Ad tech rebuilt itself around identity resolution and clean rooms once third-party cookies disappeared. Coverage here spans SSAI, programmatic CTV, ad-supported tier economics, frequency capping, and the measurement approaches replacing the old playbook.
DoubleVerify has published a guide outlining five best practices for designing incrementality tests to measure the effectiveness of CTV and social media advertising. The framework emphasizes defining clear decision-making goals, calculating Minimum Detectable Effect (MDE) thresholds, and utilizing larger holdout groups to improve statistical reliability.
Amazon Ads has partnered with OpenAI to enable programmatic advertising within ChatGPT, allowing brands to reach users through conversational shopping experiences. This integration leverages Amazon's DSP to target audiences on the AI platform, which has reached 900 million weekly active users.
A report from Confindustria Radio TV indicates that European advertising expenditure reached €187.1 billion in 2025, a 5.8% increase driven by digital growth. While linear TV ad revenues declined by 9.2% across major European economies, digital video ad spend surged by 18.2% to €22.1 billion.
PubMatic and InPowered have integrated containerized AI models into the sell-side infrastructure to enable real-time bid decisioning before requests are throttled. This approach allows advertisers to deploy custom models directly within the exchange to prioritize high-value impressions based on specific outcome metrics.
OpenAI has released documentation for the billing and payment infrastructure of its ChatGPT Ads Manager Beta. The system supports postpay billing with CPM and CPC pricing models, utilizing automated payment thresholds and budget pacing for advertisers.
This article provides a technical overview of waterfalling, a sequential programmatic advertising method used by publishers to manage ad inventory. It contrasts the traditional priority-based waterfall model with modern header bidding, highlighting the trade-offs in latency, yield, and operational complexity.
The Trade Desk reported over 50% year-over-year growth in CTV revenue across EMEA and APAC regions, signaling strong international momentum despite the U.S. market accounting for 83% of total revenue. The company faces increasing competition in programmatic CTV from vendors like Magnite and PubMatic, both of which are also expanding their agentic buying capabilities in international markets.
Google has avoided a forced breakup of its advertising business, with regulators shifting focus toward behavioral remedies such as auction transparency and data interoperability. The industry is now waiting for specific details on how these remedies will be implemented and whether they will provide meaningful competitive access for independent ad tech providers.
Spotify has implemented a 30-second limit for self-serve podcast ad creative, while host-read ads remain a standard for 60-second durations. The article provides a comparative analysis of ad lengths, industry standards, and performance metrics to guide creators and advertisers on optimal ad strategy.
Amazon has expanded its shoppable TV features, including the visual search tool Shop the Scene and an 8,000-title catalog for Shop the Show. By routing transactions through the Amazon Shopping app, the company aims to link television impressions to purchase records to enable performance-based advertising on Prime Video.
Disney+ is rolling out its unified global adtech stack, including the Disney Audience Graph and Disney Select, to the Australian market. The initiative aims to support its ad-supported tier by enabling sophisticated audience targeting, interactive ad formats, and outcome-based measurement for advertisers.
Nielsen has expanded its Ad Intel competitive intelligence product to include Connected TV (CTV) ad spend tracking in France. The update provides agencies and brands with visibility into advertising investments across major streaming platforms and domestic broadcasters in a market forecasted to reach €1.5 billion in annual CTV ad spend.
US FAST viewing hours grew 43% year-over-year to 1.8 billion, yet platform data opacity is suppressing CPMs and hindering market growth. The industry is increasingly calling for independent, device-level verification to bridge the transparency gap and stabilize advertising economics.
Prebid.org has appointed former Magnite executive Garrett McGrath as its new President to lead the organization's operational strategy and technical roadmap. McGrath will oversee key initiatives including the development of agentic AI tools, the Prebid Mobile SDK 4.0, and the advancement of open-source identity and measurement standards.
The IAB projects U.S. creator advertising spend will reach $37.1 billion in 2025, representing a 26% increase over 2024. The report highlights the growing complexity of the creator economy, emphasizing the need for clear distinctions between creator advertising, direct income, and platform infrastructure revenue.
Fairing has launched Advanced Attribution, a tool designed to capture zero-party data from non-clickable channels like podcasts, TV, and AI assistants. The product uses dynamic post-purchase surveys to help brands identify specific influencers and touchpoints driving revenue beyond traditional pixel-based models.
The FAST market is experiencing significant growth in viewing hours, yet revenue per hour and CPMs are declining due to platform data opacity. The article argues that implementing independent, device-level delivery verification is essential to restore advertiser trust and validate inventory value.
Genius Sports, Equativ, and StackAdapt have partnered to integrate real-time sports data into programmatic ad-buying workflows. The collaboration allows advertisers to trigger dynamic creative based on live game events, such as scores or specific plays, across CTV and digital platforms.
Transmit has partnered with Free Live Sports to integrate its MomentAI-powered in-content advertising technology across the latter's FAST and live sports channels. The integration aims to enable channel partners to monetize programming through contextually relevant ad units without increasing traditional commercial break frequency.
The global digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising market is forecast to grow from $20.74 billion in 2024 to $39.12 billion by 2030, driven by programmatic adoption and integration with broader video media plans. The article outlines best practices for integrating DOOH into video-first strategies, emphasizing the need for rigorous measurement and attribution to justify investment.
The IAB has raised its 2026 U.S. ad spend growth forecast to 12.3%, citing strong performance in live sports and the rapid adoption of AI-driven automated campaign tools. Projections indicate that AI-directed ad spend will reach 27% of the U.S. market by 2030, with platforms like Google's Performance Max and Meta's Advantage+ becoming industry defaults.
The IAB Tech Lab has finalized its Agentic RTB Framework, a new standard designed to allow containerized processing of bid requests within programmatic auctions. This development, alongside Amazon's expansion of Signal IQ, reflects a broader industry shift toward in-auction processing to address data leakage and high query volumes in the bidstream.
Microsoft Advertising has updated its Curate platform to include Copilot and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to assist publishers and data owners in managing programmatic private marketplace transactions. The integration aims to streamline workflows for packaging first-party data and CTV inventory by providing AI-driven insights and standardized connectivity.
Flightpath CEO Sean Howard discusses the challenges of podcast inventory forecasting and the need for better data visibility across fragmented distribution platforms. The conversation highlights how publishers can leverage traffic management and dynamic ad insertion to unlock revenue from back-catalog content.
Teads has expanded its global partnership with Whale TV to integrate native CTV and HomeScreen inventory into the Teads Ad Manager platform. The deal provides advertisers with access to addressable inventory across 500 million devices in 100 countries.
Nielsen has expanded its Ad Intel product in France to include Connected TV (CTV) ad spend tracking across major streaming platforms. The tool aims to provide marketers with competitive intelligence on ad investment shifts between linear TV and streaming services.
Telly has expanded its partnership with Magnite to enable programmatic buying of its persistent Home Screen ad inventory. The integration allows advertisers to purchase extended-duration ad placements through platforms like The Trade Desk and Teads using the IAB Native Tile standard.
Viamedia.ai has joined the Go Addressable trade group to integrate its Parrot Ad Decisioning System with broader industry standards. The partnership aims to enable household-level targeting and unified ad delivery for previously excluded broadcast and MVPD inventory.
Magnite and ITN have expanded their partnership to integrate ITN’s seller agent into the Magnite Orchestration layer. The integration aims to automate local linear TV buying by replacing manual processes with agentic workflows that generate impression-based forecasts and media plans.
Disney CFO Hugh Johnston confirmed plans to integrate FAST channels into the Disney+ platform to expand advertising inventory and reduce subscriber churn. The strategy focuses on creating a free, ad-supported entry point to the ecosystem that allows for future upsell opportunities to premium tiers.
YouTube has updated its public-facing view count criteria to include single frames and autoplays, a change that industry observers suggest could inflate metrics by up to 100%. In response, agencies and podcast networks are shifting to the 'Engaged View' metric for 2027 contracts to maintain consistent measurement standards and prevent overpayment for low-intent impressions.
Imagine Communications has launched OSI-X, a traffic and billing system designed to unify linear and digital ad management for North American broadcasters. The platform features two-way integration with Google Ad Manager and supports TIP-compliant spot placement to automate workflows across fragmented viewing environments.
Seventeen members of the Forbes Agency Council have outlined strategies to combat AI-driven CTV ad fraud, emphasizing the shift from vanity metrics like impressions to CRM-verified outcomes. The group advocates for deterministic data, independent verification, and direct publisher deals to mitigate the impact of synthetic viewers and bot traffic.
Ad fraud operations are increasingly utilizing botnets, infected TV boxes, and AI-generated content to siphon billions from the digital advertising ecosystem. These sophisticated schemes threaten streaming ad-supported business models by inflating engagement metrics and eroding advertiser confidence in CTV and mobile platforms.
OpenAI has launched conversion-optimized campaigns (oCPC and oCPM) in its Ads Manager Beta for ChatGPT. These new billing models allow advertisers to optimize ad delivery toward specific conversion events using signals from both clicks and impressions.
EDO released an analysis of Super Bowl advertising performance from 2021 to 2025, identifying that ad duration, pod position, and celebrity casting significantly impact consumer engagement. The report provides benchmarks for media buyers and creative teams to optimize high-stakes sports inventory.
Numeris is transitioning its Canadian radio audience measurement from traditional diaries to the Radio Local+ system, which utilizes passive streaming data and recall surveys. The shift has prompted industry concerns regarding the transparency of the new algorithmic model and the potential for demographic skews in audience reporting.
Retail media networks including The Home Depot, DoorDash, and Albertsons are increasingly leveraging transaction data and upper-funnel video campaigns to compete for advertising budgets. These retailers are expanding their ad platforms into CTV and in-store digital screens to capture consumer intent across the entire shopping journey.
Qortex, formerly known as CatapultX, has pivoted its platform to focus on contextual video intelligence that prioritizes content alignment over traditional demographic targeting. The company claims that analyzing content-driven consumer behavior can significantly improve video completion rates for programmatic advertisers compared to standard audience-based targeting.
Flightcast has updated its platform to enable unified video ad campaign management across Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and RSS-distributed video platforms. The tool allows publishers to upload a single creative asset to be served across multiple destinations, automating platform-specific technical requirements and dynamic ad insertion.
A report from tvScientific and Pinterest indicates that 54% of U.S. marketers plan to invest in performance CTV this holiday season, shifting budgets toward earlier campaign launches. The data highlights a growing industry focus on measurable business outcomes and the integration of AI for creative and targeting optimization.
WasabiCard has expanded its stablecoin-based payment infrastructure to support bulk payouts for livestreaming agencies and MCNs across 200 countries. The platform enables businesses to fund operations with stablecoins and settle in over 30 local fiat currencies via an API-integrated dashboard.
PubX has launched in Australia, introducing an AI-agent-based programmatic advertising stack that aims to bypass traditional DSPs and SSPs. The company claims its technology can increase the publisher's share of ad spend to 78 cents per dollar, though it has not yet provided independent verification of these figures.
U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema has ruled that Google will not be forced to divest its AdX ad exchange, despite previously finding the company guilty of monopolizing the publisher ad server and exchange markets. The court will instead pursue alternative antitrust remedies, the details of which have not yet been disclosed.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema has rejected the Department of Justice's request to force Google to divest its AdX exchange and DoubleClick for Publishers. Instead, the court will impose behavioral remedies to address monopolistic practices, with the specific terms currently under seal.
Cleeng has introduced an agentic subscriber retention platform featuring four specialized AI agents integrated via the Cleeng MCP Server. The system is designed to automate offer management, customer support, and churn prevention using behavioral data from 54 million subscribers.
Roku and Google have integrated Confidential Publisher Match into Display & Video 360 to enable advertisers to link first-party loyalty data with Roku's audience signals. The companies claim this integration results in a 120% increase in incremental ROAS and a 14% lift in effective reach for CTV campaigns.
Magnite has updated its ClearLine Activate platform to include self-serve audience targeting capabilities, allowing buyers to integrate third-party and publisher first-party data directly into campaigns. The update aims to reduce operational friction by centralizing data activation and eliminating the need for manual deal ID requests.
Intersection CEO Chris Grosso discusses the need for standardized audience measurement in the US out-of-home advertising market to drive growth. The company is also leveraging digital screen networks to deliver live sports and local content to increase consumer engagement and ad value.
Executives from LiveRamp, CVS Media Exchange, and IQVIA discussed the use of clean-room frameworks and tokenization to link advertising impressions to patient health outcomes. The panel emphasized the importance of privacy-preserving data connectivity to measure the effectiveness of pharmaceutical advertising across non-linear patient journeys.
