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 article emphasizes that multi-channel activation is crucial for demonstrating Connected TV's (CTV) value to advertisers. This approach provides comprehensive cross-platform measurement, which helps validate ad spend and proves CTV's overall effectiveness in advertising.
IAS Media's Prasad Amin advises media planners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to adopt an integrated video strategy combining linear TV, OTT, and CTV. This approach leverages linear for broad reach, OTT for precise targeting, and CTV to converge the big-screen experience with digital addressability for advertisers. The strategy emphasizes that linear TV, particularly in the GCC, still holds significant audience segments for specific demographics and live sports, and that many linear channels are now accessible via CTV platforms.
Apple has announced that App Store developers can now collaborate to offer subscription bundles, allowing users to access multiple apps at a discounted price. This strategy, inspired by streaming service bundles, aims to increase perceived value and customer retention. Developers can also create "Suites" that are not available as standalone purchases.
Rakuten TV Enterprise's research indicates a shift in European CTV advertising, with brands prioritizing viewer experience, attention, and contextual relevance over traditional reach metrics. The report, "Beyond the Break," suggests advertisers are moving beyond pre-roll/mid-roll formats, with homescreen advertising gaining significant interest. This trend highlights a broader industry move towards integrated and less disruptive ad strategies to engage audiences effectively.
Advertising firm Nexxen reports that Tubi's free FIFA World Cup games are attracting 14 million new U.S. viewers, reflecting a broader trend where 86% of fans seek free viewing options due to rising costs, which highlights the increasing importance of FAST platforms for monetization. Nexxen predicts that this trend will accelerate broader adoption of free ad-supported streaming television services, boosting not only Tubi but also other FAST platforms and increasing the need for audience measurement and identity resolution tools for advertisers.
Cox has finalized a deal with Spectrum Reach to distribute Cox-owned TV channels. This agreement also includes an expansion of programmatic advertising sales between the two companies. (Note: The provided article is a stub, so details are inferred from the title.)
Nerissa Valdellon, SVP of Media Solutions at Channel Factory, discussed how brands need to rethink campaign strategies by focusing on the '4S' framework (scroll, stream, search, shop) rather than traditional funnel stages. She highlighted the inefficiency of solely targeting the 5% of consumers actively looking to buy, advocating for advertisers to engage the other 95% earlier in their fragmented digital journeys. Channel Factory assists brands in measuring ad performance through incrementality across social platforms.
Marketers are increasingly comfortable integrating AI into their ad campaigns, utilizing large language models and AI-driven platforms for streamlining operations. Specifically in Connected TV (CTV) advertising, AI is playing a significant role in enabling smaller advertisers to access streaming opportunities. The industry consensus is that AI serves as an assistant, with humans needing to remain in the lead for effective campaign management.
Independent advertising agencies face challenges meeting client demands for omnichannel campaigns due to fragmented workflows and manual processes. AI-powered intelligence platforms, such as AI Digital's Elevate, offer a solution by unifying research, planning, activation, optimization, and reporting to improve efficiency and decision-making in media buying. This approach helps agencies provide enterprise-level capabilities without the overhead of larger networks, showcasing a shift in ad tech from automation to orchestration.
Gigapay introduces a self-billing solution for creators that consolidates hundreds of individual creator invoices into a single payment for brands, significantly reducing manual processing costs and speeding up payment cycles. This system automates tax and compliance for creator payouts across over 65 countries, acting as the Merchant of Record for influencer marketing campaigns. The solution aims to remove financial bottlenecks for brands working with a large volume of micro-influencers, allowing them to scale their creator collaborations more effectively.
Google Ads has launched an NBA Sports line-up in beta, offering new advertising inventory for live NBA games on YouTube TV and VOD content on YouTube. This initiative provides brands with transparent reporting and unique audience reach, allowing advertisers to align with relevant content and simplify buying across formats and platforms. The line-up supports various ad formats, including bumper, skippable, and non-skippable ads, while restricting certain categories for advertising.
Osmos.ai published a detailed guide on retail media network monetization strategies for 2026, outlining four core revenue streams and best practices for pricing models, revenue share, and demand generation. The article highlights how retailers like Walmart are seeing significant profit shifts from advertising and membership, with Walmart's global ad revenue reaching $6.4 billion for FY26. It also compares various retail media platforms, emphasizing Osmos's full-stack OS approach for white-label deployment and direct retailer ownership.
Lalatendu Das, CEO of Publicis Media, will participate in a fireside chat at the e4m Connected TV Conference on June 11 in Mumbai. The discussion will focus on 'AI, Data & CTV: Building the Next Generation of Media Growth,' exploring how AI and data are transforming the media landscape by enabling personalized consumer experiences and driving advertising effectiveness on CTV platforms.
AWS Elemental MediaTailor documentation details the use of dynamic ad variables to pass viewing session data to Ad Decision Servers (ADS). This functionality enables streaming professionals to deliver relevant ads and supports use cases like A/B testing and time-shifted viewing. The document outlines session, player, domain, and configuration alias variable types.
Triton Digital published a practical guide on yield management for digital audio, outlining strategies for optimizing advertising inventory and maximizing revenue. The guide emphasizes balancing direct and programmatic sales, understanding metrics like eCPM and rCPM, and fostering cross-functional collaboration. It aims to help streaming professionals identify monetization inefficiencies and turn data into actionable strategies for sustainable revenue growth.
Amazon's Fall Prime Day generated $24.1 billion in online spending, as reported by TruAudience / TransUnion data. This event presents a significant opportunity for advertisers to engage with audiences across native, video, display, and CTV ad formats.
Digital ad fraud, exemplified by scams like Icebucket and ParrotTerra, costs advertisers $84 billion annually, with Connected TV (CTV) being disproportionately affected. The rise of AI-powered malware and agentic AI makes fraud detection more complex, as bot behavior becomes more human-like. Marketers are urged to implement advanced monitoring, data integration, and cross-platform analysis to combat fraudulent activities and wasted ad spend.
Zeta Global is attracting a bullish thesis for its growth in the advertising and marketing technology sector, leveraging first-party data and an AI-native architecture. The company's platform, powered by SuperGraph and Athena AI, aims to improve advertising returns and increase client wallet share by moving beyond marketing into broader enterprise intelligence. Strategic partnerships with OpenAI and Snowflake are cited as drivers for accelerating client engagement.
Streaming platforms are evolving into "marketing juggernauts," treating content as products with personalized promotion and leveraging ad-supported tiers as key revenue drivers. This shift includes AI-driven personalization, TikTok-style discovery feeds, and a focus on lifecycle marketing to maximize user attention, retention, and monetization. Major platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are implementing AI advertising tools and TikTok-like content discovery to adapt to these new trends.
Equative has unveiled an AI-powered end-to-end media platform designed to enhance advertising technology. The platform helps clients create, curate, measure, and optimize content, with the goal of driving outcomes in ad-tech.
TiVo Ads has partnered with Tunnl to integrate TiVo's viewership data into Tunnl's audience intelligence platform. This collaboration aims to provide advertisers and agencies with more granular local TV audience insights for media planning and campaign activation across linear and streaming television. The partnership emphasizes privacy-first data sharing to improve understanding of audience composition and spending decisions.
Disney Plus is rolling out new interactive ad formats, including 'Ad Selector', which allows viewers to choose their preferred advertisement. These initiatives, powered by the in-house Disney eXperience Composer, aim to increase streaming ad revenue through enhanced viewer engagement and less disruptive ad experiences. Other formats include Gateway Go, Pause Ads, and Pause Plus, with reported engagement rates exceeding industry benchmarks.
AdsWizz's Anne Frisbie believes agentic AI will significantly boost programmatic audio ad spend, potentially allowing audio to surpass connected TV in agentic buying due to its consolidated supply-side technology. AdsWizz is partnering with Apple to facilitate audio content distribution and monetization for publishers and creators within the open ecosystem. This aims to simplify the workflow and unlock new revenue opportunities for both creators and advertisers.
Index Exchange's John Tigg discusses how the rapid growth of streaming and AI in programmatic advertising is driving a critical need for greater transparency and control for brands. As programmatic encompasses a larger share of digital media spend across display, streaming, and CTV, advertisers are reassessing their strategies and demanding more accountability. He highlights that Connected TV is pushing higher-quality programmatic standards and that transparent platforms with direct publisher relationships, quality data, and infrastructure will differentiate trusted partners.
Disney has significantly expanded its interactive advertising formats on Disney+, leveraging its in-house Disney eXperience Composer (DXC) platform to develop and deploy new ad products. These include Gateway Go, Pause Ads, Pause+, and Ad Selector, which have shown high engagement rates and cater to a broader industry trend of streaming services increasing ad revenues through non-traditional formats.
Connected TV advertisers in India are facing a 'second-screen' challenge, with viewers frequently engaging with smartphones during ad breaks, which necessitates new cross-screen strategies. This behavior offers an opportunity for advertisers to leverage household-level data for targeted, coordinated cross-screen campaigns. The article emphasizes that effective CTV ad strategies must adapt to fragmented attention, proposing shorter formats and integrated mobile campaigns.
Gagan Uppal of Xapads Media highlights the significant growth of the MENA CTV advertising market, projected to reach $65.2 billion by 2031, necessitating a shift towards performance-led measurement frameworks. The article emphasizes the need for advertisers to focus on action-oriented metrics beyond traditional impressions and completion rates, as CTV viewers are increasingly interactive and multi-screen. It advocates for new measurement strategies that track QR scan rates, interaction dwell time, cross-device movement, and attention metrics to optimize campaigns for conversions.
Peer39 has acquired Adloox, consolidating contextual targeting, brand safety, and verification services into a unified framework. This move aims to provide advertisers with consistent quality signals across various platforms and address the demand for transparency in fragmented digital advertising environments.
Policybazaar, an insurance aggregator, partnered with Samsung Ads to precisely target incremental Connected TV (CTV) audiences in India. This collaboration allowed Policybazaar to leverage Samsung Ads' platform for advanced targeting based on demographics, content consumption, and screen size, enhancing ad relevance and campaign ROI for their high-consideration products. Policybazaar is shifting a significant portion of its TV budget to CTV due to its ability to reach exclusive streaming-only audiences.
Magnite's 'Streams & Screens: Hong Kong' study, based on a survey of over 900 streamers, details evolving viewing habits and ad engagement in Hong Kong. The report highlights the increasing importance of CTV for advertisers and viewer openness to new ad formats and generative AI in the region. These insights provide guidance for brands and advertisers seeking to effectively reach audiences in this expanding streaming market.
Lotame published a resource outlining how to build an effective data strategy for advertising, emphasizing structure and governance for integrating various data types. The guide aims to help streaming professionals navigate data fragmentation for better ad activation and collaboration. It highlights the importance of data quality, governance, and the role of data marketplaces in enriching datasets.
A coalition of free-market groups is lobbying U.S. lawmakers to preserve direct-to-consumer (D2C) drug advertising, which faces increasing regulatory scrutiny and potential restrictions. This push aims to protect the massive healthcare and pharma advertising market, estimated to top $33 billion this year. The outcome of this debate will impact ad revenues for both digital and traditional platforms, including streaming services.
Soccer content is experiencing significant growth on FAST platforms, driven by advancements in ad-stitching technology and increased sponsor demand for streaming advertising inventory. Streaming platforms are now acquiring 38% more soccer rights, while broadcast networks' acquisition is down 15%, due to factors like improved monetization capabilities and the higher data value of streaming viewers. This shift is enabling soccer to be fully sustained on streaming through a multi-faceted digital revenue stack.
WMT Digital has launched WMT Fan Intelligence, a specialized Customer Data Platform (CDP) for sports and entertainment organizations. The platform aims to unify first-party fan data to enable personalized experiences and drive revenue, with early access partners including BYU, Texas A&M, and San Diego State athletics departments. It differentiates itself from general CDPs by focusing on unique behavioral signals in sports and live events, utilizing AI-powered recommendations and analytics.
The Qatar Football Association (QFA) has deployed Sponix's cloud-based virtual advertising technology for the first time during an international friendly match. This collaboration with broadcaster Alkass demonstrates QFA's commitment to innovation and creating new commercial opportunities through integrated sponsor placements. Sponix is expanding its partnerships across the Middle East, highlighting virtual advertising's growing role in sports sponsorship.
This Wurl article details the significant growth of Free Ad-supported Streaming TV (FAST), with viewing hours increasing 43% year-over-year and projected ad revenues exceeding $12 billion by 2027. It highlights how content investment, improved advertising capabilities like addressability and scene-level targeting, and a self-reinforcing cycle are driving this expansion, benefiting both advertisers and publishers.
JioHotstar's head of entertainment sales, Bhaskar Ramesh, details the platform's scaled advertising strategy in India, integrating entertainment, sports, and CTV. The platform aims to reach 50 million CTV devices and is launching a new ad product called "Launchpad" for product visibility. This strategy offers advanced ad solutions for streaming professionals, emphasizing outcomes-based advertising on CTV.
Ad exchanges, including Google and Index Exchange, are increasingly using dynamic take rates, a method where they take a larger cut from high bids to subsidize lower bids. While presented as innovation, this practice is estimated to reduce publisher revenue by approximately 6% and shifts costs to premium advertisers, ultimately benefiting the exchanges' growth metrics by crowding out other buyers for inventory that would have sold regardless. The author suggests this trend will worsen and calls for advertisers to demand transparency on commission structures.
Independent ad tech vendors like PubMatic and Index Exchange are differentiating themselves by adopting unique cloud infrastructure strategies, either owning and operating their own servers or offering containerized DSP deployments. This approach aims to reduce costs for high-volume programmatic advertising and enhance capabilities for audience targeting and curation, directly challenging reliance on public cloud providers. The article discusses the benefits and trade-offs of these 'on-prem' strategies versus public cloud usage for ad tech infrastructure.
US CTV ad spending is projected to reach $53.42 billion by 2026, with B2B advertisers increasingly using CTV to target professional audiences. The article highlights that effective CTV advertising for decision-makers requires high-quality B2B audience data and AI to navigate fragmented streaming environments. Eyeota is mentioned as a vendor providing regulatory-compliant audience data solutions for the CTV ecosystem.
CTV advertisers are increasing scrutiny on video budgets, pushing publishers to actively demonstrate campaign performance. Retail media giants like Walmart and Amazon are integrating video advertising to directly link impressions with sales data. Publishers are leveraging AI and data capabilities to provide greater media efficiency and demonstrably better performance to advertisers.
The article discusses the shift in the TV industry towards streaming as the dominant screen, driven by ad-supported models, live sports, and AI, which is reshaping media business models and increasing global CTV ad spend. Netflix's ad-supported plan is highlighted for its growth, reaching 250 million monthly active users and expanding internationally. The report emphasizes the role of AI in transforming CTV into a commercial platform through real-time data analysis and dynamic creative advertising.
MiQ's Moe Chughtai highlights that the TV industry's sell-side lags marketers in adapting to accelerated consumer purchase decisions. He suggests leveraging cross-platform signals, including ACR and set-top box data, combined with AI, to create comprehensive consumer insights for improved ad effectiveness beyond traditional impression currencies. The article emphasizes the underutilized potential of location intelligence and AI's role in empowering campaign managers to analyze data directly.
AgileSoftLabs details the evolving OTT monetization landscape in 2026, emphasizing the necessity of hybrid strategies combining SVOD, AVOD, TVOD, and FAST channels. The article highlights how subscription fatigue and shifting consumer behaviors demand flexible platform architectures, supported by AgileSoftLabs' Streamly Plus, which can manage multiple entitlement states simultaneously. It also outlines common monetization mistakes and provides a decision framework for operators based on content type and audience.
Nielsen and Mediaocean have partnered to integrate Nielsen's audience measurement solutions with Mediaocean's Prisma platform. This collaboration allows marketers to apply consistent audience definitions for data-driven TV advertising across planning, activation, and measurement workflows. Additionally, Nielsen is expanding integrations with data providers like S&P Global Mobility and MRI-Simmons to offer enhanced audience segments beyond traditional demographics.
FIFA is reducing broadcast rights prices for the 2026 World Cup in Asian markets like India and China due to unfavorable time zones, with deals dropping significantly. Despite these regional challenges and piracy issues, FIFA expects record overall broadcast revenue, driven by lucrative deals in North America and Europe and the tournament's expanded match schedule.
YouTube is rolling out new monetization features and advertising formats aimed at creators and advertisers. This expansion provides creators with more revenue generation opportunities and offers advertisers new avenues to reach audiences within the platform.
Viant Technology Inc. has partnered with Ad Fontes Media to introduce a news reliability-based targeting system for Connected TV advertising via IRIS_ID. This integration allows advertisers to programmatically target news programming at the content level based on reliability and bias frameworks. The partnership follows Viant's strong Q1 financial report and a recent acquisition of TVision to enhance data, measurement, and activation capabilities.
BIA Advisory Services forecasts significant growth in CTV/OTT and Digital Out of Home (DOOH) ad revenue for local radio stations, reaching $5.1 billion and $2.5 billion respectively by 2026. This trend enables radio stations to leverage existing sales forces to integrate CTV/OTT ad inventory and cross-platform activations into their offerings, creating new revenue streams.
Confiant, a cybersecurity company for advertising, is seeking a remote JavaScript Engineer to develop and maintain its client-side SDK for malvertising detection. This role involves optimizing performance and integrating security threat intelligence into ad environments to protect users and ensure content integrity. The SDK is crucial for detecting and blocking malvertising, scams, and compliance risks before they reach end users.
James Varndell · Bitmovin
