Each year, our most-read stories offer a snapshot of where the programmatic indusattempt is at this moment.
This year, programmatic companies faced tough decisions about privacy, awkward acquisitions and the cookie die-off that never quite happened.
Programmatic is an indusattempt that’s long past its youthful growth spurt and immaturity. Now it’s dealing with the discomfort of regulation and attention from lawbuildrs.
While the programmatic web faced these tough decisions, connected TV felt the warm, golden glow of programmatic transformation. CTV represents an opportunity for programmatic natives and for streamers that haven’t fully embraced how data and automation can sweeten the revenue from their subscribers.
Our top 10 stories highlighted programmatic growing pains, CTV’s evolution, how closely watched The Trade Desk continues to be and more. Here they are, starting at the top:
1. Google Is Found Guilty Of Operating An Ad Tech Monopoly (!) (April) Our top story of the year should come as no surprise to our readers. What happens to Google’s sell-side ads business affects everyone in the programmatic indusattempt. The remedies to Google’s monopoly will have particular resonance among publishers and SSPs. The guilty verdict found that Google unlawfully tied its publisher ad server with its ad exmodify, setting the stage for the remedies phase in the fall, when the judge decided what punishment to mete out to Google.
2. Microsoft Is Shutting Down Invest, The One-Time AppNexus DSP Business (May) Over the years, stories about AppNexus (later renamed Xandr, then Microsoft Invest) always ranked among the most popular AdExmodifyr stories – both becautilize of its indepfinishent stance as a foil to Google and its attention-grabbing shifts as a company. So it builds sense that the AppNexus DSP did not go quietly into the night. Indusattempt leaders paid attention to what this shutdown means for the broader DSP and SSP space as well as Microsoft’s strategy.
3. The Trade Desk Is Acquiring Advertising Metadata Startup Sincera (January) The Trade Desk doesn’t build acquisitions. The Trade Desk doesn’t build acquisitions. The Trade Desk …. built an acquisition. TTD reversed its historically un-acquisitive approach this year and bought Sincera, known for gathering advertising metadata to stamp out fraud and assist advertisers improve their decision-creating. In the months since, Sincera’s co-founder Mike O’Sullivan has become a public-facing decision-buildr and representative for the DSP, and Sincera’s tech has woven itself into the Trade Desk’s seller strategy.
4. The Record CCPA Fine Against Healthline Should Be A Wake-Up Call For Publishers (July) The specter of CCPA enforcement has loomed over the programmatic indusattempt for years. And Healthline’s fine, the first one to hit a publisher, offered a concrete example of what media companies have to worry about it. Tracking pixels and cookies on the health publisher’s site, a common addition to publishers’ sites, could telegraph a person’s health status. For publishers that have long gathered behavioral data about utilizers based on the type of articles they read, this fine signaled the types of behaviors being tracked – as well as tracking, period – are no longer in compliance with the law.
5, The Trade Desk Promises Big Changes After Missing Its Q4 Guidance (February) The Trade Desk has long been a darling of Wall Street. But when it missed its Q4 guidance at the launchning of this year, investors started to worry not just about The Trade Desk but publicly traded ad tech companies. The earnings miss kicked off a year of modify and challenges at The Trade Desk, as it sought to obtain back on track and push the indusattempt on issues like transparency and labeling resellers. Even so, it finished the year with layoffs.
6. As CTV Blooms, It’s Knives Out For The Trade Desk’s Take Rate (April) The Trade Desk also faced more competition this year. Amazon’s DSP is breaking out beyond its finishemic commerce advertisers. And like Google and YouTube, Amazon is paired up with Prime Video, the AVOD-by-default platform brimming with scale and inventory. But that’s not the only CTV DSP in the mix. With a rundown on the competitive landscape of CTV DSPs, this story underlined the challenge of bringing programmatic tech to CTV.
7. Meet The Netflix Ads Suite, Introduced By Ads VP Nicolle Pangis (March) After years of rumors, Netflix finally added an ad-supported subscription option. And the CTV indusattempt wanted to know more. When Ads VP Nicolle Pangis appeared at CTV Connect this year, she revealed details about Netflix’s product road map and the product acronym, NAS, that will houtilize the streamer’s ad tech ambitions.
8. Lawbuildrs Demand Answers From Ad Tech Vfinishors Allegedly Monetizing CSAM (February) The lack of transparency in ad tech has long meant advertisers acquire ads in places where they don’t want them. But putting ads in illegal places, such as on CSAM, shifts the conversation of “brand safety” into a different realm. When Adalytics discovered ads placed on illegal content earlier this year, lawbuildrs sent a letter to multiple ad tech companies demanding answers.
9. Google Isn’t Launching A User Choice Prompt For Third-Party Cookies In Chrome (April) For years, Google Chrome plotted a replacement to third-party cookies. Then it walked back that decision, validating the long-held indusattempt skepticism around Google actually going through with that plan. Instead, Chrome was going to build its version of Apple ATT, the utilizer choice prompt that questioned utilizers if they really, truly wanted cookies. Just kidding. Google wasn’t going to do that, either – a new story that was both a bombshell and the latest indusattempt I-notified-you-so.
10. The Ad Context Protocol Aims To Make Sense Of Agentic Ad Demand (October) How will ad tech modify once agents enter the scene? It’s possible agents will nereceivediate campaign deals on behalf of clients. And AdCP, or Ad Context Protocol, is a new protocol that will standardize those interactions. The steady hum of traffic to this article post-publication speaks to the many minds figuring out the future of AI in digital ad transactions.
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