On3 Tries AI Recommendations To Keep Engagement In Its Home Court Mula's AI content recommendations help On3 keep its engagement and RPS consistent amid traffic drop-offs and the growing scarcity of online attention.

RPS > traffic? 📉➡️📈

Anthony Vargas on how publishers are using AI-driven recommendations to keep users engaged — and monetize smarter.

What’s your north star metric?

#AdExchanger #Publishing #AdTech

Indie Agency Wpromote Dishes On How It’s Testing New Agentic SSP Tools | AdExchanger Last week, the SSP Kargo announced a closed beta of its AI unified buying platform, Project Kera. The ad agency, Wpromote, is an early tester.

Agentic ad buying 🤖

Andrew Byrd covers Kargo’s Project Kera — where AI turns briefs into live campaigns fast…

…but agencies still want control 👀

Is this the future of media buying?

#AdExchanger #AdTech #AI

Dairy-Free Creamer Brand Nutpods Is Cracking Fragmentation With AI-Powered Insights | AdExchanger A new marketing intelligence platform helps brands like nutpods address fragmentation by unifying data and inventory across the digital ecosystem.

Fragmentation fatigue is real 😵‍💫

Joanna Gerber covers how AI Digital’s Elevate uses AI to unify data + surface insights faster (hello, audio wins 🎧).

Is this the beginning of the end for silos?

#AdExchanger #AdTech #AI

What Regulators Talk About When They Talk About Ad Tech | AdExchanger If you want to know what privacy regulators think about online advertising, it’s not a mystery. Just listen to what they’re saying.

Privacy rules aren’t vague anymore 🚨

Allison Schiff breaks down what regulators want:
✔️ honor opt-outs
✔️ minimize data
✔️ protect kids

Who needs to step up most?

#AdExchanger #Privacy #AdTech

Keyword Blocking Demonetized More Than Half Of Reuters’ Brand-Safe Stories | AdExchanger The effect wasn’t just limited to news content. The Reuters.com/lifestyle vertical also had some of its brand-suitable pages blocked.

Keyword blocking strikes again 🚫

Anthony Vargas on why blunt blocklists are filtering out brand-safe content — and limiting reach.

Context > keywords?

What’s your take?

#AdExchanger #AdTech #BrandSafety

AdExchanger Comic: The 10 Plagues of Programmatic - Passover comic

The Ten Plagues of Programmatic www.adexchanger.com/comic-strip/...

Jones Road Beauty Is Using A New Type Of MMM To Reset Its Media Measurement | AdExchanger Inside how Jones Road Beauty is trying to turn messy, conflicting measurement signals into a single testing roadmap for its media mix.

Measurement = noise? 📊

Allison Schiff covers how causal MMM uses real experiments to anchor media decisions — and why proving something doesn’t work can be a win.

Is it time to rethink MMM?

#AdExchanger #AdTech #Measurement

AI Is Moving Fast. The Law, Not So Much | AdExchanger IAPP’s Global Summit in DC was a reminder that AI is moving fast – and judges, privacy lawyers and practitioner are racing to keep up.

“AI-native,” “AI-ready”… AI everywhere 🤖

But Allison Schiff reports the real issue: regulation is struggling to keep pace — and conflicting rules are making compliance harder than ever.

Is AI moving faster than the law can handle?

#AdExchanger #AI #Privacy #Regulation

Local Publishers Hit By AI Traffic Drops Collaborate For Revenue Relief | AdExchanger Local media companies have already seen traffic declines of 25% to 50%, and the Local Media Consortium is collaborating to fight the problem.

AI answers are replacing clicks 📉

Local publishers are seeing traffic drops of up to 50% — and turning to collaboration, shared IDs and owned audiences to adapt.

Andrew Byrd breaks it down 👇

Is this the end of referral-driven publishing?

#AdExchanger #Publishing #AI #Media

CIMM Is Out To Prove That All Media Isn’t Equal | AdExchanger An new CIMM paper demonstrates that differences in media quality matter and that tying media value to short-term outcomes perpetuates industry challenges.

“All media isn’t created equal” — but programmatic doesn’t always act like it 📊

Anthony Vargas on CIMM’s push to redefine media quality using attention + context — not just IDs and outcomes.

Will buyers lead the shift toward quality-first measurement?

#AdExchanger #AdTech #CTV #MediaQuality

How Red Roof Is Bringing In More Customers With Zeta’s Voice-Activated AI Agent | AdExchanger Hotel chain Red Roof is using Zeta's new voice-activated AI agent to guide its campaign creation, deployment timing and audience development.

Zeta’s new AI agent Athena wants to be your campaign copilot. 🤖

Joanna Gerber, Associate Editor, AdExchanger, explains how voice prompts, predictive insights and unified workflows could make marketing platforms easier to use.

Same data, less friction.

#AdExchanger #AI #AdTech #MarTech

What Happens When A Brand Fails To Deliver On Its Basic Promise | AdExchanger Customers don't need perfection. But they do need to know that a brand will make it right when something goes wrong.

Brand trust is fragile. 📦

Allison Schiff, Managing Editor, AdExchanger, writes about a FedEx delivery miss and what it says about slogans, customer experience and the push toward AI-driven operations.

Innovation doesn’t help if the basics fail.

#AdExchanger #CX #Marketing

Carl’s Jr. And Hardee’s Marketing Goes Regional With Amazon Ads’ Streaming Media | AdExchanger The age-old question for streaming TV advertisers is how to target the viewers they want while reaching the scale their businesses need. The quick-serve restaurant operator CKE, which owns Carl’s Jr.,...

CTV can target almost anything — but should it? 📺

James Hercher, Senior Editor, AdExchanger, looks at how CKE balances regional targeting, streaming TV scale and retail data to prove local ROI.

More precision often means more cost.

#AdExchanger #CTV #AdTech #StreamingTV

What Does A Beta Test Of A Sell-Side Agent Look Like? | AdExchanger Publishers are exploring automation through agentic AI such as sales agents who actively make decisions in the auction.

Automation tuned floors.
Agents might run the auction. 🤖

Andrew Byrd, News Editor, Publisher Ad Ops, AdExchanger, reports on publishers testing sell-side AI agents to package inventory, respond to buyers and negotiate deals.

Still early, but the stack is changing.

#AdExchanger #AdTech #AI

📺 CTV performance is under more scrutiny than ever.

Join PebblePost + AdExchanger to learn how to prove incremental impact and deliver reporting that stands up in the boardroom.

🗓 Apr 16 | 11 AM ET
🎟 Free webinar
🔗 utm.guru/umGyM

#CTV #AdTech #Measurement #Incrementality

AdExchanger Comic: Robot sitting at therapist office asking "Are they prompts or triggers?"

🥁 Drum roll please…

The winner of the AdExchanger comic caption contest is
Thomas Kernan (Adform) 🤖

Winning caption:
“Are they prompts or triggers?”

He wins a free ticket to Programmatic AI (May 18–20, Las Vegas)
Join him → utm.guru/umuVr

#AdExchanger #AdTech #AI #Programmatic

How Programmatic – And AI – Took Over The 2026 Winter Olympics | AdExchanger NBCU made Olympics inventory available in 7 DSPs and Comcast’s Universal Ads platform. It also used AI for creative review and optimization.

Olympics advertising is getting more programmatic. 🏂

NBCU expanded buying across seven DSPs and used AI to review creatives and optimize campaigns during the Milano Cortina Games.

Is programmatic ready for prime-time sports?

#AdExchanger #Programmatic #CTV #LiveSports

Behind NYT’s First Foray Into In-Game Advertising | AdExchanger Crossplay is NYT's first two-player game, and marks the first time that users will see ads within the game experience itself.

NYT Games is experimenting with ads inside gameplay. 🎮

Joanna Gerber, Associate Editor, AdExchanger, explains how the new Crossplay game introduces in-game ads for non-subscribers, with JPMorganChase as the launch partner.

Are publisher games emerging as prime brand-safe ad inventory?

Understanding MCP, The ‘Universal Adapter’ For AI In Advertising | AdExchanger Your TL;DR on MCP, the open standard that lets AI models connect to tools, remember context and run workflows across platforms.

Ad tech’s newest acronym: MCP.

Allison Schiff, Managing Editor, AdExchanger, explains how Model Context Protocol acts as the plumbing for AI — letting models connect to tools and data across platforms.

It could help AI move beyond single tools and operate across the ad tech stack.

#AI #AdTech

We publish a weekly ad-tech comic.
This week, you write the punchline. 🤖

Enter our Comic Caption Contest to win a free ticket to Programmatic AI (May 18–20, Vegas) 🎰

Submit by 3/9, 5pm ET.
Top 3 go to a vote.
Winner runs 3/13.

What broke the robot this time? 💬
utm.guru/ul8nw

#AdExchanger #AdTech

How The Minnesota Star Tribune Protects Advertisers While Covering ICE Crackdowns | AdExchanger Amid a federal crackdown and local unrest, Minnesota’s biggest newsroom is proving brand safety and hard news can coexist.

Hard news ≠ easy monetization. 📰⚡

Andrew Byrd explores how the Minnesota Star Tribune handled brand safety, campaign pauses & advertiser trust while covering difficult local stories — and what it reveals about the future of news monetization.

How To Dominate March Madness With Show-Level Data | AdExchanger At the risk of getting dorky with sports metaphors, DTC agency Rain the Growth already has a game plan to make sure its programmatic placements are a slam dunk.

March Madness is coming — and programmatic CTV buyers are getting more precise 🏀

Victoria McNally, Associate Editor, AdExchanger, looks at how show-level metadata is helping advertisers improve performance, lower costs, and rethink assumptions about live sports audiences.

#CTV #AdTech #SportsMedia

Retail media is shifting from clicks to conversations. 🛒💬

At IAB ALM, @lynneluvah.bsky.social, sat down with Brian Monahan of Albertsons Media Collective to talk conversational AI, incrementality, and why building modern in-store media is “not for the faint of heart.”

📽️ Full convo: utm.guru/ulbRP

AI Made A Record Play During Super Bowl LIX | AdExchanger Bad Bunny’s halftime show aside, AI companies stole the spotlight on Super Bowl Sunday, from Anthropic and OpenAI to Salesforce and Meta.

The Super Bowl wasn’t just about football — it was about AI’s image problem 🤖🏟️

Anthropic roasted chatbot ads while others leaned into “AI humanism.” Alyssa Boyle explains why trust, productivity and authenticity were the real battlegrounds.

#AI #AdTech #SuperBowl #GenerativeAI #Media

The Publisher Path Through AI | AdExchanger At the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting this week, IAB CEO David Cohen demanded publishers receive payment from AI companies who are taking their content. As publishers grapple with AI redirecting the at...

AI bots are up. Human traffic is down.

In this episode of The Big Story🎙️: why publishers see AI scraping as a crisis, what’s top of mind for 2026, and the quiet issue lurking beneath it all.

🎧 Listen now.

What’s your read on where this is headed?

#AdExchanger #AI #Publishing

IAB’s New AI Regulations Give Advertisers A Starting Point – But Plenty Of Questions Remain | AdExchanger The IAB's new framework aims to standardize when AI in ads should be disclosed, but a lot is still left up to interpretation.

AI disclosures sound simple — until they’re not.

Joanna Gerber on the IAB’s new framework and why deciding what counts as “deceptive” AI still isn’t black and white.

#AdExchanger #AIAds #AdTech #AI

Alphabet Can Outgrow Everything Else, But Can It Outgrow Ads? | AdExchanger Describing Google’s revenue growth has become a problem, as it so vastly outpaces the human capacity to understand large numbers and percentage growth rates. Since the company reported total revenue f...

Google’s numbers are massive. The narrative is shifting.

James Hercher on why Alphabet’s growth is increasingly tied to AI and cloud — not just advertising.

#AdExchanger #Google #AI #AdTech

AdExchanger Comic: Cartoon depiction of football game with text that says RTB Bowl

RTB Bowl www.adexchanger.com/comic-strip/...

The Super Bowl Is A ‘Performance Trigger’ For Marketers | AdExchanger Marketers are extending their Super Bowl campaigns beyond the Big Game, seeking proof of performance to justify their investments.

Super Bowl ads aren’t just about eyeballs anymore.

Alyssa Boyle on how marketers are stretching Big Game campaigns into multi-week performance plays.

#CTV #SuperBowl #AdExchanger

IAB CEO David Cohen: 'The Health of the Publisher Community is Critical to the Health of Our Overall Business.' | AdExchanger IAB CEO David Cohen tore into AI companies, accusing them of “free riding” on publishers’ work – and calling it “stealing.”

IAB CEO: No publishers, no content. No content, no industry.

Sarah Sluis on the IAB’s publisher stance, AI compensation push and why standardization is back in focus.

#IAB #Publishers #AdExchanger