Today's Advertising Pulse
X’s ad revenue plummets to $2.3 bn, far below Twitter’s peak
X reported advertising revenue of $2.3 bn in 2023 and projects $1.7 bn for 2024 and $1.8 bn for 2025, a sharp decline from the $4.7 bn generated in Twitter’s final public year. Its share of the U.S. digital‑ad market slipped to roughly 1% in Q1 2026, down from a near‑10% peak in 2016, and former NBCUniversal sales chief Linda Yaccarino exited the CEO role in July 2025 after modest performance.
Prog AI Live: AI’s Slippery Slop
At the Prog AI Live event in Las Vegas, AdExchanger editors debated how AI‑generated content is reshaping the notion of “premium” media. They noted that viral, low‑production “slop” often garners higher engagement than traditional high‑budget entertainment, forcing brands to reconsider where they allocate spend. The discussion also highlighted Publicis’s $2.2 billion acquisition of LiveRamp as a strategic move to own the data infrastructure underpinning programmatic buying in an increasingly agentic ecosystem.
Google's New AI Search Ads Are Designed to Look Like Helpful Answers
Google is rolling out AI‑driven search ads that appear as conversational answers within its new AI Mode. The ads will be labeled as sponsored but blend with AI‑generated responses, including short product descriptions for shopping queries. Users will still see...
Veritonic Launches Instant Insights: AI-Powered Creative Intelligence
Veritonic unveiled Instant Insights, an AI‑powered self‑service platform that delivers immediate creative performance feedback across audio, video, podcast, CTV, social and digital media. Built on more than a decade of proprietary benchmark data, the tool evaluates emotional resonance, engagement potential...
DoubleVerify Delivers Global Media Quality Measurement for LinkedIn Audience Network, Elevating Transparency for B2B Advertisers
DoubleVerify has launched global post‑bid media quality measurement for the LinkedIn Audience Network, giving advertisers independent visibility into invalid traffic, viewability, brand suitability and geographic delivery. The new offering complements pre‑bid avoidance controls, allowing brands to block unsuitable inventory before...
Google Launches Universal Cart Checkout and AI Ad Explainers to Take on Amazon
Google announced a native checkout system called Universal Cart and new AI‑generated ad formats at its Marketing Live summit. The rollout, backed by the Universal Commerce Protocol, partners with retailers such as Sephora, Target and Walmart to let shoppers complete...
Samsung Ads Southeast Asia Overlays Eyeota Data for Greater Connected TV Ad Effectiveness
Samsung Ads Southeast Asia has teamed up with data‑technology firm Eyeota to overlay viewership data from millions of Samsung Smart TVs with Eyeota’s consumer insights. The alliance, the first data partnership for Samsung Ads in the region, covers Singapore, Thailand...
Google Unifies Ads and Analytics Advisors Into AI Agent
Google Ask Advisor brings together Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor into one AI-agent advisor https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ask-advisor-41354.html #google #googleads #googleanalytics #googlemerchantcenter #gml
The Times Introduces AI-Generated Audiences for Better Ads
The Times has launched a product that allows advertisers to use AI-generated audiences to improve ad effectiveness. They laid out how it works to me for The Current https://t.co/UXFE7hq9qk
Your Campaigns Span 12 Channels. Why Does It Feel Like 12 Jobs? By AdPlus
Paid media managers now juggle up to 12 ad platforms, spending 5‑9 hours a week on manual data entry, spreadsheet reconciliation, and duplicated campaign setup. This administrative load creates hidden costs, introduces errors, and delays optimization decisions, eroding ROAS and...
YouTube Launches Shoppable Ads via Universal Commerce Protocol
UCP Everywhere :) -> UCP Coming to YouTube: YouTube is enhancing its advertising capabilities by introducing shoppable ads that integrate a 'Buy now' button leveraging Universal Commerce Protocol https://t.co/abrXcgNBHm https://t.co/drDpt8vOvi
Tackling Last-Mile Ad Compliance in Streaming
Ad‑supported streaming in the UK now exceeds $51 bn in total digital spend, with video advertising alone reaching about $11.8 bn. Brands are drawn to the precision and measurability of programmatic video, but the fragmented, dynamic nature of streaming makes last‑mile compliance—ensuring...
Premium Live Event CTV Expansion Leads to Increases in Upfront Spending: A Q&A With JamLoop?s Jeff Fagel
JamLoop’s 2026 survey of 120 brand and agency leaders shows a decisive shift toward premium live‑event CTV, with 73% planning higher Upfront allocations despite rising CPM pressure. Marketers are demanding price protection, early access to sports and tentpole inventory, and...
ACM Links with Passendo to Overhaul Newsletter Advertising
Australian Community Media (ACM) has partnered with Passendo to overhaul its newsletter advertising across more than 80 regional, rural and suburban titles. The integration makes ACM the first Australian publisher to use Passendo’s end‑to‑end ad‑serving technology inside email. By leveraging...
OpenAI Gives ChatGPT Ads a Visual Upgrade
OpenAI is piloting a visual upgrade to its ChatGPT ad units, adding larger images and optional dynamic call‑to‑action buttons. The company also introduced a dedicated e‑commerce format that can appear in portrait or landscape orientation and supports carousel‑style placements. A...
Topsort Adds TikTok Offsite Ads, Unifying On‑Site and Social Commerce Media
Topsort unveiled TikTok Offsite Ads, a capability that lets marketplaces and vendors launch TikTok campaigns directly from the Topsort platform. The move extends the AI‑native commerce‑media infrastructure into short‑form video, aiming to simplify workflows and attribution across on‑site and off‑site...
Built‑Right Digital Launches Scalable Martech Platform for Home‑Service Franchises
Built‑Right Digital introduced a new enterprise‑grade marketing platform that lets home‑service franchise networks combine corporate brand standards with hyper‑local SEO, paid‑media and web‑development. The solution replaces static templates with granular geo‑targeting and flexible micro‑sites, promising higher lead quality for individual...
Unity Vector Expands to D28 ROAS Ad Revenue and Hybrid Monetization Models
Unity announced that its Vector platform now supports two new D28 ROAS campaign types—Ad Revenue ROAS and Hybrid ROAS—completing a full suite that covers in‑app purchases, ad revenue, and mixed monetization. The D28 models predict a user’s 28‑day revenue potential...
#ThisWeek on MarkLives MEDIA: Why Streaming Is a Media Must-Buy • #NextWeek: Rise of SA’s Value-and-Quality Consumer
Streaming has shifted from a niche experiment to a core component of South African media planning. Media buyers now allocate a sizable share of ad budgets to over‑the‑top platforms, driven by rising broadband penetration and consumer demand for on‑demand content....
Triton Digital Seeks to Solve Audio’s Lag in Programmatic Buying
Triton Digital has extended its Sounder.AI contextual and brand‑suitability tools to The Trade Desk’s programmatic buying platform. The move targets what the company calls a “blind spot” in audio, where advertisers lack pre‑bid insight into podcast content. By embedding AI‑driven...
TransUnion, Google Bring YouTube Measurement to Attribution Platform
TransUnion and Google have partnered to embed YouTube ad exposure into TransUnion’s Multi‑Touch Attribution (MTA) platform, allowing marketers to measure video campaigns alongside other media. The integration, the first of its kind, links YouTube impressions to downstream business outcomes using...
Businesses Boost ROI by Hiring PPC Specialists for Google Ads
Firms are increasingly outsourcing Google Ads to dedicated PPC specialists, with PPC Pros reporting a 100% rise in paid leads in just 1.5 months while lowering cost‑per‑click. The shift reflects a broader demand for data‑driven performance marketing that directly ties...
Search Shifts to Hybrid Chatbots, Ending Static Queries
Google’s Gambit, Part 4: The end of Static Search The commercial opportunity as Search converges to a hybrid chatbot interface is fairly obvious: more queries (demonstrable, from Google’s disclosure), more ad exposures per Search session (given the conversational nature of chatbot...
Google Introduces New Ad Formats In AI Mode via @Sejournal, @Brookeosmundson
Google unveiled two AI‑driven ad formats—Conversational Discovery ads and Highlighted Answers—at its Marketing Live event. Both formats run on the Gemini model and embed sponsored content directly within AI‑generated search responses and recommendation lists. The ads feature an independent AI...
Asset Studio Is Entering a New Era of AI-Powered Creativity.
Google has launched Asset Studio, an AI‑driven platform that creates and refines ad assets across multiple formats using natural‑language prompts. The tool now incorporates Gemini Omni, Google’s multimodal model, enabling users to generate video creatives directly within the interface. Integrated...
Fuel Your Next Wave of Growth on YouTube with Demand Gen
YouTube’s new Demand Gen suite blends AI‑driven video creation with creator partnerships, letting advertisers produce high‑impact ads faster. The platform now supports dynamic product videos via Google Merchant Center and expands inventory to Google Maps, checkout links in nine markets,...
The Architecture Behind Trustworthy AI Agents in Advertising
The IAB Tech Lab unveiled AAMP 2.0, delivering production‑ready Buyer and Seller Agent SDKs that embed AI‑driven media buying into existing ad standards. The SDKs provide a shared Events Bus and State Engine, enabling transparent, auditable, and resilient agentic transactions across...
Programmatic Promised Transparency. Agentic Is Built to Deliver It: Introducing the Detailed Reasoning Agent
PubMatic unveiled the Detailed Reasoning Agent on its AgenticOS platform, delivering a full, auditable log of every AI‑driven media‑buying decision. The new capability records inputs, constraints, candidate actions, and rationales, giving traders instant visibility into why an audience was chosen...
Omio Taps Appier’s Agentic AI to Acquire Users in 21 European Markets
Omio has teamed up with AI‑as‑a‑service firm Appier to roll out Agentic AI‑driven paid‑media campaigns across 21 European markets. Within twelve months the travel platform expanded from a single‑country test in Spain to a continent‑wide growth engine, consistently hitting cost‑per‑acquisition...
Snap Stops Grading Its Own Homework
Snap announced Unified Attribution, a beta product that merges its own first‑party data with mobile measurement partner (MMP) data, starting with AppsFlyer. The feature lets advertisers choose a dual‑optimization mode that credits both Snap’s internal attribution and the MMP’s view....
Vevo Names DISQO as Preferred Brand Outcomes Measurement Partner in the US
Vevo, the world’s leading music‑video network, has elevated its partnership with advertising intelligence firm DISQO by naming it its preferred brand outcomes measurement partner in the United States. The collaboration will leverage DISQO’s deterministic, full‑funnel data to tie video exposure...
OOH Pushes Deeper Into Performance Media
The Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) and Geopath are launching the Advance Measurement System (AMS), with Ipsos piloting the platform in the second half of 2026. The initiative seeks to give OOH advertising the same attribution, targeting...
Mobile Measurement Set the Standard. Web Is Finally Catching Up.
AppsFlyer launched Web Performance Measurement, extending its mobile‑grade attribution infrastructure to web campaigns. The new suite delivers independent, server‑to‑server conversion postbacks, unified reporting across walled‑garden networks, and cross‑platform cost‑and‑revenue tracking. By closing the loop between mobile, desktop and web, marketers...
Q1 2026 Malformed & Fraudulent CTV Bundle IDs Risk Report
Pixalate released its Q1 2026 Connected TV (CTV) Malformed and Fraudulent Bundle IDs Risk Report, covering Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV, LG Smart TV, and Samsung Smart TV. The analysis of roughly 2 billion programmatic impressions shows that malformed or unidentified...
How the Fastest-Growing Streaming Platforms Protect Ad Revenue During Live Events
Programmatic streaming platforms must complete every ad auction in under 100 ms, or the exchange discards the bid. When video delivery and ad serving share the same servers, traffic spikes during live events push response times past the deadline, silently eroding...
AI‑Powered Growth: Rapid Winning Creatives Every Week
Most brands don’t lose because of bad products. They lose because they can’t produce enough winning creatives fast enough. TempoAI is trying to change that completely. An AI Head of Growth that: • studies competitor ads • analyzes your brand • finds new hooks & angles •...
AI Mode Adds Ads, Gemini Explainers, and Lead Chatbot
Ads coming to AI Mode and Gemini custom explainers next to ads. Also, Business Agent for Leads - lets leads chat with a chatbot based on your website and potentially be turned into leads. Interesting. https://t.co/u9L9MLypZc https://t.co/eW5hC60mXW
StackAdapt Unveils Next Evolution of AI-Powered Proactive Marketing at Conversion 2026
StackAdapt announced a suite of AI‑driven features at Conversion 2026, including the real‑time Command Centre, the conversational Ivy Studio workspace, a beta AI Video Builder, cross‑channel attribution, and programmatic direct mail for U.S. marketers. The tools aim to cut manual workflow,...
Microsoft Advertising Rolls Out New Import, Bidding, and Reporting Tools
Microsoft Advertising import center, cross-account portfolio bidding, bidding strategy reports, and custom column conversion metrics updates https://t.co/1gHBVunycp https://t.co/N4fLanRf5H
Not Every Ad Server Needs AI. Here’s Where It Actually Matters
The ad‑tech market is flooding platforms with the "AI‑powered" label, yet a recent MMC Ventures survey shows 40% of self‑described AI‑first vendors lack any machine‑learning code in production. In most cases the label is a pricing tactic, disguising deterministic rule‑based...
Viant Taps Ad Fontes Media to Bring ‘News Bias’ Targeting to CTV
Viant’s demand‑side platform has partnered with Ad Fontes Media to embed the firm’s reliability‑and‑bias scores into connected‑TV (CTV) inventory. The integration, now live, lets advertisers target individual news shows rather than whole apps or domains. It is the first CTV solution...
Brits Wake up to the Power of Second-Screen Shopping
A MiQ report finds 47% of UK consumers shop via mobile while watching TV, and 76% use a second device during video streams. Younger viewers are even more engaged, with 92% of 18‑44‑year‑olds multitasking and 94% discovering brands through video...
Azerion-Veridooh Partnership Brings Independent Verification to Programmatic DOOH
Azerion has named Veridooh its preferred partner to bring independent verification to programmatic digital out‑of‑home (pDOOH). Veridooh’s patented SmartCreative™ technology collects delivery data without media‑owner logs, delivering real‑time, 100% independent measurement. The integration will be available through Azerion’s Hawk DSP...
TechCrunch Leads,Yahoo Drops: Picnic’s 2026 Inventory Quality Rankings
Picnic released its PIQ10 2026 ranking, naming the UK’s ten highest‑quality publishers for advertising based on its continuously updated PIQ platform. TechCrunch surged to the top spot, while National Geographic, Politico and The Guardian entered the list for the first time....
AI Ads Are Already Here. Your Lead Data Isn’t Ready.
OpenAI and Criteo announced a pilot that places ads inside ChatGPT, turning the conversational AI into a new performance marketing surface. The article warns that AI‑generated lead data can be plagued by hallucinations, producing inaccurate names, titles, or contact details...
Chalice AI and Equativ Advance Containerized AI Curation and Activation Across the Open Internet
Chalice AI announced a partnership with Equativ to embed its custom AI models as containerized agents within Equativ’s Maestro platform. The integration leverages the IAB Tech Lab’s Agentic Real‑Time Framework (ARTF) to enable interoperable, real‑time bidding and optimization across the...
Far and Wide vs Bullseye
At the ET Brand Equity ‘igNight’ event, media veterans Vikram Sakhuja and Shashi Sinha sparred over whether reach remains the primary marketing metric or if targeted, attention‑driven advertising has taken precedence. Sakhuja argued that broad reach is essential for acquiring...
Muzz, Stickman and Ronald McDonald Named New Zealand’s Most Loved Advertising Mascots
Creative effectiveness firm Cubery surveyed New Zealand consumers to rank the nation’s most loved advertising mascots. The study placed V Energy’s Muzz at #1, Pak’nSave’s Stickman second, and Ronald McDonald third. Cubery’s senior consultant Wil Logan explained that mascots deliver emotional...
IAB Australia Launches AI Prompting Framework for Adland
IAB Australia has unveiled a vendor‑agnostic Large Language Model (LLM) Prompting Framework to help marketers, publishers, creatives and ad‑tech firms use generative AI safely and consistently. The framework is split into five editions—General, Buy‑Side, Sell‑Side, Creative and AdTech—each packed with...
Retail Media Doesn’t Have to Compromise Customer Experience
Retail media is emerging as a high‑margin growth engine for retailers, but many fear ads will degrade the shopper experience. The article argues that, when anchored in shopper intent and controlled by the retailer, paid placements can actually enhance discovery...
X Pitches Advertisers on Rising Opportunities in the App
X is revamping its ad sales pitch by highlighting a major AI‑driven upgrade to its targeting engine, which it says can better understand user behavior and boost campaign performance. The company also touts an affluent audience, with average household incomes...