Data-Driven Thinking
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Data-Driven Thinking
Why Agentic Measurement Will Reprice The Ad Market
Every era of advertising is defined by what its reporting layer cannot see. In the 1960s, the industry was defined by the Nielsen diary. Households recorded their viewing on paper and mailed it back. Advertisers and broadcasters waited weeks for the data. Nielsen’s diary wasn’t replaced because it was wrong, but because it was slow. […]
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Data-Driven Thinking
Making Marketing More Modular: What Agentic AI Can Learn From The Shipping Container Revolution
Today’s explosion of AI service providers has everyone looking back at the dot-com bubble, revisiting the technological boom and bust at the turn of the millennia for historical precedent to help us separate real innovation from BS. History is a valuable teacher, but I look beyond the history of the ad tech industry for inspiration. […]
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Data-Driven Thinking
Brands Don’t Need Perfect Data To Use AI
There is a common refrain that AI requires high-quality data to deliver high-quality results. “Garbage in/garbage out” refers to the idea that any AI trained on less than perfect data will not be able to produce valuable outputs. Before I get accused of dismissing the importance of quality data, high-quality data does produce the best […]
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Data-Driven Thinking
The AI Chat Ad Frontier: What LLMs Change About Brand Safety And Control
ChatGPT ads are here, and brands are testing the waters. This marks the true start of LLMs as a new advertising channel, reshaping the customer journey and introducing a new surface for brand safety and suitability. It’s a real inflection point for advertising. Impressions, searches and even transactions that once traveled through websites will increasingly […]
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Data-Driven Thinking
On Neutral Ground: Why Content Licensing Needs Independent Settlement And Verifiable Payments
The content licensing economy has arrived faster than anyone expected. Microsoft and Amazon have both entered the marketplace business. Venture-backed startups like TollBit and ProRata have built infrastructure for publishers to license their content to LLMs. And, in 2025, AI companies committed an estimated $2.9 billion in licensing fees to a relatively small number of […]
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Data-Driven Thinking
A “Pay-For-Performance” Ad Industry? Brands And Agencies Will Need A Referee
The very concept of AI and its impact on select industries is enough to cause dramatic swings in stock market sectors and wild future-of-work predictions. But when the world’s largest ad agency talks about changing its revenue model – and trots out a real-world client example to back it up – people pay attention. In […]
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Data-Driven Thinking
Stop Scaling Mediocre Ads: How AI Can Actually Elevate Performance Marketing
In a largely creative industry like advertising, performance marketing can seem a bit soulless. Algorithms, tracking and optimization can help us reach targets quicker and more efficiently. But the creative used in performance campaigns can often look or feel … off. When there are metrics to hit and placements to fill, creative often takes a […]
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Data-Driven Thinking
The DROP Is Coming: Why Fines Under California’s Delete Act Are About to Spike
By now, most ad tech professionals should be familiar with California’s data broker registration requirements under the Delete Act. Any entity that is a “business,” as defined by the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and that knowingly collects and sells to third parties the personal information of a consumer with whom the business does not […]
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Data-Driven Thinking
What Happens When The Attribution Cartel Meets Advertising’s Halo Effect?
With everything else going on in 2026, at least we don’t have Google’s “Privacy Sandbox” to worry about. The high-profile project is over. Or is it? Not quite. Now, instead of one browser introducing its own ad features while the others sit back, browser vendors are collaborating to move ads under browser control piece by […]
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Data-Driven Thinking
Why CTV Is Becoming The First Real Test Of Agentic Advertising
Connected TV demand is strong, budgets are growing and premium inventory continues to command attention. Yet, for publishers, the growth of CTV has complicated how deals get done. That’s because CTV never fit cleanly into campaign execution models built for RTB-based trading. Programmatic trading introduced efficiency for commoditized inventory, but CTV has always been defined […]
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