By Digiday Editors • May 9, 2025 •
This article is part of a series covering our Programmatic Marketing Summit. More from the series →
It’s late April/early May, and in any given year of the ad industry’s calendar, that means three concurrent series of events are taking place… in no particular order of importance, they are:
- The NewFronts/upfront season
- January-quarter earnings calls
- Digiday’s spring conference series
In one, those pitching their wares on Madison Avenue make lofty promises about media quality and performance. Meanwhile, in the second series of events, the CEOs and CFOs of such outfits attempt to show Wall Street they are making good on their fiduciary obligations.
In the latter, any disconnect between the former two categories is called out by disgruntled customers who can often feel they come off second-best as public companies attempt to juggle the two sets of obligations.
The above dynamic played out at Digiday’s Programmatic Marketing Summit (DPMS) earlier this week. So, let’s examine the relevant Q1 results to gain perspective on this weeping and gnashing of teeth.
- Analysts fawned over Alphabet’s Q1 results, with its stock price increasing despite ongoing antitrust cases and U-turns on one of its biggest projects of the 2020s.
- Despite short-seller reports alleging multiple nefarious practices, AppLovin’s stock popped on Q1 earnings of $1.5 billion.
- The Trade Desk’s cratering stock price after its Q1 earnings miss has many fearing its prices will soar to help it recoup revenues.
At DPMS (May 5 to 7), Google’s recent U-turn around third-party cookies in Chrome, and its impact on the industry, was the ghost at the feast. Several participants noted how the latest development highlights Google’s lack of a clear plan and its challenges of making everyone happy, as demonstrated by its struggles with global regulators.
However, some noted that clients are more focused on their own data and first-party data rather than third-party cookies, with several declining to debate Chrome’s “cookie crunch” further in self-directed sessions.
With the upfront season on the horizon, the challenges of CTV and the need for transparency in targeting and measurement were more popular debates, particularly the need for transparency in show-level data to justify the prices on offer. Additionally, the need for (or lack of) differentiation between demand-side platforms and retail media networks was a common sentiment among the 300-plus attendees.
Town hall testimonies
Media agency participants engaged in one town hall session, conducted under Chatham House Rules, collectively said, “We come second-best once ad tech and platforms go public, then hidden fees, etc., become more common, and it feels like our trade orgs do nothing.”
Simply put, many media agency attendees, particularly those from independent companies, claimed they felt used and abused, as ad tech outfits are increasingly making a play for direct relationships with their clients. This is especially the case as ad budget growth stalls, and publicly traded outfits attempt bid to maintain their stock price.
Several town hall participants, including those from agency holding company outfits, expressed a desire to evaluate their DSP partnerships and explore opportunities to shift more spend to more favorable, i.e., transparent, platforms that better align with client needs.
Industry politics
However, politics often impedes such desire, with joint business plans and holding company executives’ conflicts of interest cited as common obstacles to genuine game-changing efforts. In this environment, fee structures can escalate, from DSPs and platforms alike.
“The amount of value the middlemen, with their DSP and SSP fees, are extracting greatly exceeds the value they’re providing,” said one participant. “Collectively, we’ve all let this middle layer grow; that’s imposing a giant tax with very little in return.”
If they actually did the right thing to improve and eliminate issues like MFA… then they’re going to lose
DPMS town hall paarticipant
For many, it’s amid this dynamic that obsequious acceptance of platforms’ results is accepted. And, as recent research published by entities such as Adalytics highlights, ad tech and platforms alike require scrutiny, as advertisers’ budgets are not the only things at risk.
“All of these companies are public, and if they actually did the right thing to improve and eliminate issues like MFA, which is maybe 20% to 40% of their revenue, then they’re going to lose,” noted another in the town hall. “As a public company, if they stop things like that, then I can’t imagine what would happen, just look at what happens to their price when they can’t show growth.”
One participant even suggested that the industry bodies instituted to advocate for their interests may be compromised in this milieu, with several attendees noting the financial support outfits such as Google and Meta provide to entities such as the ANA and IAB, etc.
“Anyone [such as a trade group] that’s pushed for open measurement, we’ve found that they [Big Tech platforms] have pushed against it,” observed another town hall participant. “I’ve never seen them come out in support of anything that makes change.”
If you feel strongly about any of the issues discussed above, then feel free to get in touch – no PR pitches please.
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