The digital advertising industry has always been eager to create standards that simplify complexity. Taxonomies-structured systems for labeling content and products-are one such attempt. And while the IAB Tech Lab's new guidance to connect Content Taxonomy 2.1 with Ad Product Taxonomy 2.0 represents progress, it also raises a fundamental question: Is this really the evolution we need? Or is it just a neater version of a system that no longer fits the reality of how people engage with content?
Advertising's AI revolution had the sell side in an existential crisis at AdMonsters' Sell Side Summit in Austin, Texas, this week. Publishers commiserated about traffic declines of 30% or higher since AI search tools like ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews hit the market. To put the traffic problem in perspective, sports-focused publisher On3 impressed attendees by sharing that its audience growth this year was flat compared to last year.
Tubi is working with IRIS.TV, a contextual targeting company acquired by Viant last November, to tag much of its on-demand content for emotional or thematic content, using categories like "joyful" or "travel." The idea is that advertisers will be able to invest, at a more granular level, against inventory that is suitable for their brands and avoid TV that isn't.
Is programmatic really broken-or just in need of a reset? In this episode of Inside the Stack, Yieldmo founder and CEO Mike Yavonditte joins AdExchanger head of communities Lynne d Johnson to unpack the misalignments between DSPs, agencies, and buyers that fuel inefficiency across the chain. He makes the case for "radical control and radical transparency," giving advertisers page-level insight before they place a bid.
On Wednesday, Cognitiv released the latest version of ContextGPT, which allows brands to provide more detailed and specific targeting parameters in order to optimize ad performance, Aaron Andalman, co-founder and chief science officer of Cognitiv, told AdExchanger. Brand suitability used to rely solely on keywords, said Andalman, but Cognitiv's technology understands content situationally based on how words are being used.
