Helping win a presidential election and running marketing for a ball trimmer brand have more in common than you’d think – at least if you’re Marcelo Kertész. Kertész, this week’s guest on AdExchanger Talks, is ... read more

The very concept of AI and its impact on select industries is enough to cause dramatic swings in stock market sectors and wild future-of-work predictions. But when the world’s largest ad agency talks about changing ... read more

Nineteen of America’s 20 state-run health insurance exchanges use advertising trackers from platforms. Plus: The booze brands are coming to TikTok. The post How State Health Insurance Uses Ad Tracking; TikTok And Alcohol, Together At ... read more

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify Talk about a blast from the past. The phrase “brandformance” is becoming popular across the ad industry again as marketers push to once again marry brand and performance marketing. Call ... read more

Yahoo launched a sports business content hub last week, just a few weeks after The Wall Street Journal and its parent company Dow Jones announced they would debut a vertical focused on the sports economy ... read more

The rise of the “agentic era” of the digital media industry has prompted many to pose existential questions about ad tech companies, with experts arguing that they must evolve or die. As a result, many ... read more

This story was first published by Digiday sibling ModernRetail Retailers and brands are quickly launching shopping apps within ChatGPT and Claude. But whether or not shoppers will embrace them at a rapid pace remains to ... read more

What happens when MrBeast isn’t MrBeast anymore, and the hype has died down? It’s the question Colin Rocker found himself asking before inking his first ever investor deal earlier this month with Favikon, a creator ... read more

It’s been nearly four years since the Federal Trade Commission first accused Kochava of selling highly sensitive location data. Now, the two have finally reached a settlement. On Monday, the FTC filed a proposed order ... read more

Paramount Skydance finished the first quarter with $7.3 billion in revenue, representing a 2% year-over-year increase. Meanwhile, its planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery is proceeding apace. It expects to finalize the deal by the end ... read more

The data broker Kochava has agreed that it won't sell or disclose especially sensitive location data without consumers' affirmative consent, in order to settle privacy charges brought by the FTC. ... read more

Virginia officials want to immediately enforce a law that would prohibit minors under 16 from accessing social media for more than one hour a day without parental consent. ... read more

Anthropic and OpenAI are forming separate joint ventures with financial institutions in a race to drive more adoption of their AI tools. Blackstone and Goldman Sachs are among the investors. ... read more

NEW YORK — Financial services, telecom, and insurance companies are outpacing traditional consumer packaged goods advertisers in adopting in-store media because they face fewer structural budget and agency relationship challenges when funding new advertising formats. ... read more

NEW YORK – Commerce media is no longer content to sit quietly beside sponsored search listings and wait for last-click credit. The category is expanding fast, grabbing budget, attention and probably several internal org charts. ... read more

A federal judge has granted preliminary approval to a class-action settlement requiring Google to pay $8.25 million to resolve allegations over data collection from children. ... read more

In ad ops terms, Major League Fishing has more in common with the average online publisher than the average professional sports association. The post Losing Traffic To AI Search? Do More Video, Says Major League ... read more

Painter, who was the CEO of Ascential and who negotiated the sale of Flywheel to Omnicom, had been seen as a rising star integrating commerce, retail, data and AI. ... read more

Pope Leo paid tribute to journalists who have died reporting from combat zones while marking World Press Freedom Day on Sunday, Reuters reports. "Today we celebrate World Press Freedom Day ... unfortunately, this right is ... read more

Criteo, Fandango and Fetch as well as Best Buy Ads, Kroger Precision Media and Instacart became early launch partners. The strategy ties retail media data directly with CTV to target ads. ... read more

Why this deal? Video subscriptions, which have been declining for nearly 15 years - and helping to bolster a weakening, declining broadband business. ... read more

Gray Media has completed the acquisition of 11 local television stations owned by Allen Media Group at a cost of $171 million, TheDesk.net reports. Included are three TV stations that were approved by the Federal Communications in March and another seven ... read more

Roku posted total Q1 revenue of $1.248 billion -- an increase of 22% YoY -- and net income of $85.7 million, compared to a net loss of $27.4 million in Q1 2025, Yahoo Finance reports. ... read more

The film spent a modest $14.3 million on national TV advertising from 3,401 airings, pulling 833.0 million impressions. ... read more

ORLANDO -- In advance of this week's Association of National Advertisers' Advertising Financial Management Conference here I spoke with Ralph Pardo, CEO of Omnicom Media North America and a speaker at the event, about today's ... read more

The BBC news operation will cut up to 2,000 jobs as the BBC seeks to reduce costs by 15%, compared to the 10% announced last month, The Guardian reports. The BBC had announced  a £600 million cost-cutting ... read more

In response to the rumors about reviving "The Apprentice," the "TV Blog" asks: Why bother? ... read more

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 ... read more

Advertisers have been dealing with governance questions for years: privacy rules, data minimization, consent, dark patterns, kids – you name it. But now AI is adding another layer of complexity, and a lot of that work ... read more

When Twitter began to unravel under new ownership in late 2022, Black users were among the first to look for the exits. Changes to content moderation and enforcement rattled communities that had long treated “Black ... read more

Going viral isn’t great; AI search is a nightmare; and CTV is forcing everyone to get along. The post Pity The Viral Product Hits; GEO Is The New SEO (Derogatory) appeared first on AdExchanger. ... read more

As generative AI floods the web with synthetic content, the creator economy was expected to offer something different: human-led, authentic alternatives. While there are wholly AI-generated influencers, and a report from Wondercraft said 80 percent ... read more

TikTok is no longer asking brands to repurpose their mobile content for billboards, it’s building the billboard creative from scratch. This shift is at the heart of TikTok’s preferred partnership with Vistar Media, which is ... read more

The introduction of agentic media planning and buying tools has brought programmatic advertising to a crossroads. But efforts to unite the media and ad sector and settle on a way forward are split between two ... read more

Publishers have weathered every digital headache going — ad tech tax, murky supply chains, algorithm whiplash — but there’s a new one that, even in passing, makes jaws tighten: third-party content scraping. For some publishers, ... read more

CEO Ryan Cohen wrote in a letter to shareholders that the GameStop Board unanimously supports his proposal and told the "WSJ" he is prepared to run a proxy fight, taking the offer directly to shareholders. ... read more

The partnership aims to support more personalized experiences for Dick's shoppers -- whom the retailer refers to as "athletes" -- across touchpoints. ... read more

Historical definitions of television are breaking down under the weight of digital video delivery. What was once defined by a physical hardware device and strict broadcast quality standards is now simply any screen where video ... read more

Proving that an ad actually moved the needle – rather than just touched a customer who was already buying – has become a central challenge for retail media networks. Best Buy Ads is betting that ... read more

MIAMI BEACH, FL – Retail media was once the cute little side project of digital advertising, quietly selling sponsored cereal placements and hoping nobody asked too many questions about attribution. Now it has become one ... read more

A case study in how Lina Khan’s theories about competition failed in the real world. ... read more

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eBay is preparing to fend off a takeover bid from game retailer GameStop as it continues to build out its ad and agentic businesses. ... read more

Instagram has altered its core recommendations algorithm, extending its originality guidelines to discourage aggregators from reposting others' content across a wider variety of display formats. ... read more

Reddit's Q1 performance results for 2026 show a continuous surge in its ad revenue, as well as steady user growth and a sizable uptick in the use of the company's AI-powered search engine. ... read more

Reddit's Q1 performance results for 2026 show a continuous surge in its ad revenue, as well as steady user growth and a sizable uptick in the use of the company's AI-powered search engine. ... read more

Meta Platforms is threatening to stop offering Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in New Mexico if a judge issues an injunction that would force the company to significantly revise its apps. ... read more

Meta Platforms is threatening to stop offering Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in New Mexico if a judge issues an injunction that would force the company to significantly revise its apps. ... read more

Ads will become more important to Apple, as the company builds on the types of devices and services it offers. ... read more

It is time we stop chanting "AI, AI, AI," and start using it to excavate the value we buried under years of bad processes and commodity pricing. ... read more

Digital Content Next, which represents news companies, argues that allowing Amazon to oust Perplexity's Comet browser "will advance, not harm, journalism." ... read more

Take your sunglasses off for this one. Fresh off the POSSIBLE conference in Miami, our reporters debrief on how the marketing industry addressed the subject du jour, AI. Plus: the topics that were conspicuously absent ... read more

OpenAI appears to be getting ready to expand its ads business to Europe.  A code update to its conversion tracking pixel, which Digiday reviewed, points to the company building the technical groundwork needed to run ... read more

The agency's goal is to drive efficiency and scale, as well as customer growth. ... read more

The fourth-annual Possible is in the books! AdExchanger Senior Editors Alyssa Boyle and Anthony Vargas were on the ground in Miami. Here are their takeaways from three days chatting about agentic AI in the Florida ... read more

The shift moves OpenAI beyond organic growth to a commercialized ad/marketing strategy, highlighting its readiness to transition from a research-led organization to a competitive consumer brand that uses standard ad tech to find and convert ... read more

After half a century covering the media marketplace, I thought I had seen every conceivable model for funding ad-supported media buys. Until I met Piyush Puri. ... read more

Wisconsin’s oldest Black newspaper has been placed in an employee benefit trust along with two Black radio stations in an effort to secure independent Black ownership in perpetuity, WMDX reports. The Milwaukee Black Media Trust ... read more

This comes as the FCC makes an unprecedented move to do an early broadcast license review of eight ABC-owned television stations. ... read more

Audio firm Audacy has named two new members to its board of directors: Walker Jacobs, global chief revenue officer and president of U.S. operations at DAZN, and Gabriel Brotman of Soros Fund Management, Country Insider ... read more

Roku had been releasing one "Platform" revenue figure, for its subscription and ad business. Subscription revenue quarterly growth was similar to that of advertising, rising 30% to $518.5 million. ... read more

"60 Minutes" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi criticized “the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear” at CBS News after receiving the Ridenhour prize for courage at the National Press Club in Washington on Thursday evening, the Guardian ... read more

The public relations business is focusing once again on media relations and pitches to trades and legacy media after a period in which social media and influencer relations were the cool new kids on the ... read more

Enough already! The "TV Blog" believes that both of these combatants have gone too far. ... read more

As a queer media trade reporter, I often wonder whether media companies and marketers are interested in trying to form a connection with me based on my queer identity. It’s a question I got to ... read more

I find it useful on occasion to interview people who are marketing-adjacent, and thus possess a different and perhaps more highly clarified perspective on the tools we use for data-driven online advertising. These are the ... read more

Enjoy this weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem …  The post Comic: ‘I Just Wanna Watch The Game!’ appeared first on AdExchanger. ... read more

Admazon There were a few standout takeaways from Amazon’s Q1 earnings report earlier this week. For one, Amazon surpassed $70 billion in ad revenue over the past 12 months. (Just for the sake of comparison, ... read more

USA Today Co.’s AI licensing deals helped drive meaningful year-over-year revenue growth in the first quarter of this year, despite pressure on referral traffic and programmatic advertising. According to the publisher’s latest earnings published Thursday ... read more

More publishers are turning to AI-powered search and chatbot tools to make their sites stickier to users and offset the impact of zero-click search.  HuffPost UK, Reach and USA Today Co., are among the latest ... read more

YouTube is giving brands something they’ve been asking for. The question is whether getting it makes them want something it can’t yet provide.  The platform’s Creator Partnerships API, announced at the NewFronts earlier this sping, ... read more

The latest industry phrase keeping marketers awake at night is AI visibility. The so-called zero-click reality has ushered in a slew of tools promising insight as to when and where a brand is referenced in ... read more

Baller League has something rare in creator economy business circles: a plan that doesn’t end with it becoming a media company. Instead it wants to become a sustainable sports league.  That’s not as obvious as ... read more

Generative AI has pushed traffic off a cliff across most of the internet, but not on social platforms. Reddit included. Reddit’s global average daily users increased by 17% year over year in Q1 to 126.8 ... read more

Roku's two content offerings, The Roku Channel and Howdy, are both performing well, the leadership disclosed during a recent earnings call. But streaming numbers aside, the company is finding ways to translate engagement into revenue. ... read more

Licensing arrangement with Tweezerman means the "Devil" logo is emblazoned on a pair of nail clippers. ... read more

OpenAI has begun rolling out Advanced Account Security for users concerned that their ChatGPT or Codex accounts could become potential targets of phishing attacks. ... read more

At $17.24 billion and growing 24%, the advertising division continues to be one of the quiet stars of Amazon's earnings report. ... read more

Anthropic's use of lyrics to train its large language models is a "fair use" that doesn't infringe on music publishers' copyright, tech industry organizations argue in court papers filed this week. ... read more

X has announced another Ads Manager overhaul rooted in artificial intelligence that is rolling out now. ... read more

X has announced another Ads Manager overhaul rooted in artificial intelligence that is rolling out now. ... read more

Meta lost daily active users for the first time in over 20 years, but showed sizable increases in revenue and ad impressions as it continues to invest heavily in AI. ... read more

"During work, young employees are distracted by their phones, have shorter attention spans, and struggle to navigate social interactions with customers and coworkers," says the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce. ... read more

The jump in revenue, led by AI tools like Creative Agent and Rufus, helped to push Amazon's ad revenue to $17.2 billion in Q1 2025. ... read more

Sydney Sweeney, Ella Langley, Travis Kelce for AEO: CMO Craig Brommers isn't booking talent -- he's writing season arcs. ... read more

NBA playoff viewership is up 20% through the first week-and-a-half, while NHL playoffs viewing has leaped by 82% through the first nine days, with 1.1 million on ESPN and TNT Sports. ... read more

The company's total revenue for the period including acquisitions was up 8% to $704 million, but missed the consensus analysts' estimate of $717.5 million. New business set a quarterly record. ... read more

At POSSIBLE 2026, conversations about AI went beyond the typical talking points about how much time and money AI can save. AdExchanger had one of those deeper discussions about AI with Domenic Venuto, the indie ... read more

OpenAI isn’t the only platform rethinking its ads manager. X just rolled out what it’s calling the biggest overhaul of its advertising tools in the platform’s history. The revamp, framed invariably as an AI-powered upgrade, ... read more

While AI is gaining consumer adoption, it is still seen only as "nice-to-have" and has not impacted discretionary spending yet, PQ Media finds in its just-released report. ... read more

Influencers and independent creators are a growing source of news in the U.S, according to a study by the Media Insight Project, Medill reports. Among all Americans ages 13 and older, 57% say they get ... read more

Ad tech doesn’t suffer from a shortage of acronyms – but it does suffer from fragmented workflows. Brand suitability provider Zefr is trying to fix some of that fragmentation by using Model Context Protocol (MCP) ... read more

The agentic era of the internet is well and truly underway, with the accompanying quest on how to monetize it, i.e., the AI ad wars, occurring simultaneously. OpenAI’s advertising pilots in ChatGPT have garnered much ... read more

The past year has been momentous for AI search engine ads. That’s partly due to ChatGPT’s foray into advertising. But the big AI search ad platform in action right now is Google, which, on Thursday, ... read more

Among several tools introduced Thursday, the standout feature mirrors an agency service - allowing advertisers to build AI-driven briefs to maintain a brand's tone and message in AI Max campaigns. ... read more

Time has released a list of the 10 most influential companies in media and communications in 2026. They include: Nielsen, T-Mobile, AST Mobile, Publicis Groupe, Patreon, Discord, Letterboxd, TikTok, iHeartMedia and Telegram. In its coverage, ... read more

A majority of people worldwide feel that the media in their country have a lot of freedom, Gallup reports. In 2025, 64% of respondents in 131 countries said this, versus 30% who disagreed. The total ... read more

Objection, a new service for checking journalistic facts, was launched on Wednesday with “multiple millions” in seed funding from Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan, and venture capital VC firms Social Impact Capital and Off Piste Capital, TechCrunch reports. Founder ... read more

Roku's Howdy platform costs $2.99 a month for ad-free movies and TV shows. Antenna says Howdy has steadily grown to reach one million subscribers. ... read more

Netflix's new limited-series thriller "Man on Fire" burns like a furnace in the third act of the first episode, and from there, it is off and running. ... read more