Which raises a pressing question: Can online magazines survive when ads have plateaued and digital subscriptions still don't cover the cost of producing quality journalism? Maybe the answer is ... AI. Condé has content and data licensing deals with OpenAI, Perplexity and Amazon. But those deals could have steep half-lives, especially when a publisher's value is primarily tied to its library of content.
Ad tech has always lived in a world where money moves slower than the ads it sells. Everyone's floating - fronting payments to publishers while waiting weeks, sometimes months, for agencies and advertisers to settle up. The cost of doing so is only rising.
Magnite is the largest independent platform that helps companies such as Netflix and Disney monetize their advertising. The company, formed following a merger between Rubicon Project and Telaria in 2020, is benefiting from the changed landscape in the entertainment industry as bandwidth increased, content owners created on-demand libraries and ad technology evolved, Edwards said. "Connected television is the growth driver of the business, and it's about 44% of revenues. And this is basically the TV on your wall, which you stream content through," he said.
Snapchat may be on the charm offensive for ad spend but it is still relatively closed off to advertisers, planting it firmly in the test-and-learn arena rather than tried-and-tested at the moment. The ephemeral platform has overcome its perceived immaturity and is set to tip from niche network to mainstream marvel this year. Its association with sexting and selfies wasn't the easiest sell-in to advertisers but a growing list of influential brand and media partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola, Burberry and the Wall Street Journal is allowing agencies to pitch Snapchat without a resulting snicker.
The latest transparency saga to engulf the ad tech sector, or transaction-IDs or TIDs, has thrown up several terms that have had some of the industry's most erudite names debating terms such as auction density, bidding rings and deduplication. It all bubbled to the surface in mid-August when Prebid, the open-source consortium responsible for much of the internet's programmatic advertising infrastructure, quietly altered how TIDs are generated in its 10.9 update, sparking impassioned debate over transparency.
We've come a long way in building our advertising business in less than three years. In that time, we've gone from zero members on our ads plan to achieving sufficient scale in all 12 of our ads markets (and we'll continue to grow from here), building out our ad sales and operations teams, and enhancing our capabilities for advertisers including launching our own first party ad tech stack (Netflix Ads Suite).
In particular, his Oct. 2 opinion piece targeted resellers and supply-side platforms accused of duplicating and obfuscating bid requests. Green argued that recent changes to the industry's Transaction ID, or "TID" (hurray for a new ad tech abbreviation), introduced by some resellers, undermine transparency and disadvantage premium publishers by making auctions less efficient. He framed the conflict as a battle between publishers seeking fair yield and resellers protecting inefficient margins.
"If a picture paints a thousand words then why can't I paint you?" - David Gates/Bread I don't know if humans created paintings before they created language, but it's safe to say that telling stories through images is one of our oldest forms of communication. Fast forward to today and the leaders of the out-of-home advertising industry - "it's not just billboards anymore" - are working to modernize their business with the latest developments in artificial intelligence and advertising technology. How are they doing? To answer that I spent some time with a group of folks at the vanguard of the business.
It might seem like a daunting time to buy new stocks. The S&P 500 is hovering near all-time highs and trading at historically high valuations, and some unpredictable headwinds -- including tariffs, geopolitical conflicts, and a government shutdown -- could pop that bubble. But if you have $1,000 to set aside for a least a few years and can look past those near-term challenges, there are still plenty of growth stocks worth investing in.
More than 70 companies gathered for the workshop, roughly half of which were publishers - a handful from Europe. The rest were a mix of big tech representing their respective LLMs, tech vendors and cloud edge companies Cloudflare and Fastly, who are now taking a far more active role in helping publishers block unauthorized bots, shifting from background tech enablers to vocal gatekeepers in the AI era.
Newly added partners include Samsung, LG Ads, Hallmark Digital, Vevo, Allen Media Group's Local Now, Future Today's FawesomeTV, MediaCo's Estrella and Canela, along with Yahoo DSP; FreeWheel and PubMatic; Screenvision; and Nexstar Media Group, Scripps Networks, Reelz and Audyns.
Because at its core, growth isn't just about KPIs or quarterly results. Every success story begins with people. Building long-term impact in any industry requires investing in individuals both as professionals and as human beings. That is why the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion, alongside gender equality and personal development, must sit at the heart of ad tech's future.
Digital is no longer just a marketing channel, it's the backbone of business. Global ad spend is expected to reach $740B by 2025, reflecting both opportunity and increasing complexity. Every day, your teams or agencies juggle dozens of platforms - Google, Meta, Amazon, DSPs - each with its own setup rules, metrics, formats and workflows. Add evolving AI tools, tighter deadlines, demand for hyper-personalization and pressure for performance... and the stakes rise fast.
XPLN.AI, the ad attention measurement and optimisation specialist, announces the opening of its new office in Milan along with the appointment of Anna Iuculano as managing director Italy. Following a recent €7m (£5.9m) fundraising round, XPLN.AI is significantly accelerating its international expansion, with the opening of six offices in Europe, the United States and Asia Pacific in 2025, to meet the rising demand for attention-based solutions to measure advertising effectiveness.
Advertising tech publishers are striving to maximise their revenue, as the economic climate continues on a precarious trajectory. A large portion of advertisers are tightening their belts, seeking to activate campaigns with reduced budgets, and as a result, directing less spend to publishers. Smaller advertisers particularly are likely to feel the financial pressure, as they attempt to make budgets go as far as possible.
This partnership reflects the continued focus of Amazon and Netflix on expanding their advertising businesses. This deal strengthens Amazon's role in advertising and also points to its growing position as a key backend service provider. With Prime Video boasting more than 300 million ad-supported viewers monthly, AMZN is becoming a one-stop shop for advertisers looking to reach a massive audience.
Meta Platforms and Pure Storage are poised to benefit as artificial intelligence spending continues to surge in the years ahead. Morgan Stanley analysts estimate artificial intelligence (AI) spending across infrastructure and software will increase more than 600% by 2028. Buying stock in Nvidia and/or Palantir has been a popular way to capitalize on that trend, but investors should consider Meta Platforms and Pure Storage.
On Tuesday, Roqad, a company that now describes itself as "the LiveRamp of Europe," announced its acquisition of Zeotap-Data, the third-party data division of Zeotap, a startup that once wanted to be the LiveRamp of Europe. Both companies declined to share the financial terms. Roqad CEO Carsten Frien told AdExchanger the deal will help Roqad expand its identity resolution business through access to scaled third-party audience segments and Zeo tap Data's integrations with around 30 ad tech partners, including The Trade Desk, Adform, Google's DV360 and Amazon DSP.
