The latest ad fiasco might suggest otherwise, but some marketers are finally shedding one of their deepest programmatic misconceptions.

Turns out, fixating on low-fee supply chains, or prioritizing ad tech intermediaries with the cheapest fees, was never the magic fix they hoped for. If anything, it’s looking more like a game of chasing rebates than a revolution in efficiency.

The cracks started showing when the math stopped adding up. 

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Curation has its fair share of skeptics but Index Exchange CEO Andrew Casale isn’t one of them. He sees it as the biggest shake-up in programmatic advertising since header bidding — maybe even bigger.

In his view, curation’s impact could rival that of open RTB, not just header bidding. His reasoning: while header bidding was a technical shift, curation is fundamentally about economics.

“Curation will be bigger than header bidding and as big as programmatic or RTB — that’s our bet,” Casale said at the Prebid Ascent event in London yesterday (March 4).

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Amazon’s grip on TV advertising keeps tightening, and now it’s gunning for the industry’s biggest payouts: upfront commitments and scatter market budgets. To do so, it’s launching Complete TV, a tool designed to make the notoriously convoluted process of managing those investments as seamless as clicking “Add to Cart”.

The pitch is simple: Complete TV gives AI-powered recommendations to help TV buyers optimize their spending across Prime Video and other premium streaming publishers. They do this by inputting their campaign details and target audiences, and, in theory, Amazon’s machine-learning models take care of the rest, allocating spend in real-time across both linear and streaming TV.

For marketers, this kind of automation tackles a persistent industry headache: delivering on upfront commitments in full. Historically, shifting audience behavior, inconsistent measurement and last-minute inventory fluctuations have made it difficult for advertisers to spend exactly as planned. So much so, in fact, that they often find themselves scrambling to move money into the scatter market to fill shortfalls — or worse, wasting budget on redundant reach. 

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A year ago News U.K. replaced brand safety heavyweight Integral Ad Science with a little-known company called Illuma. So far, the gamble is paying off. 

The publisher has increased its brand safe ad inventory by up to 20%, up from 16% just six months ago. 

“We’ve created more ad inventory that we know is brand safe,” said Charlie Celino, head of strategic development at News U.K, without revealing exact figures.

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When consultant Matt Ryan emerged from last month’s meeting with the CEOs of Omnicom and IPG, one thought stuck with him. Between their fanfare over the proposed union and the swift clap backs from rivals, it’s clear the holding company era is finished. The future belongs to operating companies, where agencies function as a cohesive whole rather than a collection of loosely connected firms.

“I came away from it [the meeting] thinking they’re really pitching this new company as a unified one — they’re really going to operate it like, like, one big company as opposed to lots of smaller ones,” said Ryan, founder of advertising consulting firm Roth Ryan Hayes.

If all this sounds familiar it’s because agency CEOs have been preaching the gospel of operating models for years. Some have inched closer to the ideal, but none have quite nailed the landing — yet. That’s why all eyes are on Omnicom’s planned acquisition of IPG. Should it all go through, it’ll be another test of whether agency leaders can finally break free from the holding company playbook — or just rewrite it.

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The squeeze on agency holding companies keeps getting tighter. WPP’s year-end revenue slump, paired with lackluster outlook for 2025, is just the latest twist in an ongoing identity crisis for legacy ad giants. In fact, things have gotten so dire that holdco CEOs have mastered a specialized dialect, one designed to downplay their troubles while keeping investors from panicking.

Here’s a guide to what they say versus what they really (might) mean.

What they say: “We are in a period of transformation.”
What they mean: “We have no idea how to fix this, but we’ll throw around words like ‘AI’ and ‘efficiency’ until the next earnings call.”

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Independent agencies have discovered their latest edge over the big guys: better tech. 

They’re hiring CTOs, spinning up their own tech platforms, even reselling third-party tech they don’t own. Forget scale and leverage — the indie pitch now is agility, innovation and a tech playbook nimble enough to charm advertisers who don’t need (or want) the big agency industrial complex.

“If I were starting an agency tomorrow then one of the first roles I’d hire would be a chief technology officer,” said Robin Skidmore, founder and CEO of performance marketing agency Journey Further.

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Commerce media is having a moment — and with a market expected to exceed $112 billion in 2025, according to the Winterberry Group, it’s easy to see why. But people keep mixing up retail media and connected commerce, casually swapping one buzzword for the other. They share some DNA, but conflating them is like mistaking the cashier for the entire store.

Here’s why commerce media is its own beast, and how marketers are finally waking up to it. 

What is connected commerce?

Connected commerce is the holy grail of seamless shopping, blending online and offline experiences so shoppers can browse and buy wherever they are. Think of it as a fully integrated ecosystem: tying together everything happening on the retailer’s site or app with the behind-the-scenes data and tech driving transactions, then layering that into the in-store experience right down to the cooler screens and promotional offers.

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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 Prime.” 

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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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