Digital advertising
MarTech is your source for digital advertising content. You’ll find a variety of up-to-date and authoritative resources, including the latest news, tactic-rich tutorials, and the latest data to help you work smarter and make better decisions.
What you read here is written by our experienced in-house team of editors and research professionals, and subject matter experts from leading brands and agencies.
Why we care:
Advertising isn’t just about growing brand awareness or planting a seed. Advertisers and their adtech partners can reach audiences big and small at any stage of the funnel, delivering cross-channel ads across multiple touchpoints. And they aren’t just using traditional demographics and ratings, they’re leveraging device-level or user-specific data, as well as contextual insights, to serve the right message to the right customer at the right time.
Don’t miss out! Get MarTech delivered daily to your inbox. Subscribe for free!
OpenAI testing third-party-style tracking in ChatGPT ads
A persistent identifier could improve ChatGPT ad measurement while creating new questions about consent and the personal data behind it.
Retail media is evolving. Here is what marketers should value now
Navigating fragmented retail media networks is exhausting. Discover how to evaluate key partners, prove incrementality, and build a cohesive commerce strategy.
IAB sets new standards for agentic buying and measurement
New frameworks aim to standardize how AI agents handle media proposals and how companies structure contracts for advertising measurement.
Your site migration needs a paid search playbook
Google’s organic migration guidance is extensive. Paid search advertisers need clearer answers about what changes, resets, and recalibrates.
AI is changing media faster than marketers can measure it
IAB finds advertisers spending more and adapting to AI-driven discovery, but their ability to measure those new customer journeys is lagging.
Google loses the ad monopoly case, but keeps the monopoly
A federal judge found Google illegally monopolized key ad-tech markets, but rejected the remedy that could have fundamentally reshaped them.
Run fewer incrementality tests and get more from them
Prioritize tests where uncertainty has real financial consequences, then use the results to guide decisions long after the test ends.
Marketing artificial intelligence (AI)
IAB updates standard for disclosing AI in ads
IAB’s updated framework draws the AI disclosure line around what changes consumer perceptions of authenticity, identity, and what’s real.
Programmatic video needs more visibility into AI-driven decisions
AI is making adtech decisions harder to see, putting pressure on platforms to explain outcomes and prove their value.
Marketing artificial intelligence (AI)
OpenAI adds technology to compete for ad dollars
Product carousels and AppsFlyer attribution give ChatGPT more of what performance marketers need to move beyond experimental ad buys.
Time’s AI-only ads may be marketing’s next frontier
Time is serving ads directly to AI crawlers, a strategy that could reshape how brands influence AI-generated answers.
StackAdapt rethinks DSPs for the post-dashboard world
Juggling endless dashboards drains your time. StackAdapt wants AI agents to transform ad workflows into real outcomes.
Your ad platforms may be reaching fewer customers than you think
As identity signals decline, match rate has become a critical metric for improving audience reach, advertising efficiency, and ROAS.
Marketers know what improves paid media ROI, but underinvest in it
New research found marketers invest in targeting, AI, and creative while neglecting the post-click experiences they say drive paid media ROI.
Web Push advertising in 2026: Market trends and challenges
A look at how Web Push advertising is adapting in 2026 through better compliance, stronger traffic quality, and more mature market growth.
Don’t confuse ad spend with marketing performance
More budget doesn't guarantee better results. The strongest campaigns prove they work before they scale.
Open source made MMM cheaper, not easier
Free tools have lowered the cost of marketing mix modeling, but data quality and human expertise remain the biggest barriers to success.
Digital video enters a new era of competition
Digital video now dominates TV ad spending, shifting marketers' focus from channel selection to targeting, measurement, and AI-powered execution.
What Meta’s broad targeting teaches us about optimization signals
The event you optimize for increasingly determines who algorithms find, how they allocate spend, and the business outcomes your campaigns produce.
Advertisers may finally see who really touches their bid requests
IAB Tech Lab's proposed SupplyChain v1.1 update could give advertisers a clearer view of every company that touches a programmatic bid request.
Gartner finds CMOs spending more on digital and acquisition
CMOs are spending more on digital media and acquisition as consumers grow more skeptical of AI-generated content and its value.
Marketing artificial intelligence (AI)
OpenAI tests multi-advertiser ad placements in ChatGPT
OpenAI is testing multi-advertiser placements in ChatGPT while adding new targeting and campaign tools that expand its ad platform.
Diversity and inclusion in marketing
Brands want to be in and out of the closet for Pride Month
Many brands ditched public Pride support while quietly continuing to market to LGBTQ+ consumers.
Marketing measurement is breaking under its own complexity
More tools, more channels, and more data have left many marketers struggling to connect activity to outcomes.
Marketing artificial intelligence (AI)
3 things you must know to get AI-native advertising right
Conversational AI is reshaping advertising through real-time recommendations, dynamic creative, and autonomous optimization.
IAB Tech Lab tackles the growing AI bot problem
New guidance from IAB Tech Lab aims to help publishers and content owners decide how to manage AI crawlers, bots, and other non-human traffic.
Consumers want AI ads with a human touch
New research finds consumers accept AI in marketing when it adds value, but many reject ads that feel generic, intrusive, or emotionally hollow.
Publicis buys LiveRamp to build agentic AI capabilities on proprietary data
Data was nice, but high-value, proprietary data you can use to train AI agents is even better.
4 questions you should ask to catch programmatic ad fraud
Programmatic fraud often hides behind opaque supply paths, weak verification, and poorly curated CTV inventory.
Why performance marketing needs more than ROAS
Return on ad spend can’t explain growth. Here’s how to evaluate marketing’s true contribution to business outcomes.
Digital video ad spend surges as AI and targeting reshape strategy
Digital video now more than 60% of TV and video spend, so advertisers are prioritizing AI, precision targeting, and measurable outcomes.
Why affiliate marketing still needs humans in the AI era
As AI reshapes martech, affiliate programs highlight where human expertise still drives performance and results.
Marketing artificial intelligence (AI)
Adobe and Canva releases push AI deeper into creative workflows
Adobe and Canva are rolling out AI tools that turn design into conversation, intensifying competition and reshaping how marketers create.
Google simplifies enhanced conversions in Ads
Google is streamlining enhanced conversions, improving accuracy while reducing setup complexity for advertisers
Why AI-driven creative is failing and how to fix it
From Coca-Cola to Svedka, poor execution is undermining AI-driven creative. Learn how to use genAI in ways that support storytelling.
Hightouch streamlines the ad ecosystem with data partnerships
Hightouch wants to cut out the middlemen and simplify the digital ad ecosystem by integrating data onboarding with the CDP.
Why digital audio is a must-have for your retail media plan
Digital audio is no longer a niche channel. Learn how streaming audio fits into media buying, from incremental reach to measurable performance.
What happens when ad spend goes wrong
Small mistakes in paid media can lead to massive losses, and ownership determines who absorbs the impact.
Why confidence, not performance, is shaping media spend
Marketing budgets are increasingly driven by what teams can defend, not just what performs, concentrating spend in a small set of trusted channels.
Marketing artificial intelligence (AI)
IAB proposes new payment rules for AI content access
The IAB Tech Lab’s new protocol aims to create payment rails for AI systems using publisher content, potentially reshaping how information is valued online.