Trends

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. […]

On the self-care app Finch, users care for a digital bird by completing small acts of self-care like drinking water, tidying up and performing breathing exercises. But one of the most popular pre-set goals on the app is something more basic: survive the day.

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. […]

Insights and best practices for marketing teams experimenting with the Claude and other LLMs, according to Anthropic’s growth marketer Austin Lau.

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 […]

Agents of Confusion Marketers and publishers are testing agentic solutions for media buying. But it’s unclear whether agents will simplify or further obscure the programmatic supply chain.  Omnicom CEO John Wren told investors last week that the holdco is testing agent-to-agent campaigns without ad tech fees, Digiday reports. Stagwell, Butler/Till and others are pursuing similar […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]