AdExchanger

Understanding MCP, The ‘Universal Adapter’ For AI In Advertising | AdExchanger Your TL;DR on MCP, the open standard that lets AI models connect to tools, remember context and run workflows across platforms.

Ad tech’s newest acronym: MCP.

Allison Schiff, Managing Editor, AdExchanger, explains how Model Context Protocol acts as the plumbing for AI — letting models connect to tools and data across platforms.

It could help AI move beyond single tools and operate across the ad tech stack.

#AI #AdTech

We publish a weekly ad-tech comic.
This week, you write the punchline. 🤖

Enter our Comic Caption Contest to win a free ticket to Programmatic AI (May 18–20, Vegas) 🎰

Submit by 3/9, 5pm ET.
Top 3 go to a vote.
Winner runs 3/13.

What broke the robot this time? 💬
utm.guru/ul8nw

#AdExchanger #AdTech

How The Minnesota Star Tribune Protects Advertisers While Covering ICE Crackdowns | AdExchanger Amid a federal crackdown and local unrest, Minnesota’s biggest newsroom is proving brand safety and hard news can coexist.

Hard news ≠ easy monetization. 📰⚡

Andrew Byrd explores how the Minnesota Star Tribune handled brand safety, campaign pauses & advertiser trust while covering difficult local stories — and what it reveals about the future of news monetization.

How To Dominate March Madness With Show-Level Data | AdExchanger At the risk of getting dorky with sports metaphors, DTC agency Rain the Growth already has a game plan to make sure its programmatic placements are a slam dunk.

March Madness is coming — and programmatic CTV buyers are getting more precise 🏀

Victoria McNally, Associate Editor, AdExchanger, looks at how show-level metadata is helping advertisers improve performance, lower costs, and rethink assumptions about live sports audiences.

#CTV #AdTech #SportsMedia

Retail media is shifting from clicks to conversations. 🛒💬

At IAB ALM, @lynneluvah.bsky.social, sat down with Brian Monahan of Albertsons Media Collective to talk conversational AI, incrementality, and why building modern in-store media is “not for the faint of heart.”

📽️ Full convo: utm.guru/ulbRP

AI Made A Record Play During Super Bowl LIX | AdExchanger Bad Bunny’s halftime show aside, AI companies stole the spotlight on Super Bowl Sunday, from Anthropic and OpenAI to Salesforce and Meta.

The Super Bowl wasn’t just about football — it was about AI’s image problem 🤖🏟️

Anthropic roasted chatbot ads while others leaned into “AI humanism.” Alyssa Boyle explains why trust, productivity and authenticity were the real battlegrounds.

#AI #AdTech #SuperBowl #GenerativeAI #Media

The Publisher Path Through AI | AdExchanger At the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting this week, IAB CEO David Cohen demanded publishers receive payment from AI companies who are taking their content. As publishers grapple with AI redirecting the at...

AI bots are up. Human traffic is down.

In this episode of The Big Story🎙️: why publishers see AI scraping as a crisis, what’s top of mind for 2026, and the quiet issue lurking beneath it all.

🎧 Listen now.

What’s your read on where this is headed?

#AdExchanger #AI #Publishing

IAB’s New AI Regulations Give Advertisers A Starting Point – But Plenty Of Questions Remain | AdExchanger The IAB's new framework aims to standardize when AI in ads should be disclosed, but a lot is still left up to interpretation.

AI disclosures sound simple — until they’re not.

Joanna Gerber on the IAB’s new framework and why deciding what counts as “deceptive” AI still isn’t black and white.

#AdExchanger #AIAds #AdTech #AI

Alphabet Can Outgrow Everything Else, But Can It Outgrow Ads? | AdExchanger Describing Google’s revenue growth has become a problem, as it so vastly outpaces the human capacity to understand large numbers and percentage growth rates. Since the company reported total revenue f...

Google’s numbers are massive. The narrative is shifting.

James Hercher on why Alphabet’s growth is increasingly tied to AI and cloud — not just advertising.

#AdExchanger #Google #AI #AdTech

AdExchanger Comic: Cartoon depiction of football game with text that says RTB Bowl

RTB Bowl www.adexchanger.com/comic-strip/...

The Super Bowl Is A ‘Performance Trigger’ For Marketers | AdExchanger Marketers are extending their Super Bowl campaigns beyond the Big Game, seeking proof of performance to justify their investments.

Super Bowl ads aren’t just about eyeballs anymore.

Alyssa Boyle on how marketers are stretching Big Game campaigns into multi-week performance plays.

#CTV #SuperBowl #AdExchanger

IAB CEO David Cohen: 'The Health of the Publisher Community is Critical to the Health of Our Overall Business.' | AdExchanger IAB CEO David Cohen tore into AI companies, accusing them of “free riding” on publishers’ work – and calling it “stealing.”

IAB CEO: No publishers, no content. No content, no industry.

Sarah Sluis on the IAB’s publisher stance, AI compensation push and why standardization is back in focus.

#IAB #Publishers #AdExchanger

Bob Iger’s (Maybe?) Parting Gift To Disney: No More Reporting Subscriber Numbers | AdExchanger Last quarter, Disney’s SVOD services grew 11% year-over-year to more than $5 billion, driven by growth in both subscription and advertising revenue.

Disney isn’t chasing more IP. It’s chasing margin, ads and app unification.

AdExchanger Associate Editor, Victoria McNally on what Disney’s latest earnings reveal about the state of streaming and advertising.

#Disney #Streaming #AdExchanger

The IAB Formalizes Its Measurement Initiatives Under Its New ‘Project Eidos’ | AdExchanger For online advertisers, managing campaign these days can feel like flying blind in a black box. No wonder ad buyers are so willing to hand the keys off to AI copilots and bots. And little wonder, too,...

Measurement still feels like a black box.

James Hercher, Senior Editor, AdExchanger on IAB’s Project Eidos and why harmonizing definitions across channels is step one toward fixing it.

#AdMeasurement #IAB #AdTech

What The FTC’s Focus On Age Verification Means For Privacy | AdExchanger Efforts to police children's data online are running up against the limits of decades-old privacy laws, such as COPPA.

Age verification isn’t theoretical anymore — regulators are moving.

Allison Schiff, Managing Editor, AdExchanger on the FTC’s latest signals, COPPA’s limits and why privacy-by-design is becoming table stakes.

#Privacy #COPPA #AdTech #ChildSafety

‘I Am A Lucky And Thankful Man’: Remembering OpenX CEO John ‘JG’ Gentry | AdExchanger To those who knew him, John “JG” Gentry wasn’t just a CEO. He was a colleague who showed up with genuine care and curiosity.

💙 Remembering John “JG” Gentry, former OpenX CEO.

A leader who fought big industry battles — and showed up even bigger for his people.

Read the tribute 👇
What’s a leadership moment you’ll never forget?

#adtech #leadership #OpenX

Meta Bets That Its Ad Machine Can Fund Its AI Dreams | AdExchanger Meta is channeling its booming ad revenue into a $135 billion AI drive to power its “personal superintelligence” future.

🤖 Big AI ambitions.
💰 Even bigger ads business.

Meta is building AI not just for futuristic products — but to optimize ad ranking, retrieval and performance.

Smart long-term move?

#adtech #AI #digitalads #bigtech

For Ancestry, The Biggest First-Party Data Challenge Is Knowing How To Use It Responsibly | AdExchanger Ad operations don’t always get easier when a publisher has a strong first-party data foundation to build on. Ancestry.com can attest to that.

Strong first-party data can actually make ad ops harder.

At Ancestry, subscriptions, privacy and community expectations drive engagement-based segmentation and lighter ad loads — not maxed-out impressions.

How are you navigating monetization vs. user trust?

#adops #adtech #publishing #privacy

New Tool From AirOps Looks At Search Performance From Every Angle | AdExchanger AirOps' new Page360 platform helps brands update their content to better perform across traditional search, AI search and online forums.

AI search is reshaping SEO — and brands need better ways to measure it.

Joanna Gerber breaks down how AirOps’ Page360 connects Google search, AI search and community data into one view.

How are you thinking about GEO right now?

#AI #SEO #AdTech

Microsoft To Stop Caching Prebid Video Files, Leaving Publishers With A Major Ad Serving Problem | AdExchanger Most publishers have no idea that a major part of their video ad delivery will stop working on January 31, roughly one month before Microsoft shuts down the Xandr DSP. For publishers that rely on Preb...

A quiet change could break a lot of Prebid video.

When Microsoft ends free Prebid video caching Jan. 31, many Prebid + GAM video ads may start returning VAST errors.

James Hercher breaks down what’s happening and what publishers can do.

#AdTech #Prebid #Publishers

A Jury Orders EDO To Pay $18.3 Million To iSpot Over Data Misuse | AdExchanger A jury awarded $18.3 million to ad measurement firm iSpot to resolve its lawsuit against EDO, a measurement company co-founded by Ed Norton.

Video ad measurement, but make it legal drama ⚖️📺

A jury awarded $18.3M to iSpot in its lawsuit against EDO, putting trust, transparency and data use in the spotlight. Alyssa Boyle (AdExchanger) reports, the case shows how fierce the measurement wars have become.

New Startup Pinch AI Tackles The Growing Problem Of Ecommerce Return Scams | AdExchanger Fraud is eating into retail profits. A new startup called Pinch AI just launched with $5 million in funding to fight back.

Q1 is return season — and return fraud season.

First-party scams are draining ecommerce margins and forcing retailers to rethink return policies and targeting. James Hercher breaks down what’s changing.

How should brands balance trust and risk? → https://utm.guru/ujxXm

Don’t Let These Privacy Shifts Blindside You In 2026 | AdExchanger What’s one data privacy shift or regulation that will most reshape digital advertising in 2026 – and who will be most unprepared for it?

🍪 We’re done talking about cookies.

Allison Schiff looks ahead to the privacy shifts that will actually reshape advertising in 2026 — from AI governance to youth data laws.

#Privacy #AdTech #AI

No Waiting for May – CES Is Where The TV Upfront Season Starts  | AdExchanger If any single event can be considered the jumping-off point for TV upfronts, it’s the Consumer Electronics Showcase (CES), which kicks off this week in Las Vegas, Nevada.

📺 Upfronts don’t wait for May.

CES is now where TV, streaming and ad tech strategy take shape for the year. Victoria McNally explains why it’s become the true kickoff.

#CES #Upfronts #CTV #AdTech

From AI To SPO: The Top 10 AdExchanger Guest Columns Of 2025 | AdExchanger Here's a rundown of AdExchanger's top 10 most popular guest columns of 2025 and why they resonated with digital ad industry insiders.

2025 was a spicy year for ad tech.

DSP vs. SSP fights, AI reality checks, brand safety debates and SPO dominated the discourse. Anthony Vargas rounds up AdExchanger’s most-read guest columns of the year.

❄️🎉 As we wrap up 2025, we’re grateful for the AdExchanger community — readers, listeners, attendees, and subscribers.

Thanks for being part of the conversation. Here’s to innovation and growth in 2026.

Happy Holidays from all of us at AdExchanger! ✨
#HappyHolidays #AdExchanger

NBCUniversal Bets On Ads That React In Real Time | AdExchanger 2026 is going to be a big year for NBCUniversal, which is is throwing a lot of things at the wall – or, rather, the screen.

NBCU is gearing up for a huge 2026 📺 — from the Olympics to the Super Bowl and World Cup.

Victoria McNally (AdExchanger) looks at how real-time contextual ads, new CTV formats and smarter measurement could redefine live TV advertising.

#CTV #AdTech #Streaming

The Trade Desk Lays Off Staff One Year After Its Last Major Reorg | AdExchanger The Trade Desk is cutting its workforce. A company spokesperson confirmed the news with AdExchanger. The layoffs affect less than 1% of the company.

The Trade Desk is making another small workforce cut 📉 as it continues to adjust after last year’s major reorg.

Allison Schiff (Managing Editor, AdExchanger) looks at what this means amid AI ambitions 🤖, supply-chain debates and intensifying competition.

#AdTech #TheTradeDesk

Albertsons Launches New Off-Site Click-to-Cart Tech | AdExchanger The grocery chain Albertsons is trying to reduce the time and number of clicks it takes to add an item to an online shopping cart. Its new click-to-cart product should help. On Monday, Albertsons Medi...

Albertsons is testing click-to-cart ads that drop items — even full shopping lists — straight into carts. 🛒

James Hercher (AdExchanger) looks at why reducing clicks may be key to retail media performance.

Is frictionless commerce becoming table stakes?
#RetailMedia #Ecommerce #AdTech

It’s Getting A Bit Easier To Find Amazon Shoppers On Samsung TVs | AdExchanger Samsung Ads built a new integration with Amazon Publisher Cloud (APC), which is a clean room solution within the larger Amazon Publisher Suite (APS), the companies announced on Monday.

Samsung Ads is integrating with Amazon Publisher Cloud 📺🔗, linking CTV and shopping data through clean rooms 🔐

Victoria McNally (AdExchanger) looks at what this says about the future of data sharing.

Are clean rooms becoming ad tech’s new connective tissue? 🤔
#AdTech #CTV #CleanRooms