#programmatic-advertising

#programmatic-advertising

Marketing news publisher sites on the open internet are an untapped opportunity for advertisers. So, why aren't they investing in them more? The Drum sits down with leaders from Onyx by Outbrain and Adelaide, to find out.

Men's Wearhouse developed an audio-only campaign with its measurement and media agency, Ovative Group, and activated it through The Trade Desk's Kokai platform. The core message of the campaign was that 'you can get whatever you need at Men's Wearhouse,' highlighting three parts of the brand's offerings: its 'everywhere look' for a typical day, suits and wedding attire.

Nancy's unparalleled background and visionary leadership make her the definitive choice to lead WPP Media U.S. Her exceptional track record as a transformative leader in data, technology, programmatic, and analytics has consistently delivered impactful client results, aligning perfectly with our strategic priorities across WPP. This deep expertise, honed in building modern, tech-enabled client organizations, is precisely what WPP Media needs to accelerate our momentum.

There's been a narrative that our margin or take rate must compress because other platforms offer lower upfront prices for non-decisioned, non-data-driven buying. But TTD has maintained a take rate of more than 20% even as CTV (a category with generally lower take rates for tech intermediaries) grows as a share of spend.

Advertisers need partners who don't just talk about transparency and accountability but deliver it. Adform's willingness to work with advertisers on these terms makes them a valued partner to ISBA as we seek to empower advertisers with a greater understanding of the media landscape, and how to make it accountable to advertiser objectives.

Programmatic buying won the last decade because it made media cheaper to transact and easier to scale. That bet paid off. EMarketer projects programmatic will account for effectively all net-new display ad dollars in 2025, underscoring just how fully automation has become the default operating system for digital advertising. But programmatic's biggest promise was never automation for its own sake. It was accountability. Spend a dollar, see what it did, then adjust quickly.

As marketing ecosystems grow more complex and accountability pressures increase, programmatic advertising is at a pivotal moment. Brands and agencies are being asked to justify marketing budgets faster, optimize more precisely and demonstrate impact when campaigns are still active, not weeks after budgets are depleted. However, many programmatic workflows remain rooted in post-campaign analysis. Activation happens in one place, measurement in another and insight arrives only after outcomes are set.

"We're an American heritage brand," noted Stephanie Sandkvist, head of retail media and Amazon at Groupe SEB, All-Clad's parent company. As such, the chance to run ads in front of audiences cheering on Team U.S.A. during ice hockey or ski jump events without having to invest in a sponsorship or expensive linear package was a "no brainer," she said. It's a milestone event for the business.

"Our vision is to build a powerful technological and media-driven arm to break out of Overwolf Ads' closed ecosystem, expand its reach, and create unrivalled value in the gaming ad tech space," said Eyal Betzalel, COO of Overwolf Ads. "Overwolf has extraordinary assets in gaming. The opportunity now is to connect those assets to the broader programmatic ecosystem in a way that preserves quality, brand safety,

Programmatic has become almost synonymous with opacity. Each platform has its own rules for running ad auctions, which means advertisers and publishers often don't know what's happening behind the scenes. To shine a light into those black boxes, the Media Rating Council (MRC) released new standards last week for digital ad auction transparency alongside a new voluntary certification for platforms that adhere to them.

Intent IQ, a privacy-first identity resolution company, today (3rd February, 2026) announced a partnership with Raptive to deploy Intent IQ's Bid Enhancement offering across Raptive's publisher network. Through the partnership, Raptive will integrate Intent IQ's Bid Enhancement to improve bid performance and monetisation across both environments where traditional identifiers are present-such as cookie-based browsers like Chrome-and environments where identifiers are limited or unavailable, including iOS and other ID-less inventory.

Today's programmatic landscape has fractured into a maze of silos, proprietary ecosystems and walled gardens, each one extracting value, controlling access and making it harder for marketers to see where their dollars actually go. Meanwhile, open internet programmatic, once the promised land of clarity and control, has been reduced to a fraction of the overall media mix. This wasn't inevitable. It was engineered.

As AI becomes central to programmatic advertising and powers agents, targeting models, and decisioning, the need for quality media, trusted data, and secure, adaptable infrastructure has never been greater. OpenX is investing across product and strategy to build the intelligence required to simplify programmatic while delivering stronger performance. These leadership appointments reinforce the company's commitment to making media work better for those who run it and those who experience it.