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.
The 2026 Indian Premier League (IPL) demonstrated linear TV and Connected TV (CTV) as complementary advertising platforms, not competing ones, with cross-screen campaigns becoming standard. Industry experts discuss how this dual-screen reality is changing advertising measurement, budget allocation, and the definition of a television viewer. Key topics include de-duplicating reach, managing demographic splits between the platforms, and the evolving roles of linear TV versus CTV for advertisers.
Marketers are adopting AI primarily for data analysis and content creation, exhibiting reticence to use it for media buying decisions due to concerns over performance and accountability. Concurrently, major ad agencies like Havas and Accenture are acquiring creator-focused firms to better connect with younger audiences through authentic means. LinkedIn is also moving into the creator economy, planning to launch new monetization products in its 2027 fiscal year, including a dealmaking marketplace and subscription features for influencers.
The advertising industry is shifting from deterministic identity to probabilistic, prediction-based systems for ad targeting, driven by privacy changes and the deprecation of cookies. This new approach leverages SDK-based integrations within apps to infer user intent and deliver outcomes for advertisers, moving beyond traditional contextual targeting. The focus is on predictive analytics and machine learning to optimize ad spend and user engagement at scale without relying on direct user identity.
AdRoll has released "The CTV Growth Guide," a resource designed to help marketers evaluate their readiness for Connected TV (CTV) advertising. The guide provides insights on strategy, budget allocation, and measurement to connect CTV exposure to conversions, offering a foundational entry point for brands into the CTV advertising landscape.
The FAST sector is experiencing rapid expansion, but issues like ad repetition and 'zombie' channels (<6,000 viewers per hour) are leading to viewer dissatisfaction and depressed CPMs for advertisers. Research indicates a significant majority of viewers notice ad repetition and it negatively impacts their perception of brands and platforms. The article suggests advertisers and agencies should prioritize quality over quantity to mitigate these problems.
BTIG initiated coverage of Magnite with a 'Buy' rating and a $20 price target, highlighting its strong position in connected TV ad technology. Magnite is expanding its AI tools for improved decision-making and efficiency, and has broadened partnerships with dentsu in Sweden and JioHotstar in India to boost programmatic CTV advertising.
Advertiser spending on travel media networks increased 30% year-over-year, reaching $2.13 billion in 2024, as marketers increasingly target consumers specifically during their trip planning phases. This growth is driven by the perceived value of reaching high-intent audiences and highlights opportunities for ad-supported platforms to engage consumers at critical emotional touchpoints, also leveraging AI for both precision and emotional connection.
FIFA's mandate of three-minute hydration breaks during all 104 matches of the 2026 World Cup presents a significant opportunity for broadcasters to generate new advertising revenue, potentially reaching Super Bowl-level prices. These new ad slots are seen as an "Americanization" of football, but could lead to backlash in non-U.S. markets, with some broadcasters, like the UK's ITV, already stating they will not implement ad breaks due to local regulatory limits.
Terry Woster, a South Dakota resident, observes a high volume of geotargeted political ads on his streaming services and smart TV. The article explains how political campaigns use IP addresses, registration data, and location tracking from streaming devices, often leveraging AI, to deliver localized messages to specific voter demographics. Woster notes that advertisers are buying 'the viewer rather than the content' based on third-party data and viewing history.
United Direct Solutions outlines why OTT and CTV ads are essential for modern marketing strategies, enabling precise targeting for both consumer and B2B audiences. The article explains how combining CTV advertising with other omnichannel tactics, like direct mail, can lead to measurable results and improved campaign efficiency. It emphasizes the shift from traditional TV to streaming and the growing importance of CTV for reaching decision-makers and buyers.
PubMatic and Havas launched Spain's first agentic AI CTV advertising campaign for Movistar (Telefonica Group), utilizing PubMatic's AgenticOS platform. The campaign achieved an 80% reduction in setup time, 18% lower CPM, and 23% more impressions, demonstrating the efficiency of agentic AI in programmatic CTV advertising. This marks a significant milestone in agentic AI adoption for programmatic media buying in Europe.
Dhruv Dhawan of The Trade Desk discussed omni-channel advertising at the Pitch CMO Summit 2026, advocating for coordinated campaigns to reduce consumer fatigue and improve effectiveness in India's fragmented digital ad market. He highlighted how connected campaigns, particularly with CTV and retail data integration, can significantly boost site visitation, sales uplift, and conversion rates while decreasing cost per acquisition. The Trade Desk's AI-powered platform and collaborations with retail data providers in India were cited as key enablers for closed-loop measurement.
Political Super PACs are significantly increasing ad spending in Michigan's U.S. Senate race, with over $5 million in June ad reservations for Mallory McMorrow and multimillion-dollar campaigns for Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens. This surge in political advertising is directly impacting the programmatic CTV and ad-tech sectors as various groups make substantial airtime reservations across Michigan markets. The article highlights several pro-candidate PACs and their considerable spending on broadcast, cable, and connected TV, demonstrating a clear influx of capital into the streaming ad ecosystem.
Spectrum Reach has partnered with Anoki AI to integrate its ContextIQ platform into Spectrum Reach's streaming ad inventory. This collaboration aims to provide advertisers with real-time, scene-level contextual ad targeting and enhanced transparency, particularly for live streaming content on CTV platforms, improving brand suitability and advertiser confidence.
Zee Entertainment announced it has secured over 12 sponsors for the FIFA World Cup 2026 across its linear and digital platforms, including prominent brands like Mahindra and Diageo. This indicates strong advertiser interest in integrated linear/digital offerings for major sports events in India. The company highlighted its customized, high-impact advertising solutions across various channels as a key driver for this engagement.
Samsung Ads has announced programmatic access to its connected TV (CTV) home screen ad inventory globally through integrations with The Trade Desk and Google's Display & Video 360 (DV360). This move, powered by Magnite's SpringServe ad serving technology, allows advertisers to programmatically buy non-skippable home screen ad placements on Samsung smart TVs, meeting rising demand for automated programmatic ad buying.
DAZN's VP of ad sales for Spain and Portugal, João Ramires, discusses the reduced importance of audience targeting for World Cup advertising due to massive communal viewing habits. DAZN expects to exceed 24 million unique viewers in Spain, leveraging programmatic ad buys via dynamic ad insertion (DAI) and partnering with ad tech providers for measurement and exclusions. The focus is on broad brand awareness, with DAZN also introducing pause ads and L-frames.
EDO has launched Sponsored Ad Outcomes, a new AI-driven solution for measuring live sports sponsorships, starting with the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This tool automatically detects, classifies, and quantifies brand integrations across live sports broadcasts, providing investment-grade outcomes data for brands, agencies, and networks. EDO's technology aims to scale sponsorship measurement by reducing the time and cost associated with manual analysis.
Publishers can extend their first-party data strategies, typically used in digital video, into audio. This approach allows advertisers to leverage these insights for more effective ad personalization in audio content. This enhances the value of audio inventory for publishers and advertisers.
Frequency has appointed James Smith as General Manager, Monetization to lead the company's advertising and revenue strategy. Smith, who previously held roles at Amagi and Meta, will focus on growing monetization for channel operators and distribution partners through Frequency’s novel architecture and advertising formats. This strategic hire comes as media companies seek to enhance revenue from FAST, CTV, OTT, and v/MVPD distribution.
South Africa is overhauling its TV measurement system, with a new daily TV currency launching in January 2027 and unified all-screens measurement by 2028. This comes as traditional pay-TV viewership declines and streaming watch time increases. The Broadcast Research Council of South Africa appointed GfK to develop the new Total Video Measurement (TVM) service to capture viewing across linear TV, BVOD, OTT, mobile, and connected TV.
Bravo is successfully securing new ad commitments during TV's annual upfront market, even as advertising budgets decline for most basic cable competitors. This success is attributed to premium unscripted content and the integration of advertisers into programming. NBCUniversal is also seeing increased ad alliances for unscripted programs on Peacock.
This article discusses the NFL's historical reliance on regional sports networks (RSNs) for driving cable subscriptions and how this model is being challenged by cord-cutting. The shift towards direct-to-consumer streaming for sports content indicates a significant change in how broadcasters and rights holders monetize content.
Amazon DSP has integrated Adelaide's AU attention metric for pre-bid targeting, including a unique AU Quality Floor feature to exclude low-attention inventory. This allows advertisers, such as Nestlé, to target high-attention ad placements across CTV, online video, and display inventory. The integration aims to connect attention metrics directly to performance and sales outcomes.
IQM launched Custom Voter Audience, an AI-powered tool leveraging Claude, to allow political advertisers to create granular voter segments and improve targeting capabilities. This tool aims to overcome the challenges of traditional political advertising by offering greater targetability for ad spend.
An AdExchanger article, sponsored by Polaris AI, details how real-time analysis of social ad auctions can reveal strategic competitive signals like efficiency and allocation, beyond traditional backward-looking intelligence. Polaris AI identifies that Progressive achieves significantly lower CPMs than competitors in the insurance advertising sector on platforms like Meta, suggesting a strategic advantage in media buying. The article highlights that these signals, appearing across social and programmatic environments, point to broader media buying systems and allocation decisions that reveal future strategies before public reporting.
Samsung Ads will soon make its television home screen ad inventory available programmatically, starting in Q3 through The Trade Desk and Google DV360. This move follows similar initiatives from other TV OS providers like Titan OS and Nexxen, but Samsung's offering is expected to be the largest. Samsung is implementing an AI-based solution and manual audits to address brand safety concerns for these highly visible ad placements.
CreatorFest 2026, organized by PerformanceIN, will be held in London on July 14–15, focusing on influencer ROI, brand partnerships, and the technical aspects of the creator economy. The event will feature technology and service providers such as Sprout Social, Kolsquare, Tubular (Chartbeat), Gigapay, and Blackmagic Design, offering insights into data-driven campaign management, monetization, and content creation workflows. It aims to connect creators, brands, and agencies to discuss performance marketing and growth strategies.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has published a compatibility matrix detailing the differences between MediaTailor's server-side ad insertion (SSAI) and server-guided ad insertion (SGAI) features. The comparison clarifies how ad prefetching, suppression, tracking, and Ad-ID decoration work with each method, providing guidance for streaming professionals. This technical documentation helps users understand the implications of choosing between SSAI and SGAI for their ad insertion strategies.
India's Connected TV (CTV) market is now the world's third-largest, with 46 million households, driving significant growth in smart TV sales. Khushboo Mulani of Slay Media highlights a "creative mismatch" as brands use mobile-first ad creatives on CTV, leading to wasted premium media opportunities. Mulani argues that brands must adapt their storytelling and measurement approaches to the unique viewing context and high engagement quality of CTV for effective advertising.
YouTube unveiled new AI-powered advertising solutions at its recent Brandcast event. These tools are designed to improve the effectiveness of ads and streamline creative processes for advertisers utilizing the platform, specifically including YouTube Shorts.
JWX is refactoring its QP platform, a product inherited through acquisition, to meet the reliability, scalability, and security demands of enterprise customers. This strategic overhaul signals JWX's commitment to providing robust ad-tech infrastructure for large agencies and brands. The company emphasizes the importance of moving from 'startup scrappy' to 'enterprise ready' to build a foundational platform for long-term customer trust.
Samsung Ads reports that streaming accounted for 77% of Q1 2026 TV viewership, with over three-quarters of that being ad-supported streaming. The company highlights the shift to ad-supported streaming as the new standard and positions its platform to help advertisers optimize campaigns through proprietary data and first-party insights. Samsung Ads aims to offer incremental reach and reduce duplication for CTV strategies.
Mudd Advertising highlights the benefits of OTT and CTV advertising for businesses, emphasizing its precision targeting, premium inventory, and measurable performance in reaching cord-cutters and streaming audiences. The article positions OTT and CTV as the future of TV advertising, combining television's impact with digital targeting precision.
Super League has announced a U.S. ad sales partnership with Play.Works to offer brands access to playable ad units and rewarded video inventory on Connected TV (CTV). This collaboration will target gamers with interactive advertising experiences, expanding Super League's strategic position in the advergaming market. The partnership aims to address fragmented attention on CTV by providing engaging, measurable ad solutions.
iSpot.tv offers solutions for ad creative assessment, audience measurement, and business outcomes across TV and streaming. Their services help advertisers optimize campaigns by providing insights into ad effectiveness, real-time visibility across screens, and connecting ad exposure to conversions to improve ROAS.
LtvAdx positions its Advanced TV exchange as a modern and unified alternative to Magnite Streaming's SpotX, emphasizing features like VAST 4.2, SSAI-native workflows, and operator-grade addressable linear. The article details where LtvAdx aims to win against SpotX, particularly for lean FAST and operator teams seeking reduced integration fragmentation and improved edge serving ownership. It highlights LtvAdx's approach to combine ad server, SSAI orchestration, and identity layers into one platform.
PubMatic held its 12th annual hackathon with 416 participants across 5+ countries, developing 111 projects focused on agentic AI. The event highlighted a shift from AI that merely responds to AI that can autonomously plan, execute, and adapt, moving beyond assistive features into active execution within their platform. PubMatic engineers are increasingly integrating agentic AI into their development processes for continuous optimization and productization of operational AI capabilities.
Seven.One Studios International has licensed over 500 hours of content, including factual, scripted series, and TV movies, to YouTube aggregators like DubMe IO and Content Rocket. This move is driven by the growing exploitation of digital rights and the improving quality of AI dubbing to distribute foreign-language content globally. The deals aim to monetize content on YouTube in various languages and territories.
Research from Rakuten TV indicates that 100% of professionals are using or plan to integrate Connected TV (CTV) into their media mix, with 70% increasing investment in the next year. The report highlights a shift in CTV advertising strategy towards viewer experience, attention, and contextual relevance, moving beyond traditional ad formats. Advertisers are increasingly expanding into homescreen, pause, and display advertising to better integrate into the viewer journey.
The article discusses the rapid growth and professionalization of the global creator economy, projected to reach $250 billion by 2025, with a significant focus on India's role. It details how creators monetize their content, the precarity of platform dependence, and India's regulatory efforts including ASCI guidelines for ad disclosure and SEBI's rules for finfluencers. The Indian government has embraced the 'Orange Economy' strategy, backing it with a $1 billion fund and initiatives to foster the sector.
Comcast Advertising has partnered with Affinity Solutions to integrate Affinity’s transaction data into its Outcomes+ platform. This collaboration aims to provide advertisers with purchase-based precision for TV advertising, enabling them to identify new audiences, optimize ad spend, and measure campaign effectiveness based on real consumer buying behavior. The integration combines viewership data from over 30 million Comcast households with transaction data from over 100 million consumers to enhance targeting and measurement across traditional, streaming, and addressable TV.
This article explains 15 concepts behind social media monetization, focusing on how platforms make money through targeted advertising, data flywheels, creator programs, e-commerce integration, and virtual goods. It also discusses the impact of privacy regulations and the shift to first-party data. The piece provides a comprehensive overview of the revenue strategies and economic models employed by major social media companies.
Integral Ad Science (IAS) released a guide for marketers focused on driving sales during summer retail events like Amazon Prime Day. The guide promotes IAS's Context Control Targeting and Audience Enhanced Targeting to improve ad placement and boost brand awareness. It aims to help brands reach high-intent shoppers more precisely amid increased competition.
A Rakuten TV survey shows 100% of European marketers are integrating CTV into their media mix, with 70% planning to increase investment in the next year. The study highlights a shift from traditional pre-roll/mid-roll ads to homescreen, pause, and display advertising, with homescreen ads projected for significant growth. Advertisers are prioritizing attention, memorability, and contextual alignment over sole delivery metrics, indicating a move towards viewer-first strategies in CTV advertising.
Magnite is strengthening its relationships with JioHotstar and Dentsu to advance its CTV and programmatic video advertising stack. This strategy involves the adoption of SpringServe 2.0 and new AI features aimed at driving future earnings through efficient, premium programmatic video advertising infrastructure. The article highlights that these integrations are expected to support higher quality, automated CTV infrastructure for advertisers.
Netflix's ad revenue is projected to double to $3 billion in 2026, reaching $8 billion and 10% of global CTV ad spend by 2030, according to WARC Media. This growth is attributed to strategies like integrating live sports, brand integrations, video podcasts, and gaming content. The company is actively targeting competitor ad share rather than solely relying on market expansion.
Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) Season 12 achieved 936 million video views, demonstrating the increasing commercial value of fragmented sports content in India's digital advertising ecosystem. This shift allows for monetizing various digital touchpoints beyond traditional linear TV ratings for rights holders and advertisers. The league operates on a hybrid model, combining linear television advertising on Star Sports with digital advertising across streaming platforms under JioHotstar infrastructure, expanding total ad yield.
Tom Patterson, Channel 4's Director of Commercial Operations, was recognized in Campaign UK's 40 Over 40 2026 winners list. He played a key role in developing the "All 4" data strategy and integrating digital commercial aspects to evolve revenue streams alongside changing viewing habits. His work focused on balancing commercial performance with social purpose through partnership initiatives.
YouTube Shorts is expanding its revenue sharing model to include music creators. This initiative aims to monetize music used in Shorts content, benefiting artists and publishers.
James Varndell · Bitmovin
