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Pirated Sports Streams Are Warping TV’s Most Important Ratings

Advertisers love live sports. But good luck measuring that investment. Although tides of ad revenue flow based on the ratings of certain tentpole TV events, a new crop of scammers now operate illicit sports livestreaming rings, and there’s almost nothing broadcasters can do about it. According to a new report released Tuesday by ad tech […]

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Marketers

Google Wants To Do Your Shopping For You At GML This Year

This week I am virtually reporting on the goings-on at Mountain Village, California, where Google is hosting its Google Marketing Live event. I happened to be in Las Vegas for AdExchanger’s Programmatic AI show. I much regret not being able to hop over to the Sweets & Snacks Expo, also happening in Vegas right now. […]

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Marketers

Publicis Acquires LiveRamp In A Major Shakeup For Indie Data Collaboration

Hundreds of exasperated and unexpected ad industry phone calls were made on Sunday, as agencies and ad tech vendors discussed the fallout of Publicis Groupe’s $2.2 billion acquisition of LiveRamp over the weekend. Publicis has roughly doubled its market cap over the past four years, as other agency holdcos and ad tech businesses have struggled. […]

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Marketers

Viant Sees A Growth Wave Coming, But First Marketers Must Really Ditch Walled Garden Ad Tech

Viant reported Q1 2026 earnings on Monday, with its DSP revenue growing by 18% to $50.3 million. The company’s total net loss in the quarter shrank from $3.3 million a year ago to $2.2 million. Viant prefers a metric for net income that excludes some costs, such as stock-based compensation, and which would count the […]

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Marketers

Is Agentic Commerce An Oasis Or Mirage?

This week, I’m ruminating on the word mirage. It is a useful term for the ongoing debate over if and when agentic shopping – as in, people assigning agents the latitude and payment info to make purchases on their behalf – will actually happen. Unlike “illusion,” say, or a term like “potential” or “promise,” the […]

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Marketers

The Trade Desk Has A Grand Vision, But Needs A New Breed Of CMO To Make It A Reality

The Trade Desk made $689 million in Q1 2026, up 12% from the period last year, while its net income and profit margin dipped slightly to $40 million and 6%, respectively, according to its quarterly earnings report on Thursday. The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green warned of difficult macroeconomic headwinds that make for cautious marketers. […]

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Marketers

Criteo Faces Tough Headwinds Until Agentic AI Ad Revenue Materializes

Criteo shares dropped by 20% Wednesday morning after the company reported shaky Q1 earnings and revised its guidance downward for the rest of the year. The amount spent by advertisers on Criteo was up, and exceeded $1 billion for the first time in Q1 (generally the lowest ebb of the year for advertising overall). But […]

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Marketers

Upfronts Advertisers Say They Want Outcomes – And Amazon Licks Its Chops

2026 may be the year of AI, but the buzzword as television advertisers head into the upfronts season is “outcomes.” And Amazon Ads is drooling about the sales prospects. “TV is historically largely reach-based, and most upfront spending still reflects that,” Lily Tong, Amazon Ads director of brand and cross-channel measurement, told AdExchanger. “But what […]

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Marketers

What An Outdoor Retailer Learned By Replacing Pricey SaaS With A Newcomer

I find it useful on occasion to interview people who are marketing-adjacent, and thus possess a different and perhaps more highly clarified perspective on the tools we use for data-driven online advertising. These are the supply-chain managers, data scientists, merchandisers, finance analysts and others who must either appraise the CMO’s performance or are an internal […]

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AI

Google Touts Its AI Ad Tech Adoption And New AI Max Features

The past year has been momentous for AI search engine ads. That’s partly due to ChatGPT’s foray into advertising. But the big AI search ad platform in action right now is Google, which, on Thursday, announced new features and ad types for AI Max, its AI-based bidding product for search and shopping or sponsored product […]

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