Mergers & Ad-quisitions Are we in for a year-ending blockbuster M&A spree? The Information jokes that CEOs ought to “get your deals in while ya still can, folks.” A convergence of factors could make for ... read more

Despite the headlong rush by virtually everyone in marketing and media to adopt AI tools and technology — from sophisticated agentic planning and measurement aids to things as ordinary as using an LLM to help ... read more

This story was first published by Digiday sibling Modern Retail. During its fiscal third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, Amazon shed more light on how its conversational AI shopping assistant, Alexa for Shopping, is powering more ... read more

For the better part of two decades, Google search was the line item media buyers rarely had to defend. AI Overviews complicated that. Google now answers more queries on the results page itself, which changes ... read more

Last month, SiriusXM signed a multi-year deal with creators Paige DeSorbo and Hannah Berner for their Giggly Squad podcast reportedly valued at $160 million. Weeks later, the duo sold out four different nights for a ... read more

People Inc. is moving toward custom APIs to help AI agents access its content more efficiently. Rather than making AI systems shift through full webpages, People Inc., is giving them the article text and key ... read more

X has opened its Lead Gen Ads to all advertisers across the globe, and has extended its in-feed form format to small businesses, PPC Land reports. The change, which took effect last Friday, also allows ... read more

Google’s search division revenue grew by 12%, to $63.4 billion in Q3, while Meta’s ad revenue rose by 26% to $63.1 billion, CNBC reports in an analysis. This contrast reflects that chatbot users are clicking ... read more

Kargo, an advertising platform, has launched an agentic AI tool called Karlo that it says will help small businesses create and activate campaigns in the internet, CTV and social media from a sole system, Brand ... read more

Bluefish has launched a service called Paid Media Briefs that it says can leverage gaps in Google and ChatGPT recommendations to suggest ad targeting, creative and landing pages, Content Grip reports. Available in the Bluefish ... read more

From brand awareness at the top of the funnel to drive-to-retail conversions at the bottom, OOH measurement capabilities now exist across the entire customer journey. The problem is not so much the technology; it is ... read more

The advertising industry assembled an impressive collection of platforms, dashboards and data silos. Now artificial intelligence is promising to make them work together. Imagine that. For marketers drowning in disconnected systems, AI offers more than ... read more

In its most recent earnings report, Roblox shows strong revenue growth and quarterly boosts alongside year-over-year decreases in bookings, users, and hours played. ... read more

"A payment ban would mean Apple would either distribute Google no cost, affording Google a massive windfall, or Apple would cease offering its users the highest quality product on the market, thereby harming consumer welfare ... read more

It’s fall, M&A is in the air. Two acquisitions happened this week: Stagwell bought Freestar and DoorDash bought Instacart. The post Smart Acquisition or Frankenstack? Stagwell-Freestar and DoorDash-Instacart appeared first on AdExchanger. ... read more

More viewers, more inventory and more opportunities to advertise alongside God knows what. ... read more

More than a third of YouTube's ad revenue in Q3 this year is from living-room TV viewing, management says - its fastest-growing segment. ... read more

More than a third of YouTube's ad revenue in Q3 this year is from living-room TV viewing, management says - its fastest-growing segment. ... read more

MS Now was up 30% to 954,000 Nielsen-measured prime-time viewers from Oct. 19-25, with CNN 28% higher to 632,000. Longtime cable TV news leader Fox News Channel remained strongly on top, but fell 23% to ... read more

"Schemes that impersonate reputable companies, such as Google, have surged, inflicting significant harm on consumers and eroding trust in legitimate brands," the company writes in a new trademark infringement complaint. ... read more

Removing the the big tentpole sports months of February, June and July, the U.S. ad market has expanded just 1.7% year-to-date, according to an analysis of data from Guideline. ... read more

An appellate court will reconsider its July decision to a block a law requiring social platforms to block "harmful" content to minors. ... read more

The platform will authenticate users in a move to improve ad performance, personalize content feeds and protect data across its platform from unauthorized scraping by AI. ... read more

If you plan media, you’re being asked to find new customers across more screens with fewer partners and to prove that what you’re doing worked. The IAB’s September outlook shows 63% of buyers say acquiring ... read more

In the world of political campaign ads this season, President Trump has switched parties. ... read more

CTV upfront spend surpassed linear for the first time this year. And yet the industry continues to value audiences using metrics built for a bygone era. The post Ghost Audiences Are Haunting CTV Measurement appeared ... read more

How ad tech vendors misuse extended identifiers; Google’s search ad business worries investors; and why TelevisaUnivision plans to expand its sports portfolio. The post ‘E’ For ‘Exactly The Same As Always’; Google’s Very Bad Day ... read more

SharkNinja got a taste of F1 fandom when its products turned up in Brad Pitt’s racing film last year. Fans warmed to the brand and plenty finally twigged that Shark and Ninja were the same ... read more

Related Insights Marketing on Platforms At its flagship unBoxed conference, Amazon Ads collapses buying silos as AI takes a bigger role in media decisions Read More Amazon posted Q3 ... read more

Apple’s crackdown on the tricks advertisers use to track the same person across different sites and devices keeps tearing through large parts of the ad industry. WPP (if its CEO is to be believed) has ... read more

This story was first published by Digiday sibling Modern Retail. This year’s New York City Marathon, which marks the 50th anniversary of the modern five-borough race and is expected to break participant records, is attracting brands to ... read more

Marketing agencies across the ad industry have been enthusiastic adopters of AI agents. But their team structures, job descriptions and the career paths of their staff have been largely left untouched — even as the actual day-to-day work of media buyers and marketing ... read more

Barry Diller’s People Inc. is laying off 195 employees, CEO Neil Vogel wrote in a memo to the staff on Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter writes. “The vast majority of those affected today are in our ... read more

Political advertisers are turning to streaming TV to stretch campaign dollars and reach voters beyond traditional television, according to a study byTegna’s Premion and Advertiser Perceptions, TV News Check reports. Of the advertising decision-makers polled, 32% plan to ... read more

TransUnion reduced its consumer advertising spend by $11 million during the first nine months of 2026, PPC Land reports. The company sells credit reports and scores and identity protection to consumers. Consumer Interactive revenue fell by 3% ... read more

Reddit is getting ready to shift to a login-only experience, CEO and Co-Founder Steve Huffman told investors on the company’s Q3 earnings call Thursday. Starting in Q4, Reddit will test logged-in-only mode in “select markets ... read more

Amazon is building new AI features into its ads business, and humans are still the ones making the purchases – for now. The post Unrealized AI Investments Drag Amazon’s Income, But AWS And Ads Are ... read more

Both of the newly launched apps collect user data -- 'Waddle World,' described as a "cozy, 16-bit pet care game," and 'Style Sketch,' described as an 'outfit planner' that uses generative AI to recommend clothing ... read more

The newly launched apps both collect user data - 'Waddle World,' a 'pet care game,' and 'Style Sketch,' an 'outfit planner' that uses generative AI to recommend clothing pairings. ... read more

Lyft estimates nearly 4 million riders have used the platform to get to a polling location since 2014. ... read more

For the first time in TV history, advertisers and agencies can optimize their linear TV ad campaigns like digital campaigns. But some issues remain. ... read more

Frank DeVito, president and Chief Operating Officer, XR Pay Brands and agencies are spending more money than ever on featuring famous faces in advertising, with creators commanding bigger roles and paydays. But the creator economy’s ... read more

Reddit is launching its own 'For You' and 'Following' feeds - a move that shows it is using recommendation algorithms in a way more closely aligned with leading social-media platforms. ... read more

Bringing recommended feeds to the app is a move intended to drive active discovery, which could help advertisers reach a broader audience and help users find new communities and conversations. ... read more

The strategic partnership with NIQ, formerly Nielsen IQ, will track market and consumer buying behavior. It represents a shift from buying human attention to bidding for agentic execution of ad buys. ... read more

Alabama's law "imposes a broad censorship regime on mobile app stores and apps," the Computer & Communications Industry Association says. ... read more

Company CEO Mark Penn told investors the firm is pivoting from a marketing services outfit to a company selling transformation software and services. ... read more

DoorDash on Thursday confirmed the rumors and announced its intention to acquire Instacart at a $17 billion valuation. The deal is a logical one for a variety of reasons. The two fit into the same ... read more

Attention has become advertising's latest obsession, and marketers are embracing it with the enthusiasm of people who've discovered another metric to put on their dashboards. But a new study suggests that chasing attention too aggressively ... read more

"Consumers deserve to know whether companies use their web surfing habits or other personal data to estimate the highest price they can charge each consumer," FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson said. ... read more

Unscripted content spiked in Q2 vs. last year across five major streaming services - Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and Paramount+ - with Apple TV+ the sole exception to this trend, according to Ampere Analysis. ... read more

The new niche FAST channels for CNBC, E!, and Oxygen are already available on Prime Video and will roll out on The Roku Channel starting in November 2026. ... read more

The media operations of the two major agency holding companies moved in opposite directions in terms of their contribution to overall business, according to their third-quarter earnings releasees. ... read more

Tatari's new optimization engine sits at the ad server level and uses machine learning to determine which TV ads to serve to which audiences. The post Tatari Gives CTV Ad Matching The Max Treatment appeared ... read more

DoorDash's agreement to acquire Instacart, Maplebear Inc., for $17 billion will combine two retail media businesses that each generate more than $1 billion in annualized advertising revenue. ... read more

A new documentary dropping Friday on Netflix has the intriguing title "SCTV: The Greatest Show You've Never Heard Of." ... read more

OOH ads start off recruiting, then swerve to grim stats: "A Thriving Academic Community -- Where 26% Of Women Experience Sexual Assault." ... read more

Last week, a district court judge in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $25 billion for misleading Facebook users about how it handled their data. It’s an eye-popping number, not only the largest fine ever ... read more

Earlier this month, ad tech received its latest warning about the cybersecurity vulnerabilities baked into programmatic advertising. That context is largely missing from discussions about Apple’s plan to disable the third-party ID infrastructure that powers ... read more

Should identity infrastructure move server-side? Plus: The “dead internet theory” hardly seems like a theory anymore. The post The Server-Side Escape Plan; A Lament For The Dead Internet appeared first on AdExchanger. ... read more

This week’s Media Briefing looks at how publishers are gearing up to turn U.S. midterm election interest into paying subscribers as declining referral traffic raises the stakes for building direct reader relationships. The midterms ... read more

This story originally published on sister site, Modern Retail. One prominent retailer recently made a change to executive payouts, highlighting how much the industry’s priorities have shifted in recent years.  Earlier this month, Reuters published ... read more

Political campaigns are taking a page out of the brand marketing playbook for the upcoming midterms, hiring creators to reach voters across an increasingly disjointed media marketplace. This year’s midterms, political organizations campaigns and related ... read more

The Times of London has spent years behind a hard paywall and with roughly 680,000 loyal digital subscribers, it has little reason to regret it. Now it wants the readers who’d pay for a single ... read more

Microsoft generated $10 billion from its commercial arrangements with OpenAI - nearly 11% of the company's total quarterly revenue of $92.3 billion. ... read more

Each meal features one of eight "Avengers: Doomsday"-inspired special edition collectible magnets, which connect like puzzle pieces. ... read more

What Google advertising business? To be fair, Google did earn $127.6 billion in Q3 this year, up a staggering 25% from a year before. And that’s practically all from advertising. YouTube Ads cleared $11.2 billion, ... read more

As consumers show increasing interest in social-media microdramas, YouTube is prioritizing "serialized storytelling" by providing new monetization options for its episodic Shorts content. ... read more

Traditional news channels surged on YouTube in September, driven by midterm election coverage and the White House ban of several media outlets,StreamTV Insider reports. . Increases of 20% or more were experienced by CNN, ABC News, ... read more

Observers are speculating that MS Now and the traditional NBC News division will reunite after NBCUniversal has separated from Comcast, Cord Cutter News reports. This follows the splitting off of Versant as a standalone public company and ... read more

Google's ad revenue fell short of analyst expectations after its parent company Alphabet reported $127.6 billion in sales during the Q3 earnings call. ... read more

Google's ad revenue fell short of analyst expectations after its parent company Alphabet reported $127.6 billion in sales during the Q3 earnings call. ... read more

Life magazine is back. The iconic publication founded in 1936 by Henry Luce will reappear next month as a quarterly print magazine almost 20 years after its last version folded, The New York Times reports. Model and entrepreneur ... read more

Journalism’s share of AI citations has declined by 5% to 22%, down from 27% in May, according to Muck Rack’s October study, What Is AI Reading?, Unite.AI reports. In contrast, third-party and brand content have ... read more

South Korea's media and telecom regulator also ordered the tech giants to overhaul their app-store payment policies and review procedures. ... read more

Ad-tech firms are bypassing big tech companies to secure direct partnerships with device manufacturers, reshaping the way brands and publishers gain access to consumers. ... read more

Among a host of new restrictions, the law prohibits chatbots from suggesting they are alive or "experience human emotions" when responding to prompts by minors. ... read more

An influencer is someone you hire to reach an audience. An ambassador is someone who already believes in what you're selling. ... read more

Closed-loop advertising has long been a walled garden privilege. Google and Meta could connect impressions to outcomes because they owned identity, inventory, and measurement inside a single ecosystem. A new coalition approach is bringing that ... read more

Twenty years ago, online video was still a novelty, programmatic advertising was in its infancy and the idea that Walmart would become a major player in the media business might have earned someone a concerned ... read more

The campaign highlights Google's vision to help people establish a stronger relationship with their health, showing how personalized coaching and technology can support them in living their healthiest lives. ... read more

Fragmented viewing habits, creator loyalty and changing sports fandom are complicating the business of reaching audiences, Nielsen says in a yearly report. ... read more

Class members who submitted claims are expected to receive around $12 per claim. ... read more

Meta now scores every eligible ad for every impression at more than a billion ads per second, one of three ad ranking upgrades Meta announced on Wednesday. The others are an update to GEM, the ... read more

She replaces Jack Hennessy, who left SCC a couple of months ago. Wetters was with Spark Foundry for nearly 11 years. ... read more

Thirty-second spots are estimated to be fetching $550,000 each, according to analysts at Guggenheim Securities, who estimate a seven-game series could generate as much as $373 million in total ad sales. ... read more

Nicola Mendelsohn, head of global business group, Meta, has been elevated to the role of Vice Chair. Mendelsohn joined the Ad Council Board of Directors in 2023, and the executive committee in 2024 ... read more

Investors weren't pleased and sent S4 shares down nearly 19% in midday trading on the London Stock Exchange. ... read more

Who doesn’t know that doleful tune, “The agencies they are a-changin’.” That’s not exactly how Bob Dylan sang it in the original, but it’s not wrong. One such agency is Marketbridge, a 35-year-old B2B marketing ... read more

In Comscore's 'Score Report,' cable TV follows broadcast for ad exposure time at 34.5%, with streaming at 22.3%. Fox Corp. has highest share of ad exposure among ownership of platforms at 10.5%. ... read more

The NFL is a huge draw, with overall sign-ups across the services up 11.2% in September vs. the previous March-August period. ... read more

The success of this new "Baywatch" will depend, at least in part, on how people feel about the old one, which ceased making new episodes in 2001. ... read more

The law-professional-to-queer-media-founder pipeline is not a particularly common one. But it’s exactly how Alia J. Daniels came to co-found Revry, a free streaming platform centering LGBTQ+ storylines. Revry is home to PrismRiot, a programmatic ad exchange ... read more

Poison Tasters Agentic search traffic raises fundamental new questions for first-party data and content owners, but this is one of the biggest: Should a site allow agents to freely peruse its media or should it ... read more

“Be somewhere else.” That’s the text on the single post that lives on Lush’s TikTok account. To its 344,900 followers, the beauty brand’s TikTok is practically a ghost town. It’s been that way for years. ... read more

DMG Media’s year-old New Media division is carving out a new social revenue stream with creator-led IP aimed at younger audiences. The commercial shift is beginning to show up in the numbers. Direct social-only briefs ... read more

On Oct. 15, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) issued the nation’s first small business classification guidance for content creators. This comes just a few months after the organization, which helps Americans build and scale ... read more

This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at the messy state of genre labeling in CTV advertising. Category conflict Instagram’s IGTV redo, Netflix’s anatomy of a fall and more Category conflict Connected TV ... read more

This piece was first published by Digiday sibling Glossy. During this summer’s World Cup, fashion brands and the tournament’s stars launched a flurry of collaborations. The motivation was obvious: It’s the world’s biggest sports event, ... read more

Apple’s latest crackdown on identity resolution has accelerated efforts among publishers and ad tech companies to move advertising infrastructure beyond the browser, although questions remain over whether the industry’s preferred response will provide a lasting ... read more