Data + Privacy

Senior editors Victoria McNally and Alyssa Boyle chat about why ad tech insiders should learn more about the larger TV media industry (via our sister brand Cynopsis!), and what’s new in the world of home screen ads.

Back-to-school shopping is one of my most treasured late-summer activities. When the school supply list came out as a kid, I would wait with anticipation until my mom could drive me to Office Max in her minivan. I’d spend as long as I could in the store deliberating between seven different types of highlighters and […]

A lot of marketing leaders are wondering whether AI is really bringing incremental value to their business. Teams are moving faster than ever. Campaign briefs, social copy, first-pass creative and competitive research can now be produced in a fraction of the time it used to take. Yet it’s not clear if the work is actually […]

Every company in our space is wrestling with what their agentic AI strategy is. The answer that seems obvious is to wire up an LLM, give it access to Meta or Google through MCP and put it to work.  The reality is more complicated, and the complications matter a lot when it’s your budget on […]

Gaming apps are filled with ads for more gaming apps. Why not other advertisers? We go inside AppLovin’s play to bring non-gaming advertisers into the fold.

Build a wall around the right property, and people will line up to get inside. Build one around the wrong property, and eventually you’re the person asking if anyone remembers their AOL password.  Meta is the clean success case. For all the industry’s complaints about opacity, Meta became a walled garden marketers could not ignore […]

I’ve spent over 25 years in this industry, and I’ve staked the last eight of them on a simple bet: a business rooted in responsible practices isn’t at odds with commercial success. It’s hard for me to watch what’s happening right now and stay quiet. Hims & Hers built its business on patients trusting it […]

When Publicis Groupe announced its $2.167 billion acquisition of LiveRamp, the industry found itself asking a question it had never had to ask before. LiveRamp wasn’t one identity vendor among many. It was the connective tissue letting competing agencies, brands and platforms move data and identity across each other’s walled gardens, on the understanding that […]

AI agents could replace direct sales. And a beta product tied to Google’s ad server, dubbed Buyer Direct, could solve this problem better than anyone else, according to our guest Gareth Glaser, co-founder of Gamera and co-host of the podcast Ad Tech Ad Talk.

The next internet will not be built by humans clicking buttons; it will be built by agents acting on behalf of people, brands, publishers, platforms and enterprises.  Some of these agents will be simple workflow assistants. Others will manage budgets, audiences, inventory and outcomes with increasing autonomy across systems that were never designed to work […]