Programmatic

In Q3, The Trade Desk beat the admittedly pessimistic revenue forecast it set for itself earlier this year. But growth has stalled.

OptimizeRx, which has software that plugs into the systems doctors use to prescribe drugs and maintain patient records, has taken its next big step into the world of programmatic through a new partnership with The Trade Desk.

Advertising supply chain intelligence company DecryptAds uncovered more than 2,100 AI-generated recipe sites that are monetized with programmatic ads and feature fabricated author profiles.

Reorienting the ad auction so that ad servers bid into Prebid lets publishers access demand from Google AdX without also having to use Google’s ad server.

Telly, the startup that gives away free smart TVs in exchange for data and ad exposure, is making its home screen ads available for brands to buy programmatically – and pushing for industry standards to help attract more spend. 

Tuple is entering the DSP market at a strange and tense moment for third-party ad tech. “There’s just so much animosity” between the programmatic buy and sell sides, says Founder and CEO Doug Lauretano.

“Our revenue growth is below our expectations and below the standard we hold ourselves to,” The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green told investors.

A DSP refused to give ad industry watchdog Check My Ads a seat on its platform, even after both parties cosigned a master service agreement, citing concerns about “protections” for “vendor and supply partners.”

The IAB Tech Lab is working on standardizing programmatic signals for new streaming TV ad formats, including pause ads. Meanwhile, many brands are eager to add pause ads to their repertoire.

PubMatic has run more than 30 fully autonomous, end-to-end agentic campaigns through the SSP’s AgenticOS platform, in addition to more than 1,000 direct publisher deals.

An upcoming paper from CIMM doesn’t just demonstrate that differences in media quality can be measured. It also argues that tying media value to short-term outcomes has perpetuated longstanding industry challenges.

Onetag’s acquisition of creative ad tech platform Aryel equips its curation solution with new tools for tweaking and testing interactive ad creative.

PubMatic says adoption of its AgenticOS, combined with strong CTV and mobile demand, set the stage for double digit growth in the second half of this year.

OpenX and Givsly’s new curation solution lets political campaigns reach voters based on data sourced from nonprofits, rather than traditional party affiliation.

The OAAA’s new content taxonomy introduces new subcategories that OOH media owners can use to classify their inventory in OpenRTB bid requests.

The MRC’s auction transparency standards aren’t intended to force every programmatic platform to use the same auction playbook – but platforms do have to adopt some controversial OpenRTB specs to get certified.

Amazon looks to support a more collaborative programmatic ecosystem now that the APS Prebid adapter is available for open beta testing.

Competitive tensions and ad tech drama have flared all year. And this drama has rippled out into the investor circle, as evident from a slew of recent ad tech company earnings reports.

Brian Gleason joined contextual ad platform Seedtag as CEO earlier this month after a stint as CRO and president of retail media at Criteo.

Pub tech SaaS startup Swivel wants to make ad ops much less manual and time-consuming with an AI-driven yield optimization tool designed by people who used to build ad servers.

PubMatic’s new AI curation features are helping it forge closer relationships with ad agencies like GroupM that are ramping up their use of AI.

Equativ is now blocking made-for-advertising content from all exchange activity, marking a larger trend of pushing to eliminate MFA sites.

While some Privacy Sandbox testers lamented their seemingly wasted effort, they remain committed to post-cookie targeting and measurement – even if Google eventually abandons the Sandbox entirely.

Most sell-side curation deals appear in line with typical SSP take rates, according to Jounce Media. In fact, some of these fee structures resemble how publishers have long done business with supply-side partners.

Roku reported $4.1 billion in revenue for 2024, an 18% jump year over year. Its platform business in particular, which includes ad sales and streaming distribution, reached $3.5 billion last year, also an 18% jump compared to 2023 (or 15% excluding political ad revenue).

Making TripleLift stand out among the pack is one of Helmreich’s top priorities, as is ensuring supply chain health. And, he said, the company has no plans to shy away from its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

AdExchanger reached out to a number of major DSPs to gauge the current state of adoption of the IAB Tech Lab’s new video ad standard.

Canada-based demand-side platform StackAdapt secures $235 million in equity funding led by Teachers’ Venture Growth, the investment arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

Yahoo’s endorsement could drive further adoption of the IAB Tech Lab’s data transparency labels throughout the programmatic ecosystem after years of inaction.

DSPs have been slow to adopt the Tech Lab’s new signal for classifying online video, causing confusion about which placement signal should be prioritized.