Data + Privacy

The play “Data” sparks conversations about AI, surveillance, data tracking and predictive modeling. The ad tech world should be paying attention.

Not long ago, the biggest challenge with AI in marketing was access. Tools were expensive, immature or experimental. Most teams were running pilots simply to understand what was possible. Today, marketers face the opposite reality. There are too many options. Models, copilots, platforms and point solutions promise to improve every part of the marketing life […]

Debra Aho Williamson will be a keynote speaker at AdExchanger’s Programmatic AI conference, taking place May 18-20 at the Park MGM in Las Vegas. Register today if you haven’t already signed up! OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s AI Overviews and Amazon’s Rufus are quickly becoming a new form of media. And OpenAI’s hiring of Meta […]

FedEx delivers more than 15 million packages per day in the US. It runs one the largest, most time-sensitive logistics networks on planet Earth. Last year, it had a 95.3% on-time score for package delivery during the peak parcel season. Wow. But what if you’re part of the 4.7% percent? I’d argue a company whose […]

Principal-based buying is on the rise, and it’s causing conflict between agencies and ad tech partners. Plus: What are sell-side agents, and how could they help publishers?

For years, “inventory cleanup” (or “rationalization”) meant one thing: curating the domain list. Whitelists, blacklists, inclusion lists, MFA lists, premium lists, “approved publisher” lists. The industry uses them to reduce risk, improve quality and create a sense of control in an open marketplace that often feels chaotic. That era is ending.  It’s not because domain […]

For senior leaders, marketing performance has rarely looked more measurable. Dashboards are cleaner, efficiency metrics are stable and optimization systems promise continuous improvement at scale. Yet many organizations are encountering a paradox: Performance appears strong, while durable growth remains elusive. Today, there’s a widening gap between what modern marketing systems are designed to optimize and […]

2026 is the year CTV will bridge the gap between branding and performance. Fresh off the Convergent TV World event, our team discusses the rise of performance TV, shifting live sports rights and the impact of M&A on the streaming experience in this future-facing episode.

The advertising industry is full of noise about AI making buy-side and sell-side processes more efficient. That framing is convenient, but it misses a broader point. Speed and effectiveness are easy to celebrate. Power dynamics are harder to talk about. Most conversations about AI in ad tech focus on fewer manual steps, more dynamic creative, […]

I’ve been saying for years that addressable advertising was a strategic mistake. Not because targeting shouldn’t exist, but because building an ecosystem dependent on granular identity, location trails and behavioral signals was always going to create exposure we couldn’t fully control.  And if we’re being honest, the precision targeting story was oversold anyway. The industry […]