Amazon’s influence is pulling streaming ad costs downward.

Right now, ad buyers are paying around $40 to reach a thousand viewers on Prime Video, about the same as on Netflix. Whether that holds for the rest of the year is anyone’s guess, but Amazon’s impact on ad pricing is already undeniable.

“Regarding video CPMs, the average for 2024 was close to $40 on Amazon Prime,” said Robert Kurtz, group vp of search media solutions at Basis Technologies. “This is comparable to Netflix, but Disney+ was a significant percentage higher than Amazon Plus.” 

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Omnicom CEO John Wren and IPG’s Philippe Krakowsky haven’t exactly been shy about their stance on the proposed deal between both groups since it was unveiled last December.

So when the two met with ad consultants for two hours earlier this week (Feb. 19) in New York, the room knew this was their shot at getting some long-awaited clarity on the flurry of questions, concerns and hot takes sparked by Omnicom’s potential acquisition of IPG.

“They [Wren and Krakowsky] see us as representatives of advertisers so the meeting was very much about giving us the floor to raise the many questions and concerns they have,” said one exec, who exchanged anonymity for candor on what went down.

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Amazon may not be the go-to for programmatic ad buys. But with each passing quarter, that assumption is looking shakier. 

Just look at its latest earnings: $17.3 billion in ad revenue, a 17% jump from the same period last year. Driving that growth is the Amazon Demand-Side Platform (DSP), which lets advertisers tap into its rich data to buy ads both within its walled garden and beyond. 

While that premise isn’t new — it’s been pitched as a full-scale programmatic solution for years. But a steady stream of updates, partnerships and strategic moves has made it more compelling than ever. 

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Barely two months into the year, and here we are with yet another exposé on the cesspool of content that programmatic ads bankroll. 

A decade into these recurring scandals, the reaction cycle is predictable: outrage, disbelief and a flood of finger-wagging — this time, even from U.S. senators. 

Usually, this would be the part where someone unpacks the convoluted mechanics of ad tech to explain why it keeps happening. 

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S4 Capital CEO Martin Sorrell is treating the Omnicom-IPG deal like a piñata — and he’s not short on swings. Ever since the deal was announced, he’s been relentless in picking it apart, repeatedly questioning Omnicom’s rationale.

His latest swing came at the Ad Tech Economic Forum in London yesterday (Feb. 6) where he once again questioned whether Omnicom CEO John Wren would ever get his money’s worth — especially when his rivals at Publicis Groupe didn’t think IPG was worth the $13 billion price tag.

“If it’s true what [Maurice] Levy and [Arthur] Sadoun said — that they weren’t interested [in IPG] — then [IPG CEO Philippe] Krakowsky caught Wren with his trousers down,” mused Sorrell.

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President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs were supposed to take effect today (February 4), forcing marketers to once again rethink their budgets. But at the last minute, most of them were put on hold — a reminder that in this environment, nothing is certain until it actually happens.

For weeks, businesses had been bracing for higher costs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China, with marketers weighing the ripple effects on pricing, demand and strategy. Now, instead of adjusting to a new reality, they’re stuck in limbo, unsure if these tariffs will resurface next week, next month or disappear altogether.

It’s just the latest example of how unpredictable President Trump is.  Tariffs aren’t just an economic policy under his administration, they’re a bargaining chip, a political weapon, and, at times, a headline-grabbing threat. Marketers can’t afford to overreact every time one is announced, but they also can’t ignore the possibility that the next one might actually stick.

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Publishers taking charge of programmatic has always been a mirage — enticing but elusive. In 2025, though, that mirage feels a little closer, a little more real.

While full control may still be a long shot, a growing number of publishers are starting to take a firmer grip on the programmatic reins — if they’re willing to confront a hard truth: Sometimes, the problem isn’t the system but themselves.

For too long, publishers assumed they were powerless to fix programmatic’s deep flaws. Instead, they leaned on ad tech vendors to mend a broken system.

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Anyone waiting for Google to drop a game-changing cookie update can go ahead and breathe — its not coming with this one.

If anything, the latest details on how the Chrome browser will ask users if they want to be tracked by third-party cookies has only stirred up more questions than answers — par for the course at this point.

Speaking yesterday (Jan. 27) at the IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Springs, California, Anthony Chavez, Google’s vp of Privacy Sandbox, explained that the choice will come via a “one-time global prompt,” with the industry getting several months to prepare before it goes live.

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Publishing businesses like the LADBible Group aren’t supposed to be thriving. They depend on ad dollars and platform traffic in an era where brands are skittish about news and platforms barely acknowledge publishers. 

And yet, LADBible Group, known for its youth-focused content, is defying the odds. Its revenue has tripled in five years, soaring from £30 million in 2020 to £90 million today. Advertising has been the driving force, accounting for 98% of the group’s revenue. Meanwhile, its audience surged 19% in the first nine months of 2024, surpassing half a billion people (503 million).

Digiday sat down with LADBible Group CEO Solly Solomou to uncover what’s next for the publishing group, which owns titles such as LADBible, SPORTBible, Betches Media, in the year ahead.

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More advertisers are turning to Amazon’s ad tech as their mainstay for programmatic buying — not just for Amazon’s own media properties, but increasingly for ads across the wider web too.

The reason, according to vp of Amazon Ads Kelly MacLean, is simple: “They’re now using Amazon DSP as their primary DSP.”

While there’s no hard data to back up this claim, it aligns with a growing body of anecdotal evidence over the past year. Once seen as an instrument for pushing product listings, Amazon’s DSP has evolved into a versatile ad buying platform, vying for market share against heavyweights like Google’s DV360 and The Trade Desk.

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In advertising circles, a quiet theory has been gaining traction: The Trade Desk, it’s said, isn’t exactly enamored with curation — a targeting strategy that could redirect valuable ad spend elsewhere. This week’s acquisition of Sincera added fuel to the narrative. But The Trade Desk has dismissed the rumors outright.

As vp of inventory development Will Doherty put it plainly: “We don’t think a lot about curation.”

Instead, the deal, according to Doherty, is aimed at something far more ambitious. 

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The Trade Desk intends to acquire ad data firm Sincera, marking only its second acquisition since it launched in 2009 — a rare move for a company that usually builds, not buys. 

Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but when the deal closes, expected in the first quarter, Sincera’s co-founder and CEO, Mike O’Sullivan, will report directly to The Trade Desk’s CEO, Jeff Green.

Why The Trade Desk acquisition breaks its ‘build over buy’ habit 

The move arms the ad tech vendor with more data to convince publishers that ads running through its platform outperform the rest of the programmatic market. In fact, Sincera’s data powered The Trade Desk’s recent “Sellers and Publishers,” spotlighting where advertising value is migrating across the premium, open internet. 

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For most advertisers, programmatic advertising is a one-stop shop: log into a demand-side platform (DSP), place your bids and call it a day. 

Mars Petcare, however, is doing things differently.

When it comes to CTV, it’s using a supply-side platform — the tool publishers normally use to manage ad sales — to buy ads directly, skipping the usual DSP route altogether. 

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Meta is borrowing a page from Elon Musk’s X on free speech and censorship, but advertisers aren’t hitting the panic button — yet. 

For now, they’ve brushed off Meta’s decision to scrap its U.S. fact-checking program in favor of a community notes system reminiscent of X’s and to loosen restrictions on contentious topics like immigration and gender identity. 

Instead, marketers are in wait-and see mode, hoping for clearer guidance on what content Meta will still police. So far, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has offered them little beyond vague assurances, leaving the details up in the air.

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One subplot worth tracking as M&A ramps up this year: brand advertising — or, more accurately, its metamorphosis into a marketing-entertainment mashup.

The days of this being mere theory are over. WPP teaming up with Universal Music Group for ad-fueled entertainment, talent agencies muscling into the ad industry, and the rise of new players like Common Interest all make one thing clear: the brand dollars are no longer waiting — they’re already there and moving fast.

“For a long while, we’ve been witnessing the death of the campaign and the birth of the cultural moment. Traditional advertising is entertainment’s understudy, while brands are learning merely to be protagonists in culture stories,” James Kirkham, co-founder of brand consultancy Iconic, explained.

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Every December, the industry churns out breathless predictions about what’s next in media and advertising. Spoiler alert: most of it won’t happen. 

Unified CTV measurement? Influencers with integrity? Ad tech that’s not a black hole for your budget? Dream on. 

Instead of joining the prediction parade, let’s talk about the things we know won’t materialize in 2025 — because some traditions are just too persistent to break.

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This year, chatter concerning mergers and acquisitions is all about whether 2025 will spark a deal frenzy across advertising and ad tech. Here’s the twist: the deal flow never really dried up in 2024.

In fact, the year kicked off with LiveRamp snapping up Habu for $200 million, and the pace of dealmaking steadily picked up — though it never quite became a flood.

Month after month of 2024 delivered notable deals, from Walmart’s February acquisition of Vizio to Outbrain’s August purchase of Teads.

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Agencies aren’t platforms — and they never will be. Let’s not kid ourselves. 

At best, they’ve dabbled in platform cosplay; a pinch of data here, a smidge of recurring revenue there. 

But the idea that they’re about to shed their old-school holding company identity? Wishful thinking. Still, it’s a myth that just won’t die, enthusiastically recycled by holding company CEOs for years.

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For 2025, Uber Advertising is sticking with what works: scaling up markets, doubling down on programmatic and adding new formats, according to Paul Wright, its head of international advertising. No need to fix what isn’t broken — especially when the ride-hailing app turned ads business already humming along.

So much so that the business hit a 1 billion annual net revenue run rate earlier this summer.. That’s double its 2022 run rate of $500 million. An impressive milestone for an ad business that’s just two years old.

And the way things are going, more milestones are bound to fall in 2025.

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Originally published on Nov. 15, 2024, this article has been updated to include an explainer video featuring interviews with industry executives filmed during the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit in December 2024.

After several years of fits and starts, curation in ad tech is finally having its moment in the spotlight. 

And if you need a clear sign of its mainstream arrival, even Google is jumping on board.

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