CTV

Deli meat company Land O’Frost has been leaning into a new MMM approach to figure out which opportunities it’s been overlooking – or even inhibiting.

CTV has become a powerful full-funnel channel, attracting advertisers of all sizes – and the momentum isn’t slowing.

CTV ad spend is projected to rise another 16% this year to $26.6 billion, according to the IAB. But with rapid growth comes complexity. Advertisers now face a maze of platforms, apps and channels, each with different buying models, audience access and inconsistent measurement. For SMBs without large teams or budgets, this fragmentation is especially challenging to navigate.

Cloudflare restricts how bots can scrape content; TiVo’s customer base stays loyal, even as TiVo leaves the DVR business; and Nestlé announces a stark reduction in headcount.

The layoffs reflect a strategic decision on People Inc.’s part to free up money to invest in growth areas, according to CEO Neil Vogel’s memo to employees.

CleanTap claims that 100% of the invalid traffic it spoofed was accepted into live auctions run by programmatic platforms and was successfully bid on by advertisers.

HUMAN has recently started complementing its bid request analysis by analyzing the time between when a bot clicks an ad and when the landing page loads. Now it’s offering the solution to individual advertisers.

YouTube backpedals on banning COVID and political misinfo; Tylenol pushes back against Trump’s claims that it causes autism; and Disney doubles down on linear TV and raises Disney+ prices after its Kimmel boycott threat.

The old approach to media and measurement is no longer sustainable. AI is now embedded across every step of the media value chain, and AI is only as good as the data it’s fed.

CTV, like digital display before it, is facing fraud and mislabeled information. The prevailing advice for advertisers is to go directly to the networks and streaming platforms. However, buying direct comes with a fraud risk itself.

Concrete findings on how effective QR codes are at driving ad interactions are now available, and some industry best practices are emerging.