Data-Driven Thinking Archives

The Death Of The DSP? How Ad Tech’s Cash Flow Crisis Threatens The Entire Ecosystem

Programmatic advertising is experiencing a dramatic shift. Conversational and agentic AI are here, and their effects are already being felt. Microsoft announced the shuttering of its DSP in May, stating that the current DSP model no longer aligns with its AI-powered priorities. As ad tech barrels toward automation, companies of all sizes along the supply […]

From

Data-Driven Thinking

Fresh Meat: Cannes Lion Festival In Retrospect From An Industry Novice

Early last Wednesday evening, I found myself in a closed courtyard off the Croisette in Cannes at an exclusive event co-hosted by a publisher and a tech company. Who am I and why was I there? I’m just a dude with a passion for interesting tech accompanying my girlfriend as she navigates her industry’s largest […]

From

Data-Driven Thinking

Cannes Lions 2025: A New Era Of Tech-Enabled Creativity And Collaboration

In 2025, the Cannes Lions festival entered its third era of creativity. The first era focused on the creative itself: the work that inspires consumers to change their behavior. Then media entered the mix, and the creativity tent grew to include how publishers, platforms and brands cultivate consumer engagement. This year, it was clear that […]

From

Data-Driven Thinking

Retail Media’s Growing Pains: How To Push For Transparency Before The Bubble Bursts

We’ve seen this movie before. A new tech-fueled, transformative business opportunity emerges; irrational exuberance takes over; and the bubble ultimately bursts. This is what happened 25 years ago with the dot.com era and then, much less spectacularly, with the programmatic, personalized digital advertising era and its poster boy for bad behavior, retargeting. When it comes […]

From

Data-Driven Thinking

Pivot, Don’t Panic: How Smart CMOs Turn Market Volatility Into Growth

In times of economic uncertainty, marketing budgets are often the first target for cost-cutting. Nearly half of marketers now report feeling significantly less optimistic about the US economy compared to the previous quarter, reflecting heightened anxiety across industries. Yet, indiscriminate cuts can undermine long-term strategic goals and may ultimately cost businesses far more than they […]

From

Data-Driven Thinking

Antitrust Enforcement Works, But It Needs To Happen More Proactively

Google’s recent promise to bring more transparency to its Performance Max product—including better channel reporting and visibility into creative assets—is long overdue. It’s also not a coincidence. Years of litigation and a landmark antitrust ruling finally forced Google to acknowledge what the rest of the industry has long understood: You don’t have to control both […]

From

Data-Driven Thinking

New US State Children’s Privacy Laws Continue To Reshape Digital Marketing

Last year saw a proliferation of US state laws regulating the processing of children’s data. 2025 promises to be just as active, with new rules either already in effect or coming into force later this year. Companies in the ad tech ecosystem should pay attention to the evolving children’s privacy landscape at the US state […]

From

Data-Driven Thinking

Is The IAB’s Trusted Server A Real Solution For Publisher Revenue Control?

Earlier this year, at a Signal Shift event in NYC, the IAB Tech Lab officially announced a new open-source initiative designed to shift more digital advertising operations server-side, “providing publishers on the open web with privacy-first control over their monetization that is independent of browser APIs and signal loss.” The unveiling of Trusted Server, an […]

From

Data-Driven Thinking

Programmatic Reboot: Rebuilding Digital Advertising From The Ground Up

Ask a marketer where their last ad ran and why, and they’ll probably shrug or send a spreadsheet that answers nothing. Programmatic promised clarity: automation, efficiency and measurable outcomes. What we got instead is complexity dressed up as optimization: a stack of acronyms performing trust theater. DSPs, SSPs, exchanges, verifiers and data vendors now pile […]

From

Data-Driven Thinking

Marketing To Machines: A New Performance Strategy In The Age Of AI Agents

The traditional marketing funnel is quickly being rewritten – not by a consumer trend but by a shift in how machines process and recommend information. As AI agents like OpenAI’s Operator, Google’s Gemini and Amazon’s Rufus begin to mediate everything from search to purchase, marketers are being forced to confront the reality that they must […]

From