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.
Startup Vuer is developing a measurement platform that uses Bluetooth and mobile motion sensors to detect co-viewing audiences in real-time. The technology aims to help content owners and sports rights holders monetize undercounted streaming viewership by providing verified audience data through a one-time consumer opt-in.
StackAdapt published a blog post detailing the growth of connected TV (CTV) advertising, projecting that CTV ad spend will account for 52.1% of the total TV market by 2028. The article outlines the benefits of programmatic CTV buying, the role of AI in creative production, and the shift of live sports inventory to streaming platforms.
Judge Leonie Brinkema has unsealed behavioral remedies in the Google ad tech antitrust case, requiring the company to decouple its AdX exchange from its DFP ad server and integrate with third-party tools like Prebid. The ruling applies globally to open web display advertising but excludes CTV, video formats, and other specialized programmatic deal types.
Meta Platforms is introducing location fees ranging from 2% to 5% for advertisers targeting users in six European countries to offset local digital services taxes. The fees will be applied on top of campaign budgets starting in May, with full billing implementation by July.
European adtech companies are increasingly focusing on contextual intelligence and privacy-first AI solutions to replace persistent identifiers in digital advertising. This shift aims to provide publishers with resilient, regulation-compliant revenue models as global data privacy standards continue to evolve.
dLocal has launched dMoRe, a Merchant of Record solution designed to help global SaaS and gaming companies enter emerging markets by handling local tax, legal, and payment infrastructure. The platform integrates directly with dLocal's existing payment rails to reduce market entry timelines and improve conversion rates for international businesses.
Investigations into LG, Samsung, and Sony smart TVs have highlighted the widespread use of Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology to track viewing habits across HDMI and streaming sources. The report clarifies that while ACR is a standard feature for audience measurement and targeted advertising, it is typically optional and requires user consent.
Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia has issued a final ruling in the DOJ's antitrust case against Google, rejecting a forced divestiture of the AdX exchange in favor of behavioral remedies. The court-ordered changes, including mandatory Prebid integration and the deprecation of Unified Pricing Rules, are expected to exert downward pressure on AdX's 20% take rate.
Adtech firm pubX has expanded into the Australian and New Zealand markets, appointing Andrew Gilbert as Country Manager to lead local operations. The company promotes an agentic advertising model that utilizes independent AI agents to execute media trades, claiming to increase the share of ad spend reaching publishers.
Executives from Adobe, NBCUniversal, and Omnicom discussed the necessity of integrating AI with creative and audience data to improve advertising outcomes. The panel highlighted the need for television providers to adopt automated targeting and outcome-based measurement to remain competitive as linear viewership declines.
Microsoft has filed a patent for a system that utilizes game-engine data to trigger advertisements during natural gameplay pauses, such as loading screens or boss fights. The technology aims to provide a less disruptive ad-supported model for PC and console games by offering uninterrupted gameplay credits in exchange for viewing promotional content.
Global ad-blocking adoption reached 1.1 billion users in Q4 2025, with mobile usage growing 27% to offset declining desktop figures. The report highlights that ad-blocking significantly impacts measurement accuracy and revenue for media companies, while platform-level enforcement efforts have largely driven users toward workarounds rather than subscription adoption.
Industry analyst Dave Morgan reports that while streaming accounts for 50% of TV content consumption, it represents only 15% of ad viewing time due to ad-free tiers and upfront inventory lock-ins. This scarcity of available CTV ad inventory is prompting performance advertisers to reconsider linear and local TV to maintain reach and scale.
Google has introduced four experimental metrics to the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) to measure ad count, density, network weight, and processor weight on programmatically monetized websites. These metrics provide a standardized way for publishers and ad-tech firms to quantify the performance impact of ad-related scripts and resources on user experience.
Australian broadcaster Nine has unveiled Nine Neo, an AI-powered platform designed to unify ad buying across its linear, streaming, and newly acquired outdoor assets. The initiative aims to provide cross-channel attribution and transparent reporting by integrating transactional data from partners like CommBank iQ.
Banking platform MAKE has partnered with creator platform Fanvue to provide embedded financial infrastructure, including instant payouts and automated payment splitting. The integration aims to solve compliance and account-freezing issues faced by creators receiving multi-currency and multi-platform income.
Smadex has rebranded to emphasize its Performance CTV product, which utilizes deep neural networks to link mobile and television signals at the household level. The platform focuses on optimizing campaigns for app installs and ROAS rather than traditional impression-based metrics.
Privacy-focused browser restrictions have significantly degraded the accuracy of client-side tracking pixels, leading to undercounting of ad conversions. The article outlines the shift toward server-side tracking via APIs and hashed first-party data as a necessary technical evolution for accurate attribution in modern ad tech stacks.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema has ordered Google to implement behavioral remedies for six years, including mandatory interoperability with Prebid and real-time bidding for competing ad servers. The ruling follows an antitrust finding that Google maintained monopoly power in the publisher ad-server and ad-exchange markets, though the court declined to order a divestiture of AdX.
Taboola has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire UK-based ad tech firm Dianomi for up to £27 million. The acquisition is intended to expand Taboola's presence in the premium finance and business advertising sectors while providing revenue synergies for publishers.
AdsWizz has published a guide on utilizing contextual signals such as weather, device type, and time of day to improve audio ad relevance. The guide highlights the use of dynamic creatives and synthetic voice technology to automate ad versioning as a privacy-focused alternative to demographic tracking.
Gaming platforms are increasingly adopting standardized ad units and programmatic integrations to align with CTV and digital video measurement practices. The industry is attempting to bridge the gap between high audience engagement and low ad spend by implementing tools like audience maps and third-party publisher networks.
MNTN argues that performance TV advertising can serve as a viable alternative to paid search as AI-driven search results increasingly reduce click-through rates. The article suggests that CTV environments offer higher trust and measurable outcomes that are less dependent on traditional search discovery.
Marketers are increasingly weighing the benefits of programmatic flexibility against the operational overhead of managing multiple demand-side platforms. The article highlights how fragmented reporting and inconsistent frequency management across supply paths can undermine the strategic advantages of a multi-DSP approach.
StreamLayer has published a measurement framework for CTV pause ads, detailing metrics for delivery, viewer interaction, and revenue calculation. The guide provides publishers with formulas to estimate gross media revenue and net contribution while emphasizing the importance of controlled pilot testing.
Belgian public broadcaster RTBF has transitioned its live and VOD ad workflows to a Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI) system using Bitmovin’s player and AIP’s AdBlendr platform. The deployment utilizes HLS Interstitials to enable dynamic, rule-compliant ad insertion across multiple platforms without the need for per-user manifests.
Google Ads has launched a new AI-powered video dubbing feature within its Asset Studio, enabling advertisers to localize video creative into 33 languages. The tool is designed to reduce production costs and eliminate the need for manual reshoots by automating the translation and dubbing process.
DoubleVerify reports that programmatic guaranteed and private marketplace deals are susceptible to sophisticated invalid traffic, citing case studies where botnets like LeoTerra and BeatSting bypassed direct-to-publisher protections. The findings emphasize that premium deal labels do not guarantee fraud-free inventory and recommend that advertisers implement independent post-bid measurement and pre-bid controls.
Viamedia.ai has consolidated its advertising technology offerings into a three-pillar platform consisting of ViaOS, ViaSSP, and ViaIQ. The unified system integrates the company's Parrot ADS technology and Uber’s H3 hexagonal grid to provide addressable advertising and audience intelligence across linear and streaming inventory.
The IAB PlayFronts 2026 conference shifted its focus toward measuring the business impact and ROI of gaming advertisements, moving beyond simple audience metrics. During the event, Zynga launched its Zynga Ads+ platform, and Livad Technologies introduced a virtual product placement feature for livestreaming.
A Google and Nielsen analysis indicates that TV advertising ROI declines by 41% when frequency exceeds six weekly impressions per viewer. The report suggests that implementing campaign-level frequency caps can redirect budget from redundant exposures to unique reach, improving overall campaign efficiency.
An IAB report indicates that 43% of CTV buyers lack confidence in their inventory due to a persistent gap between granular show-level reporting and the ability to execute programmatic optimization. While publishers are increasingly providing show-level data, technical limitations and privacy regulations like the VPPA continue to hinder real-time, ID-level targeting capabilities.
Lineup has integrated alfamedia’s alfa Stylo editor into its Adpoint and Ad2order platforms to enable automated ad design within the booking workflow. The integration leverages generative AI for text and image creation to maintain brand consistency across print and digital advertising formats.
An analysis by 51Degrees of 11 million OpenRTB ad impressions found that 4.92% of inventory labeled as CTV was actually lower-value non-CTV traffic. The report estimates this mislabeling, whether fraudulent or accidental, results in approximately $2 billion in global overspending by advertisers.
Marketing platform Noise has raised $5.5 million in seed funding to scale its performance-based, pay-per-view influencer marketing platform. The service automates creator sourcing and payments for brands, allowing them to repurpose creator-made content for paid advertising campaigns on social platforms.
German ratings provider AGF Videoforschung will integrate HbbTV return-channel data from 3.4 million devices into its national measurement system by 2028. The hybrid architecture will combine representative panel data with anonymized device-level information to improve reach measurement for fragmented linear and streaming services.
FreeWheel has integrated third-party inventory scoring from Adelaide, Magid, and Mediaprobe into its Premium Signals Packaging. This update allows programmatic CTV buyers to evaluate inventory based on attention, emotional resonance, and ad experience metrics rather than relying solely on scale.
Nine Entertainment is launching a 'content-to-commerce' strategy for its Today show, integrating on-air product reviews with direct click-to-buy capabilities on its website. The initiative aims to bypass programmatic ad supply chains by offering advertisers a direct, transparent conversion path.
Mediaocean has launched a $5 million venture fund, Mediaocean AI Ventures, to invest in early-stage AI-based ad-tech and marketing startups. The fund aims to integrate new innovations into Mediaocean's existing ad-management platform, which handles approximately $200 billion in annual advertising spend.
Judge Leonie M. Brinkema has issued a ruling requiring Google to provide real-time AdX bid access via Prebid and share historical DfP data with publishers. The behavioral remedies are limited to open web display inventory and do not include structural divestiture of Google's ad tech assets.
Infillion has acquired Foursquare to integrate its location intelligence and attribution data into its existing omnichannel advertising platform. The acquisition aims to combine Foursquare's physical-world movement data with Infillion's retail purchase data from Catalina to enhance measurement capabilities for CTV and digital marketers.
EMARKETER analyst Nate Elliott projects that US AI advertising revenue will reach $32 billion in 2024, with the majority of growth driven by paid search listings alongside AI overviews rather than chatbot-based ads. The forecast anticipates this revenue will grow to $68 billion by 2030 as marketers increasingly integrate AI tools into their internal strategy, creative, and measurement workflows.
Hackers compromised a verified HBO Max Reddit account to run over 100 fraudulent ad permutations, directing users to malicious data-harvesting landing pages. The incident underscores critical security vulnerabilities in advertiser account management and the urgent need for stronger authentication standards across ad platforms.
Software development firm amBrain provides a framework for media companies to evaluate the build-versus-buy decision for ad tech platforms like DSPs, ad exchanges, and ad networks. The guide outlines seven key technical and business questions that organizations should address before initiating development of custom real-time bidding infrastructure.
A study by Premion and Advertiser Perceptions indicates that 73% of advertisers and 79% of agencies plan to invest in live sports streaming over the next year. While high fan engagement drives interest, the industry faces significant barriers including high costs, fragmented inventory, and challenges with local audience measurement and ROI attribution.
Pinterest announced a new suite of performance marketing tools, including Visual Search Ads, campaign automation via Pinterest Performance+, and a predictive AI system called Pinterest Intelligence. These features aim to shift the platform's value proposition from awareness-building to measurable performance outcomes for advertisers.
Google is removing manual campaign-level language targeting for Search and Performance Max campaigns in late September 2026. The platform will transition to an AI-driven system that automatically prioritizes ads and landing pages based on search term context and user signals.
The World Out of Home Organization (WOO) released an inaugural study, independently aggregated by PwC, reporting that global programmatic Digital Out-of-Home (pDOOH) advertising spend reached $1.339 billion in 2025. The report highlights that Private Marketplace (PMP) transactions dominate the sector, accounting for over 75% of total spend, and identifies Eastern Asia as a significant growth opportunity due to its low current penetration rate.
Ribeye Media has integrated StackAdapt's programmatic advertising platform into its existing workflow for local television stations and agencies. The partnership allows over 100 broadcast groups to manage CTV, OTT, and digital video campaigns through a unified interface.
A federal judge has ordered Google to implement behavioral remedies in its ad tech business, requiring interoperability between its DFP ad server and rival exchanges for six years. The ruling mandates that Google share auction data and integrate with the Prebid framework to foster competition in the ad tech market.
James Varndell · Bitmovin
