfish

“The pandemic has had a profound impact on the world of advertising and marketing.

“The debt many brands took on to survive COVID was significant, and in the years that followed – as interest rates soared – the cost of that debt increased, putting immense strain on businesses of all sizes.

“One major consequence was a reduction in advertising and marketing budgets, forcing brands and their agencies to be more strategic and accountable with their investments.

“With every penny mattering more than ever, the pandemic ushered in a new era of accountability and efficiency in marketing. Simply put, less needed to achieve more – and with greater transparency.

“Although the effects of the pandemic are still being felt, not all of the changes have been negative. Reflecting on how we operated at Jellyfish pre-pandemic versus today, the difference is like night and day.

“One of the most exciting shifts has been our evolution of proprietary technology, particularly in AI.

“We’ve embraced a more autonomous marketing approach, leveraging AI and agents to deliver end-to-end solutions across insights, creative, media, and measurement— achieving results faster, more cost-effectively, and at a scale previously unattainable.

“It’s unlikely we would have seen such rapid, widespread adoption of these innovations had the economic conditions driven by the pandemic not emerged."

Read more in: Mediashotz

In business, as in life, partnerships are key to success

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 09:48:27 GMT

Partner programs live or die by measurement. Read why incrementality is the stat that matters most from Utiq's Sara Vincent.

For my column this month, I’d like to take you away from the hurly-burly of life in adtech, back in time just over 400 years, when the poet and cleric John Donne coined the phrase: “No man is an island”. The simplest explanation I have heard of the phrase is that people are better together than alone, and it’s a sentiment I think we can all buy into. At work, at play, in our day-to-day lives, many of us feel better, achieve more, and have more fun, when we’re with other people in some form.

How does this translate to the way that businesses conduct themselves? Do good personal relationships have a lot in common with those we form in business? I believe that they do, and the way we develop and grow personal relationships – through trust, commitment and honesty – can inform how we nurture professional ones.

Just as in our personal lives, a strong professional relationship thrives on authenticity, shared values and a deep level of understanding. In business, the best client relationships feel more like partnerships than mere transactions, which is why I think treating clients as partners, rather than just customers, is the best path to long-term success.

Partnerships are a two-way street

A good business partnership requires effort, patience and investment from both sides. Both sides should feel heard, valued, and supported. And just as in the best personal relationships, it helps if their values align and both are in it for the long term.

If a company and its client share the same core principles, the relationship is more likely to be long-lasting and mutually beneficial. Businesses that prioritise their client’s needs rather than simply selling them a service foster stronger, more resilient partnerships. A company that’s brave enough to say “no” to a client from time to time – because what is being asked of them is not actually in the client’s best interests, even while it might be more profitable to say “yes” – will be compensated for the loss in the form of long-term trust.

Partners are more than vendors

When a company forms a deep relationship with a client, the client no longer sees them as a vendor with a product or service to sell, but as a trusted partner, who understands their needs, anticipates their challenges, and helps them grow.

This often means asking difficult questions, the same way we do in personal relationships when we truly care. What are their biggest concerns? What are the existential threats to their business? What’s the direction of travel? What needs to change? Engaging in these deeper conversations fosters stronger, more meaningful partnerships.

Just as, in our personal lives, we often turn to our closest friends, family members or partners for advice, clients will routinely turn to those business partners with whom they feel the strongest affinity, when they find themselves with a question they don’t have the answer for. This level of partnership requires businesses to be proactive rather than reactive, always looking for ways to help their clients navigate challenges before they even arise. It also often opens up new opportunities for the company to help the client meet those challenges.

Trust isn’t built overnight – it takes consistency, honesty, and commitment. Clients, like friends and partners, need to know they can rely on you, that you have their best interests at heart, and that you will deliver on your promises. The more trust is built, the more loyalty follows.

Partnerships are key to success

In business, as in our personal lives, fostering good relationships and partnerships gives us a better chance of achieving our goals and making our wishes come true. And the principles that underpin good relationships are the same in business as in our private lives – trust, authenticity and shared values, plus a commitment to keep working on the relationship, even during the sticky times. Treat your clients as valued partners, and they will likely reciprocate, helping you build longstanding relationships that benefit both parties in equal measure.

Also published in: New Digital Age

Sara Vincent

Managing Director UK at Utiq

Sara is Managing Director, UK, at Utiq, charged with executing the company’s launch in the UK and building out a team to support the company’s growth, partnering with publishers, advertisers and adtech providers to deliver relevant, ad-funded experiences to their consented audiences. Prior to joining Utiq, Sara spent five years at the global advertising marketplace, Index Exchange, initially as Senior Director, Publisher Development, and, for the last two years, as Managing Director, UK & IE.

During her time at Index Exchange, Sara led the UK team and was responsible for the growth of the UK market; growing partnerships across region; and for regionalising the company’s global goals. She also led the Index Women’s Network for 18 months.
Prior to that, she spent four years at programmatic rich media ad exchange, JustPremium (acquired by GumGum in 2021), as SVP, Publisher Development. She also spent four and a half years as Managing Director at ForexSpace, an online information site for FX traders. Sara was ExchangeWire’s Ad Tech Personality of the Year for 2022.

Outside of work, Sara is a mother to teenage children; an active member and supporter of industry women’s networks; and a mentor for Bloom, a professional network for women in communications, which champions the real voices of women. She also takes part in endurance sports, including triathlons and sportifs.

The Value of Incrementality Measurement for Partner Programs

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 09:51:43 GMT

Partner programs live or die by measurement. See why incrementality is the stat that matters most.

The old adage that “marketers waste half of their media spend, but don’t know which half” is fading quickly as more of their advertising goes to highly measurable digital channels. However, more data doesn't necessarily mean more understanding. Modern marketers are faced with an entirely new measurement challenge: how to make sense of it all and measure value most effectively. The modern customer journey has evolved from a linear funnel into an intricate web of interactions, and traditional measurement approaches are failing to capture this new reality, where discovery, research and purchase patterns span digital and physical touchpoints over extended timeframes.

According to eMarketer , multitouch attribution is the most popular marketing model. Its report notes that 30 percent of marketers believe media mix modeling is the most effective form of measurement to identify drivers of business value or outcomes. The second most popular approach, at 29 percent, is combining different forms of attribution. These two popular models deliver value because they can help marketers compare different channels and partners, but they have several significant limitations.

A newer approach, incrementality measurement, is quickly gaining traction to help solve for some of the holes in attribution and media mix modeling. Incrementality can help isolate the true impact of specific channels, helping marketers understand hard-to-measure elements of their media plan. This includes tests with new partners, channels that deliver both brand and sales lift, and partners that deliver short- and long-term lift.

Partner marketing, which is embedded in content experiences across social, video, websites and shopping sites, is particularly vulnerable to incomplete measurement from these models and can benefit from incrementality tests.

Why Today’s Popular Measurement Models Fall Short

The two most popular models today pose significant challenges for even the most sophisticated marketers. A whitepaper from Measured points out the flaws in media mix modeling, noting that, “Media Mix Modeling (MMM) is correlation based, not causal. It’s expensive, it relies heavily on historical data, it provides only a relatively big-picture view — and MMM isn’t fast enough or granular enough for daily optimization across today’s extremely complex channel ecosystem."

MNTN published research that explains how both cookie-based and cookie-less attribution have limitations. Notably, cookie-based attribution is not only fading due to lack of cookies, it has a short life span. Meanwhile, cookie-less attribution is even less accurate than cookie-based attribution and suffers from technical complexities that make it hard to implement comprehensively. Attribution modeling is losing ground to MMM for these reasons.

These issues mean that advertisers are left with an incomplete picture. A marketer looking to understand which partner program delivered higher sales lift needs to understand not only the direct conversions from an affiliate link, but the partial contribution of a more complex customer journey, as well as longer term lift associated with links that live in content for months or even years.

Partnership content creates lasting value that defies traditional measurement timeframes. Unlike paid media, which can be precisely controlled — turned on and off at will — affiliate links and content continue to drive value long after publication.

This persistence creates a fundamental measurement challenge: some of the most valuable partner content remains active for years, creating attribution windows that extend far beyond conventional 30-day lookback periods.

The implications of this persistence are significant:

Content created months ago may actively influence today's purchases.
Partners often contribute to more revenue than they're directly credited for.
Traditional last-click models systematically undervalue long-tail content.

Partnership marketing/programs drive long-term, cross-channel value that traditional attribution models fail to capture. Unlike paid media, which can be turned on and off, marketing like partner content continues influencing purchases for months or even years — often outside conventional 30-day attribution windows. This persistence leads to underreported revenue contribution, misallocated budgets, and missed opportunities for optimization.

Using Incrementality Measurement to Complete the Picture

Incrementality measurement is designed to understand the full contribution of a specific marketing effort, be that a specific campaign, affiliate link, or creative asset. For example, an incrementality test uses controls such as suppression in certain locations or on certain pages or sites to measure the lift in performance that a specific marketing effort delivers.

Incrementality also can account for partial and longer term effects of a measurement effort, as long as the test is designed correctly. For partner marketing, this is particularly valuable, as only a small percentage of conversions are solely and directly the outcome of an affiliate link. There's a huge variation in customer journeys. On average, we've found that only 24 percent of customer journeys included only an affiliate link; the other three-quarters included multiple touchpoints. While MMM is designed to measure multiple channels, it's not granular enough to help marketers decipher the value of their partner marketing within complex customer journeys. Incrementality is.

Another benefit of incrementality measurement is the level of confidence it delivers. While media mix modeling is correlative, incrementality measurement uses a control methodology that is “causal” — i.e., it shows the direct effect of marketing on an outcome. Augmenting higher level insights from a media mix model with specific incremental tests can deliver a comprehensive picture of the lift a marketer gets from their various campaigns and partnerships.

For marketers looking to get a deeper understanding of the true contribution of partner marketing, or any marketing program, it's a good idea to test incremental measurement. Tests can be designed to answer specific questions and uncover insights connected to different key performance indicators such as return on investment, sales or brand lift. The beauty of incremental measurement is that it doesn't require a full measurement overhaul, and can be added to a marketer’s current measurement program — a great reason to test it out.

Jordan Dockendorf is director, strategic marketing programs at impact.com , an affiliate, influencer and referral marketing platform.

Also published in: Total Retail

UK Anti-Ad Fraud Group Calls for Diligence Checks

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 09:55:01 GMT

UK leaders push for action on ad fraud. The call? Stricter checks to clean up digital advertising.

The UK Stop Ad-Funded Crime Group (UKSAFC) is launching a consultation on a forthcoming initiative to tackle ad fraud.

The Know Your Customer (KYC) initiative will invite all stakeholders within the programmatic advertising supply chain to carry out due diligence checks on every company they deal with.

Doing so will require they provide independent verification of companies’ names, registered addresses and phone numbers, directors and bank details.

In return, those that conduct due diligence will benefit from improved trust from advertisers, many of which are concerned that their adspend is being wasted or is funding unseemly content online.

“DSPs [demand-side platforms] have a duty to check the SSPs [supply-side platforms] they are dealing with and SSPs have a duty to check the publishers they are doing business with,” UKSAFC chair member Ian Moss told The Media Leader .

“Nobody is expecting this to happen overnight, but it is a process of ensuring greater verification and transparency in the flows of money.”

According to a 2023 report by market research company Juniper Research, the global cost of ad fraud reached $84bn in 2023 — equivalent to just over one-fifth (22%) of all online adspend. By 2028, the ad fraud market is expected to grow to $172bn.

While the UKSAFC conceded that there is no silver bullet to ad fraud, the group is pursuing the initiative because it believes the problem could be “significantly reduced” if advertisers and agencies simply took time to verify the credentials of the websites on which their ads appear.

The lack of transparency in the programmatic supply chain, alongside a lack of due diligence from brands and their agencies, were both reasons cited for why major brands were found by Adalytics recently to have advertised against sites hosting child sexual abuse material .

On this week’s episode of The Media Leader Podcast , Responsible Marketing Advisory head of digital Emily Roberts told said it is common practice for agencies to expand brands’ inclusion lists in order to achieve scale in online campaigns and that it is not unusual for digital campaigns to run on over 100,000 websites on the open web.

“Scale is not an excuse to avoid due diligence when we are talking about payments that may potentially be going to criminals or sites with criminal-level content on them,” said Moss.

He added that there is “no doubt” the longer the tail of websites a campaign advertises on, the greater the potential exposure to fraud and criminality.

“Brands and agencies advertise on 100,000-plus websites at their own risk,” he cautioned.

Ahead of the launch of the initiative, the UKSAFC will be undertaking consultations with the major industry trade bodies, platforms, agencies and brands “over the coming months” to solicit feedback and gauge support.

The goal of the group, which was founded in 2023 to highlight the scale of ad fraud and the threat it presents to brands, is to co-ordinate a multi-stakeholder approach to addressing the issue. That includes encouraging the government to commission research into the scale of ad-funded crime online.

“The fight against ad fraud is a journey, not a destination,” Moss commented. “If advertisers and their agencies have better control over where their money is going, we feel we could eliminate many of the bad actors at a stroke.”

Members and advisors of the group include Moss; The Digital Voice founder Julia Linehan; MailOnline director of technical operations, commercial, Tom Pickworth; Dentsu UK programmatic strategy director Arshiya Nazir; MAP founder and managing director Chris Morgan; We Are Liberty digital chief investment and media officer Raz Qazalbash; Tickle chief commercial officer Gareth Owen; consultant James Welch; and adtech investor Jon Walsh.

Also published in: Media Leader

‘Advertisers: Go f— yourself’: Time for Brands to Make Better Choices

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 08:16:46 GMT

As social platforms shift, brands face tough choices. Dive into the call for better advertising decisions in a changing digital landscape with Utiq CEO Mark Bresseel as he talks to Mediashotz about how to fix the social media problem.

How do you solve a problem like social media? This is a question increasingly being asked by the brands, advertisers, marketing firms and tech experts who use the technology form.

First X, formerly Twitter, risked alienating brands, last week Meta announced plans to scrap is fact-checking programme, and TikTok faces being banned in the US altogether.

Here, Marc Bresseel, the CEO of European telco-led adtech firm Utiq argues the time has come for us to rethink how we all interact with social media platforms and consider the better choices that may be available…

A year ago, Elon Musk famously told Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, to take a hike and “go f— yourself.”

His reason? If anyone’s going to use advertising dollars to “blackmail” him, he wasn’t interested. In a now infamous live interview at the New York Times DealBook summit, Musk said: Go f— yourself, is that clear? Hey, Bob, if you’re in the audience. That’s how I feel. Don’t advertise”.

This all stemmed from Musk’s controversial posts on X and the subsequent advertiser boycott. Disney decided to pull ads from X, explaining that the platform no longer aligned with the company’s values.

Iger emphasised that Disney could not risk damaging its brand by associating with a platform that couldn’t meet its standards. Disney’s move echoed a broader trend of advertisers becoming increasingly selective about where they place their dollars.

But Musk didn’t just accept the backlash – he turned the situation into X’s martyrdom, proclaiming: “What this advertising boycott is going to do is kill the company.”

He followed up with a threat: “That’s what everyone on Earth will know. We’ll be gone, and it’ll be because of an advertiser boycott.”

By the end of 2023, it looked like X could lose up to $75 million in ad spend. Pocket change, in the grand scheme of things.

Fast forward to last week, and another tech giant, Meta, is sending a similar ‘Go f— yourself’ message to advertisers.

Meta’s decision to ditch third-party fact-checking in favour of an X-style “Community Notes” system, where users flag content as false, is a clear signal that brand safety is no longer a priority. This shift may claim to “restore free expression” and “reduce mistakes”, but it’s more likely to open the floodgates for misinformation.

Social platforms are becoming increasingly polarised, with misinformation stretching far beyond blatant falsehoods to encompass anything that doesn’t fit within a given ideological bubble.

So, what does this mean for advertisers? If brand safety was ever a priority when deciding where to allocate ad budgets – and if it wasn’t, it really should be – social media is rapidly becoming a minefield.

The cost of “reducing censorship” is no longer theoretical. It’s real, and it’s steep.

Brands are now faced with a pivotal question: Do you want your campaigns to be associated with platforms that operate without oversight on sensitive issues? Political, medical, and social topics are playing out in the open, without the necessary fact-checking or editorial integrity.

And the rise of AI deepfakes makes navigating this landscape even trickier.

As a brand, I wouldn’t want to gamble with that. “Catching less bad stuff” just doesn’t sound reassuring enough to me. The good news for brands? There are better options. The open web is an untapped treasure trove of high-quality publishers who prioritise integrity, factual reporting, and responsible content.

There are also better audience identifier solutions that support quality publishers – like Utiq – that prioritise consent and privacy, whilst enabling deterministic addressability of real people and access to high quality content on the open web.

These are the platforms and technologies that foster healthy, informed conversations. They uphold the editorial standards that social platforms have long abandoned. So why aren’t we prioritising them?

Brands, you fuel both social platforms and the open web. It’s time to take responsibility for where your ad budgets are invested. You have a choice. You can continue to fund platforms that erode trust and amplify harmful content, or you can choose platforms that uphold the integrity of information.

If you believe that factual accuracy is essential to a healthy democracy – rather than unchecked, misinformed narratives – then the right decision is clear. The answer has already been given by one side: Go f— yourself. It’s not that difficult to lead, to make the right ad spend choices.

The open web is here, ready to welcome your investment with integrity and quality audiences. The ball is in your court.

Originally published in: Mediashotz

Marc Bresseel

CEO at Utiq

Marc Bresseel is CEO of Utiq, the European adtech company, backed by Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone, that aims to enable a more responsible digital world for everyone via its Authentic Consent Service.

Marc started his professional career at IBM and subsequently grew further while at Microsoft. He was fortunate to kick off the Microsoft online services MSN, Hotmail, and Messenger as one of the early internet pioneers in Belgium. He managed the sales and marketing activities for MSN and Microsoft online services in the EMEA markets, led the Global Agency team, and became Global CMO for Microsoft Advertising.

He is the author of “Obsessed. Decode the data landscape. Reboot your sales and marketing. Prepare for the era of AI". Marc is obsessed with creating value for brands and scaling teams and organizations. Diversity is very close to his heart – he has been active judge and promoter of the “Inspiring Fifty Belgium”, an award recognizing the top 50 women excelling in tech careers across Belgium. He likes to challenge the status quo in business and life in general.

Why the Adtech Industry Needs Transparency More Than Ever

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 08:04:10 GMT

Transparency is the foundation of trust in adtech. Discover why openness is crucial for consumer relationships and industry collaboration – New Digital Age catches up with Utiq's Sara Vincent in the wake of International Data Privacy Day 2025.

Data Privacy Day on January 28 gave all of us in the industry an opportunity to take stock and think for a moment about the core principles of data privacy, and the extent to which we follow them.

For me, one word kept coming to the fore: transparency. Because I see it as the core principle that underpins everything else when dealing both with consumers and with partners in the adtech ecosystem. Without transparency, we’re lost; we might as well turn off the lights and close the doors.

Transparency is key to unlocking both the value exchange with consumers, and the as-yet untapped value that comes from forging better relationships with other adtech players.

Transparency leads to trust

Let’s start with our interactions with consumers. Putting the customer first is not only a logical first step, it’s also what every marketing textbook ever written tells you is the right thing to do, and it starts to build a layer of trust that we absolutely need to see more of across our industry.

If, as a consumer, I understand what is being asked of me, and what I get in return, the value exchange is clear – dare I say, transparent – and I can make an informed decision about whether or not to consent and share my data. So let’s make the complex simple, be clear in our language and make it easy for consumers to make informed choices.

Transparency along the supply chain

Now to consider the adtech ecosystem. Here, the question I ask myself is: isn’t it reasonable to expect transparency along a supply chain? In this respect, I am mostly talking about those partners that form a part of the chain, but are less than transparent with their fees, or about exactly what they do for them. I’m sure we’ve all seen presentations from publishers who are rightly concerned about what’s left of every advertising dollar spent with them once the middle-men have all taken their cut.

It’s time to be more open about this. I’m not suggesting that companies should reduce their fees – more that they should justify them. As someone once said to me: as a partner, you need to add value every single day and hold yourself to account to make sure you’re doing so. If every player in the chain embraced this mindset, the industry could function more collaboratively, efficiently and fairly.

Transparency fosters collaboration

The other reason to embrace transparency is because greater transparency fosters collaboration. With less to hide, we can focus more on solving shared challenges and seizing shared opportunities.

The adtech industry is a collection of thousands of interconnected parts, some of which work seamlessly with others at any given point in time to achieve the desired outcome. It’s also an extremely agile industry, in which individual players have learned that they need to be adept at shape-shifting in order to take account of changing consumer behaviours, new regulations, and new opportunities that present themselves as new technologies emerge.

And given the power and intransigence of the walled gardens, the best way to do this is to forge relationships with other players in the open web ecosystem. For which, once again, transparency is key. Sharing insights and experiences across areas of expertise benefits all of us. As the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all ships.

It’s time for the industry to come of age

This industry we work in is so multi-faceted and so complex that it’s easy to make excuses for opacity, but we should be beyond that now. The first banner ad appeared in 1994 – that’s more than 30 years ago. Let’s make 2025 the year in which we prove the ad tech industry has truly come of age by embracing and evangelising transparency in everything we do.

Originally published in: New Digital Age

Sara Vincent

Managing Director UK at Utiq

Getting Retail Media Right: How to Structure for Success

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 08:21:36 GMT

A guide to retail media success by Tom Priestman, director of client services at Nectar360.

A few years ago, a large part of my job in my former role at Meta was to convince marketers that social media was a worthwhile place to invest their budgets. Though it’s hard to imagine now, it wasn’t always an easy sell – but then a new, relatively early-stage concept for marketers with other, long-established media habits rarely is.

But now, just a few years later, the case for social media virtually makes itself, and it’s the task of other media to prove their impact and drive stronger results versus the validated, proven walled gardens of social media.

Retail media today stands at a similar point to social media just under a decade ago and faces exactly the same challenge: to prove, validate, and make sure the solutions we have built drive the results that we know they can.

It helps that retail media really works, and does something even the major tech platforms often lack the capability to do: robustly track offline sales against online and multichannel marketing – solving a fundamental challenge for FMCG marketers who have struggled for years to close that loop.

However, we recognize that retail media also represents a challenge for brands. Many FMCGs are large, legacy businesses with very established teams and practices, and retail media spans an overwhelming number of business functions, from media to shopper to digital, e-commerce, marketing, and more.

In reality, of course, retail media as we now know it is a more recent concept, containing elements of all of the above, which is why the number-one conversation I’ve had in the seven months I’ve been with Nectar360 involves a client saying: “I don’t know how to structure my teams for this.”

Every client we deal with is approaching retail media differently within their own existing marketing and media departments. That is entirely understandable because these companies are all well-structured for the world we knew - but not necessarily for the one that is with us now.

But given that we are all in the early stages of writing the book on retail media – and in view of our experiences and observations with a wide range of clients – we are in a unique position to talk through the common structural approaches that will help brands make the most of this exponential opportunity.

Approach #1: Leading with in-store

Retail media as a concept isn’t new. Numerous brands have well-established shopper teams to handle point-of-sale (PoS), with longstanding retailer relationships and highly efficient processes around messaging and activation. Consequently, a brand might easily be tempted to build its retail media function solely within its in-store team. However, starting from traditional in-store could mean a lower priority for deeper integrations with e-commerce, broader media, and digital in-store.

Approach #2: Leading with e-commerce

Spearheading retail media from inside the e-commerce team attacks the problem from the other side. E-commerce experts are digital specialists, immersed in metrics and optimization on a daily basis. But an FMCG e-commerce team can easily miss a broader insight, which is that, in the majority of categories, 85% of sales still happen physically in a store. So while an e-commerce specialist may be expert in optimizing the remaining 15%, a singular focus on online retail alone may prevent brands from maximizing the unique value of digital and offline combined – which, let’s not forget, allows them to meet the shopper wherever they browse and buy.

Moving in the right direction: Install a head of retail media

A smart approach is to build a centralized setup centered around a retail media specialist who can liaise with the shopper, e-commerce, and media teams and join the dots – and who can make all the difference between success and frustration.

Every brand that succeeds in retail media will need a marketer who recognizes the opportunity, upskills, and leans in. Some companies may have the right structure but are still in need of exactly the right person. Others might have a structure that shouldn’t work on paper, but which triumphs thanks to the skills and nuanced understanding of the person in charge. There is more than one route to success.

Our observation, however, is that a head of retail media needs autonomy, and a budget of their own, or at least a strong degree of influence over broader budgets, if they are to make their retail media initiatives come to life as they should. Otherwise, they may be seen as a consultant or simply a retail media advocate – effectively adding another layer of governance and complexity without giving retail media the freedom it needs to move fast and get real, business-building results.

Going to the next level: Build a broader structure

If a head of retail media has sufficient control, they are in a strong position to create a retail media-focused structure within the existing marketing, media, and agency framework. The agency connection is perhaps the most important here. Retail media is real media – indeed, as consultant Andrew Lipsman recently put it: “Retail media is the future of all media”. So, your media agency needs a very active voice, not only to consult and advise, but also to execute.

In this scenario – which is in our opinion the fastest and most efficient way to scale up retail media activity – media agencies take a critical role in pulling together disciplines, aligning goals, and building campaigns. They are the experts in media, after all, which is why brands work with them in the first place. But they, in turn, need to swiftly build and expand their own retail-media skillsets, and both brands and agencies need to create both a new dynamic and a careful sense of where lines are drawn.

Give yourself a break

As I said earlier, we are all still writing the early chapters of this book. Everyone’s building it as they go, learning on the job, seeing what works. No one, I can assure you, really feels like they have cracked it, and the global retail media landscape needs to evolve to level out across regions – for instance, as I’ve written elsewhere, the UK currently operates quite differently from the US.

What we know, as a loyalty, insights, and media services agency within a large retail group, is that when it comes to retail media, brands don’t want to be suppliers. They want a strategic partnership that stands on its own, like all the strongest true media relationships around the world, and in doing so delivers back on the promise retail media offers.

So let’s build the right models, and leverage the power of transactional data to answer all our business challenges. But let’s do it by learning together – and between us, we can define what great looks like.

Originally published in: The Drum

Tom Priestman

Director of Client Services at Nectar360

"Tom Priestman is Nectar 360's Director of Client Services, overseeing all FMCG Retail Media partnerships. With a passion for Marketing, Media, and Data Driven Strategies, Tom is working with brands to accelerate their Retail Media journey and drive measurable business impact.

Prior to joining Nectar 360, Tom most recently led the FMCG team at Meta after spending 6 years managing some of the largest Global and UK FMCG partnerships through the evolution of Social, Mobile, and AI.

Prior to Meta, Tom worked client side spending 6 years with Colgate-Palmolive, predominantly in the US, driving digital marketing evolution for their North America Division, notably across search, content, and eCommerce."

Navigating from Universal Analytics to GA4: The Good and the Bad

Wed, 08 Jan 2025 08:41:12 GMT

A no-fluff guide to making sense of the shift from Universal Analytics to GA4—what works, what doesn’t, and what marketers need to do now, from Boomathi Boominathan, Head of Data Analysis at Preciso.

The sunsetting of Google Universal Analytics (UA) and accompanying switch to GA4 in 2023 opened the door for advertisers and app and website owners to gain many new and valuable insights into their users. Compared to UA, GA4 offers companies new ways to measure and model data.

While UA reported on the total number of users visiting a website or an app, and which pages they looked at during each ‘session’, GA4 introduces the concept of active users, based on engagement.

GA4’s engagement metrics are based on ‘events’ - interactions with a website or app - which are broken down into four event types:

Automatically collected events are triggered by basic interactions with a site or app, such as page views, depth of scrolling and outbound link clicks.
Enhanced measurement events are ones that you can set to be measured by enabling them in the GA4 interface. They include actions such as site searches, file downloads, video engagement and form interactions.
Recommended events can be selected that align with your standard use cases and help improve reporting accuracy
Custom events are interactions with your website or app that are unique to your business.

While some of the GA events were measurable in UA, using Google Tag Manager in conjunction with the analytics programme, GA4 brings the process together on one platform.

GA4 leans in to user engagement

One of GA4’s new engagement metrics that wasn’t available in UA is ‘user engagement’. This is the amount of time someone spends with a web page in focus or an app screen in the foreground. When a user begins a new session, Google Analytics starts to record the amount of time in the session.

The measurement of that part of the session - the event - ends when the user moves the app screen to the background, navigates away from the website, or automatically after 30 minutes of inactivity. Measurement of each event also ends if the site or app crashes. In each case, a new measurement of the next event in the session is then initiated.

GA4 defines active users as those who complete an ‘engaged session’. This is a session that either lasts for 10 seconds or longer; has at least two page or screen views; or has at least one conversion event, i.e., a user action that the business defines as important, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter or downloading a document.

This idea of engagement and active users was one that was simply not present in UA. But while it presents opportunities for companies, it also presents new challenges.

Moving away from last-click

In GA4’s view of the world, users who visit a website or an app but do not interact with it for long enough, or fail to complete any of the required actions to meet the criteria for an engaged session, are not considered active users. So even if we run a campaign on an advertiser’s behalf to drive traffic to their website or app, a proportion of the traffic the campaign drove will simply not register in GA4. In our experience, to date, these ‘lost users’ represent around 30% of the total traffic driven by the campaign.

So even if our campaign has brought users to the advertiser’s website, when they don’t make the purchase on that visit, the credit for bringing them to the site may not be attributed to the campaign - even if they bookmark the product page and return and make the purchase a day or two later.

We have moved from a last-click approach in UA to more of a data-driven approach in GA4. But for GA4 to work fairly, we have to look at all the touchpoints, which has become somewhat complicated, because the attribution mostly goes to the direct traffic, or the direct SEO traffic.

Our approach has been to encourage our clients to let us access their GA so that we can attribute everything fairly and minimise the discrepancy between the traffic we know we are driving and what GA4 is telling the advertiser. In that way, advertisers can benefit from GA4’s enhancements, while still attributing campaign performance fairly and accurately.

By implementing GA4 correctly, advertisers can look forward to unlocking unparalleled insights into user behaviour in 2025, enabling smarter attribution and campaign optimisation. For us, this shift presents an exciting opportunity to help them leverage event-based engagement metrics for more data-driven strategies that deepen customer connections, navigate the complexities of digital advertising with precision, and enhance ROI for our advertisers.

Also published in: Martech Outlook

Boomathi Boominathan

Head of Data Analysis at Preciso

AI Is Outpacing Industry Talent: How to Respond Strategically

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 08:55:20 GMT

AI is evolving fast—but what does that mean for the humans behind the tech? Explore the talent gap and how to close it with Ian Ross, VP of Training at Jellyfish.

The hard truth is this: AI technology is outpacing industry talent across the board. That’s not a slight against professionals or an attempt to drum up fear — it’s the reality we’re living in, and acknowledging it is the first step towards navigating this transformative era thoughtfully.

From tech developers to C-suite executives, no one is exempt. Even the AI sector struggles to keep pace with its own rapid evolution. But this doesn’t mean we’re doomed to trail behind indefinitely. It means we must adapt differently, strategically, and with a clear understanding of the landscape.

AI as a Lego set: the modular nature of innovation

At its core, AI technology operates like a sophisticated Lego set. The possibilities are endless and infinitely varied. You might:

Build from the ground up, brick by brick
Follow pre-designed plans
Modify existing structures to suit your needs
Combine multiple sets for complex solutions
… or simply enjoy the pre-built rides at the theme park.

And just like Lego, new pieces — tools, models, algorithms — are constantly being introduced in different shapes, sizes, and functionalities. This modularity is both AI’s greatest strength and its most significant challenge. It allows for immense customisation but demands a level of adaptability and foresight that many organisations are still developing.

Settling in without standing still

This rapid pace of change can feel overwhelming. The instinct to panic-buy tools or jump onto trends is understandable, especially when it feels like competitors may be outpacing you. But here’s the crucial point: you’re not falling behind because you’re slower; you’re falling behind if you’re thoughtless.

Now is the time to settle in — not to relax, but to thoughtfully assess your path forward. Rushing to implement the latest AI solution without understanding its purpose within your organisation will likely lead to wasted resources and disillusionment.

The skill disconnect: where the industry falters

As a skills provider, we see the panic firsthand. Demand for AI courses, particularly those focused on prompting, is skyrocketing. On the surface, this seems like a positive trend. Yet when you scratch beneath, many learners don’t fully understand why they need these skills or how they fit into their broader goals.

This misalignment is not just an individual problem; it’s systemic. Organisations are failing to communicate effectively about their AI strategies. Employees feel pressured to upskill, but without a clear roadmap, these efforts often lack direction and measurable outcomes. The result? Frustration, wasted investment, and reluctance to sponsor further development.

Anchoring bias: the silent saboteur

Anchoring bias — the tendency to rely too heavily on an initial piece of information — manifests in both employees and leadership. For many individuals, their anchor is ‘prompting’ because it’s their first touchpoint with AI. They don’t see the larger ecosystem or understand how their skills fit into it.

At the organisational level, the anchor often comes in the form of promises from tech vendors. A supplier guarantees that their tool will deliver specific outcomes, and leadership latches onto that assurance. However, without proper alignment and coordination, these promises rarely materialise as expected. The boat is launched, but no one is steering it effectively.

Moving from reaction to action

The fundamental problem lies in the industry’s reactive approach. Instead of thoughtfully charting a course, many organisations are chasing after shiny tools or panicking at the thought of being left behind. But trying to keep pace with AI should never be the goal.

The goal should be strategic alignment. It’s time to drop the anchor, plot your course, and begin stargazing. Here’s how:

Create collaborative working groups: Include both leaders and employees in the same sessions. This ensures everyone understands the technology’s potential and limitations and aligns on objectives.
Understand the core technology: Don’t just buy into the promise of a tool. Understand the fundamental principles of AI and how they relate to your business goals.
Focus on intent before tools: Identify what you want to achieve. Only then should you select tools that align with your objectives. Remember, the right tool at the wrong time is as ineffective as the wrong tool.
Define measurable outcomes: Success must be quantifiable. Whether it’s improved efficiency, enhanced customer engagement or increased revenue, define metrics that matter to your organisation.

Forging alignment and accountability

Organisations can shift from reactive to proactive by taking these steps. Collaborative planning will unearth gaps, clarify responsibilities, and set actionable goals. You’ll move forward at a pace that’s right for you, equipped to handle the inevitable challenges that arise.

The waves will come — AI’s rapid evolution ensures that. But with a well-charted course and a unified crew, you’ll be better prepared to navigate them. This isn’t about surviving the storm; it’s about thriving in the journey.

The future of talent in an AI-driven world

AI will continue to evolve, introducing new challenges and opportunities. The talent gap won’t close overnight, but organisations that invest in thoughtful, intentional upskilling will gain a competitive edge.

Technology alone isn’t the solution. It’s a tool — one that requires human ingenuity, collaboration and strategy to unlock its full potential. AI isn’t here to replace talent; it’s here to amplify it. But only if we learn to work with it thoughtfully.

Also published in: Mediacat

Ian Ross

VP of Training at Jellyfish

As the Jellyfish VP of Scaled Learning, Ian Ross spends his time spotting upcoming skill gaps, consulting with clients on their challenges and solving both with human centred skill programmes. He's outspoken about what it really means to learn a skill and spends his time opening his clients minds to consider bridging skill gaps as being more than a classroom lecture. His experience expands across internal roles such as within Learning and Development departments; to external roles as an education provider, Learning Technologist and service provider such as his current role in Jellyfish. It's his mission to change how we all view skills. And to speak openly about mistakes he and others make so that we learn and grow from them. His current focus is to put humans and their skills in charge of AI and Automation as the Marketing world leads the adoption of new tools, tech and ways of working.

Video and CTV Advertising in 2025: We Ask the Experts

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 09:16:43 GMT

Experts weigh in on what’s shaping video and CTV advertising in 2025—from data to creativity and everything in between.

The audience shift towards consuming streamed and on-demand content over broadcast media shows no signs of stopping.

This has brought advertising formats like video and CTV ads to the fore, leading advertisers to think differently about how they present their message. The dominance of TikTok has brought about a surge in short, snappy, vertical video; but there is still room for well-produced, longer, resonant video ads that run on platforms like YouTube, which is increasingly being streamed on TV screens.

Meanwhile, CTV ads are coming into their own as a format that can deliver on both brand and performance; however, fragmentation and lack of standardisation in the streaming landscape present major hurdles to advertisers looking to take advantage of its strengths.

How will video and CTV advertising develop in 2025, what are the elephants in the room that advertisers should stop ignoring, and how should they upskill and adapt to stay ahead? We spoke to four experts – Gareth Holmes, Vice President of Commercial Strategy and Media at SeenThis; Jon Hewson, Managing Director at Audience Store; Phil Duffield, VP, UK at The Trade Desk; and Harry Darlington, Strategy Director at Medialab Group – to get their insights.

Q1: What’s the elephant in the room at the moment?

Fragmentation and a lack of standardised measurement tools in CTV

Jon Hewson, Managing Director at Audience Store:

"It’s the challenge of effectively measuring and integrating CTV advertising within the broader omnichannel marketing landscape. As CTV viewership continues to rise, advertisers are increasingly investing in this medium. However, the lack of standardised measurement tools and the fragmentation of platforms make it difficult to assess the true impact of CTV campaigns and to compare them with other channels. This measurement gap hampers advertisers’ ability to allocate budgets efficiently and to understand the ROI for their CTV advertising efforts.

Additionally, the rapid growth of CTV has led to a proliferation of point solutions, which can cause confusion among brands and necessitate further education on the nuances of CTV advertising.

This complexity underscores the need for the industry to develop unified standards and clearer strategies to fully leverage the potential of CTV within comprehensive marketing campaigns."

The paradox of (too much) streaming choice

Phil Duffield, VP, UK at The Trade Desk:

"Ever scrolled endlessly and still felt like there’s nothing to watch? You’re not the only one – audiences face a paradox of too much choice. This is problematic for streaming platforms and advertisers alike. When viewers spend too long between pressing the power and play button, they lose interest and the overall audience experience is diminished.

The solution lies in a more intuitive, engaging user experience with cross-platform content discovery, personalisation, subscription management, and ultimately fewer (more relevant) ads. Solving this problem is a win-win for everyone. Audiences can connect with the shows that interest them, content providers can cut streaming fatigue, and advertisers can connect with more engaged viewers."

Mainstream publishers have not pivoted to vertical video

Gareth Holmes, VP Commercial Strategy & Media, SeenThis:

"Vertical video. With the explosion of social media over the past decade, we have seen these platforms embrace and lead the evolution of video consumption, moving from the 16:9 ratio to 9:16 ratio. It is well-researched that we humans interact far more readily with a 9:16 format video than its horizontal cousin, and as such vertical video is seen as revolutionary in consumer engagement.

Whilst social platforms have flourished with this ad format, mainstream publishers have not pivoted to embrace this consumption shift, and that is the elephant in the room – given it is proven to be a consumer preference, why have we not seen a likeminded rollout of vertical video on publishers? The answer seems to be a historic lack of suitable technology solutions to enable and support this."

Q2: How are budgets and ways of working changing?

A joined-up approach between CTV and linear TV is needed

Jon Hewson, Audience Store:

"There has to be a joined up approach where CTV simply becomes TV (with CTV complementing linear TV). Advertisers are starting to focus on the audience rather than the channel, brand or streaming service – our clients are now also starting to factor in frequency capping across CTV services, to further enhance effectiveness. If advertisers can reach the right audience at the right time, that becomes the focus, whether through linear, CTV, or both.

We are also seeing a need to plan and buy CTV holistically and apply budgets fluidly, given the fragmentation of viewership across CTV services such as Netflix, Samsung, Amazon, Disney+ etc. When Netflix becomes available via more DSPs next year, it will become easier to buy CTV programmatically."

As businesses look for short-term uplift, CTV can deliver on both performance and brand goals

Harry Darlington, Strategy Director at Medialab Group:

"As consumers and companies alike face continued financial turbulence, pressure to bolster profits will inevitably mean short-term uplift is prioritised next year. But such a heavy focus on maximising quick conversion wins often creates the risk of neglecting long-term brand building. If brands want to power sustainable success, they must recognise that performance and brand awareness are equally important and, crucially, not mutually exclusive.

Take CTV as an example. Historically seen as mostly an awareness driving channel due to cross-platform measurement inconsistencies, it’s now becoming increasingly trackable — with Amazon and Netflix included in BARB’s Advanced Campaign Hub, while shoppable ads have started to bring a direct response component to campaigns. CTV is just one of the multi-faceted levers brands can pull to simultaneously meet performance and top-of-the-funnel goals, which can also be true of many other media environments when used in the right combination."

Q3: What skills are coming to the fore, or are missing?

The ability to analyse and interpret complex data sets is increasingly vital

Jon Hewson, Audience Store:

"The ability to analyse and interpret complex data sets is increasingly vital – i.e. leveraging audience insights, data analytics, and ML to craft personalised messaging for specific viewer segments.

With consumers engaging across multiple devices, tracking and optimising campaigns that span all of these, but also a plethora of content services, is crucial to ensure cohesive and effective campaigns, and enable advertisers to track incremental reach.

As programmatic buying becomes more prevalent in CTV, expertise in automated ad purchasing and RTB is essential for efficient and effective media buying.

Seamlessly blending traditional TV advertising approaches with digital strategies allows for a unified brand message to maximise reach and results.

McDonald’s, Burger King, Hyundai, Kia, Pandora and Etsy are all buying at scale, but also running video across different formats to account for all viewing habits. Currently, it’s the automotive, food, FMCG, travel and entertainment brands that are really leaning into CTV; other verticals will follow.

Q4: What role is generative AI likely to play in 2025 – if any?

Streamlining buying, improving attribution, and crafting content that resonates

Jon Hewson, Audience Store:

"AI-driven tools are already streamlining the digital media buying process, enabling real-time bidding and dynamic content placement. This will continue to grow with CTV planning and buying, enabling increased spending efficiency and improved campaign performance.

We should start to see AI improving attribution accuracy by creating data-driven feedback loops, allowing marketers to track metrics like site engagement, conversions, and revenue across multiple campaign dimensions, leading to more informed decision-making and optimised campaigns.

We’ll see AI assisting in the crafting of compelling content tailored for CTV audiences by analysing trends and preferences, informing the creation of ad content that resonates with viewers and is dynamically served to them according to their preferences. We’re already seeing AI-generated ads, such as Coca Cola’s Christmas ad, and this will continue."

Creative copywriting

Gareth Holmes, SeenThis:

"Creative copywriting: generative AI, particularly machine learning focussed on natural language processing coupled with natural language generation deployed via a DCO would enable mass-scale personalisation of copy to each consumer.

Together with a robust performance feedback loop where the AI learns from past performance data, this could continually improve the relevance and effectiveness of the ad copy it generates."

Q5: Do you have an outrageous prediction or a safe bet to share for 2025?

Consolidation and growth in CTV

Jon Hewson, Audience Store:

"Two safe bets. 1) There’s a limit to how much longer the fragmentation can continue and we will soon see consolidation (e.g. having a consolidated Amazon Prime subscription that manages access to several streaming services).

2). CTV will continue to grow. Subscription services will become more expensive, driving consumers back to ad-funded models, if not FAST channels, to get the same content."

The static display banner will be slowly consigned to history

Gareth Holmes, SeenThis:

"Amongst a litany of other advancements, video will be the safest bet in 2025… Premium brands activating scaled high-quality video streamed into display will be a new epoch for advertising as the static banner is slowly consigned to history.

Brands and their agencies will need to see more bang for the same buck, or less, and this will drive a renewed focus on ROAS."

Advertisers will be more empowered than ever

Phil Duffield, The Trade Desk:

"2024 will be remembered as a pivotal year for how advertisers value the premium open internet. This shift is largely driven by the industry’s fastest-growing channels, such as CTV and digital audio, which are proving to be compelling alternatives to the closed walled gardens.

Historically, walled gardens have thrived by offering advertisers easy access to large-scale reach, often at a low cost. However, that scale frequently comes at the expense of quality, with ads appearing against low-quality content (like cat videos) or worse, misinformation, MFA (made-for-advertising) content or hate-speech. Advertisers are increasingly aware of these compromises in the hunt for cheap reach, especially as they face mounting pressure to deliver campaigns that drive real growth and differentiation for their brands.

By 2025, I predict advertisers will be more empowered than ever, leveraging data-driven precision to prioritise high-quality, brand-safe environments over cheap, low-impact reach."

Also published in: E-consultancy

How Connected TV bridges linear TV’s incrementality gap

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 09:36:36 GMT

Jon Hewson, MD at Audience Store, explains why connected TV works best in combination, not competition, with linear TV.

TV viewing habits have transformed beyond recognition over the past five years. Structural shifts in the way we all watch TV have been accelerated by the global pandemic, rapid technological advancements, and a surge of big-budget premium content offerings. This transformation is clearly heading in one direction: audiences are moving toward on-demand, flexible viewing, with traditional linear TV trying to keep up and evolve to meet changing preferences.

Pre-pandemic, on-demand services like OTT platforms (Netflix, Amazon Prime) and BVOD offerings (iPlayer, ITVX) were already gaining ground, but Covid-19 accelerated this shift, positioning these platforms as the preferred choice for millions. Today, they’re perfectly aligned with the on-demand, always-connected lifestyles we lead.

Take a straw poll of 100 people asking what they watched last night, and the chances are, most will reference on-demand or streaming content, rather than linear TV. Ofcom’s annual study into UK media habits shows that fewer than half of 16-24-year-olds watch broadcast TV weekly, and while the over-65s remain loyal, live TV accounts for barely half of viewing among 55-65-year-olds, with even less for younger groups.

Linear TV delivers reach but struggles with efficiency

Linear TV remains an attractive channel for advertisers due to its unmatched reach, delivering audiences at scale in ways that on-demand services can’t yet match – though they’re catching up quickly.

However, linear TV advertising can be inefficient. Once you exceed a frequency of 3+ or 4+, diminishing returns kick in as campaigns repeatedly reach the same viewers, without substantial incremental gains.

Audience Store research consistently shows that a typical linear TV advertiser now achieves around 80% of reach and efficiency with the first half of their campaign spend; beyond that, additional investment yields only marginal improvements.

At this point, reallocating budget to connected TV (CTV) can increase reach and efficiency by tapping into audiences who are less likely to watch traditional TV. However, bridging the familiar world of linear TV and the evolving landscape of CTV requires a careful approach.

The bridge between linear TV and CTV

A seamless connection between linear and CTV can be achieved with a CTV partner with a Barb (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board) licence, who also has the capability to match Barb data with digital impression level data. By leveraging historical Barb data, it’s possible to analyze TV campaign performance and identify audience segments – based on age, demographics, and other factors - that haven’t been reached through linear TV alone.

This capability allows advertisers to plan, buy, and report against Barb data for CTV campaigns, filling gaps in reach. Whether it’s targeting under-35s and ABC1 audiences who are increasingly difficult to reach through linear TV, or honing in on specific demographics, geographies, or consumer interests, the precision of CTV offers flexibility that traditional TV buyers haven’t fully explored. Audience Store’s Targetcast CTV solution, for instance, enables advertisers to leverage this granularity, integrating seamlessly with the familiar metrics that linear TV buyers trust.

Precision measurement: the digital advantage

Beyond targeting, CTV brings the advantage of precise digital measurement. Whilst Barb is widely regarded to be broadly robust and trusted by the industry, it is worth noting that £4.9 billion of linear TV advertising is still traded in the UK based on its probabilistic model, sampling just 7,000 UK households. In today’s world of deterministic, real-time, digital metrics, this 43-year-old, predominantly analog methodology, risks becoming outdated.

With CTV, measurement is digital, deterministic and can deliver granular insights into campaign performance in real time. Campaign results can be tracked and analysed for true incrementality above linear performance (Barb data matched with impression-level data), clearly showing the additional reach that CTV delivers over linear alone.

With solutions like Targetcast, advertisers can measure the incremental impact of their CTV campaigns, ensuring their digital spend complements linear investment by extending audience reach and avoiding ad frequency saturation.

TV is TV: delivering content on viewers’ terms

Ultimately, TV is TV. Today’s viewers don’t care whether content arrives via linear broadcast or digital streaming - all they care about is quality content delivered to the big screen conveniently. CTV is well-positioned to meet this demand, providing a premium viewing experience on the viewer’s terms.

While CTV is certainly having its moment in the spotlight, it isn’t the singular solution to every advertising need, and traditional TV budgets should not be entirely shifted to CTV. However, when CTV and linear TV are combined thoughtfully, using and deduplicating trusted BARB data with digital impression-level data, advertisers can achieve incremental reach and fill coverage gaps in a way that maximizes both effectiveness and efficiency.

In blending CTV with linear TV, advertisers are no longer faced with an either/or decision. Instead, they have a powerful combination that can unlock reach, target precisely, and measure performance with unprecedented accuracy – a combination that, for many, is quickly becoming a no-brainer.

Also published in: The Drum.

Jon Hewson

VP of Training at Jellyfish

Jon's focus is on strategic leadership, fostering high-performance teams, and driving growth initiatives. With over a decade in senior roles, his mission is to deliver outstanding results for customers by enhancing employee engagement and development. His expertise in AdTech, specifically programmatic advertising, enables him to lead with innovation and a commitment to excellence.

As a leader, he's empowered progressive companies to construct sustainable revenue blueprints, harnessing his commercial acumen to provide low-risk, high-reward strategies. The cornerstone of his approach is the MEDDIC Sales Methodology, which has catalyzed success for businesses in Adtech, SaaS, MarTech, and e-commerce.

VeraViews joins the Conscious Advertising Network

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 06:01:25 GMT

VeraViews, an open-ledger advertising ecosystem that prevents ad fraud, has been accepted as a member of the Conscious Advertising Network (CAN).

VeraViews joins CAN

In its membership application, VeraViews explained how ad fraud hurts both advertisers and publishers, and detailed its open ledger-based ad tech solution and patented ‘Proof of View’ (PoV) PoV technology, tailored to programmatic video advertising, which adds a purpose-built transparency layer that is tamper-resistant and auditable.

This results in higher campaign ROIs for advertisers and speeds up publisher payments, as advertisers only pay for valid engagement on ad campaigns, while publishers get paid faster, since the attribution data is real-time and immutable.

CAN is a UK-based international coalition of over 180 advertisers, agencies, tech providers and civil society groups, focused on breaking the economic link between advertising and harmful content.

CAN’s members include Haleon, Virgin Media O2 , British Gas and Innocent Drinks, and network media agencies Group M, Havas Media and Omnicom Media Group, as well as leading civil society groups including the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Global Disinformation Index and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

CAN combines its advertising and human rights expertise to help implement industry, platform and policy interventions, and to embed human rights in relevant commercial and political decision-making globally.

It works directly with advertising platforms, media owners and publishers to pioneer positive changes and set new human rights precedents within the industry.

VeraViews’ ad stack offers a feature-rich campaign management suite for publishers, but with the added benefit of its PoV technology, which records ad campaign data in real time on an open ledger database

PoV is available to all parties in the supply chain, but with stringent privacy protections for outside observers.

It enables publishers to prove, rather than just claim, that they prevent invalid traffic on their campaigns, benefitting those publishers who are committed to reducing ad fraud and sending a clear signal to their advertising partners that they care about invalid traffic.

“We’re really pleased to welcome Vera Views as a CAN member”, said Harriet Kingaby, Co-chair of C.A.N.

“Bringing accountability and transparency to the adtech space is so important in promoting better commercial results for advertisers, and ensuring less money is lost to ad fraud, or sites promoting disinformation and hate.

“Vera Views’ use of open ledgers is truly pioneering.”

Also published in: Mediashotz