Quo Vadis: Advertising Economic Forum Podcast

Quo Vadis: Advertising Economic Forum Podcast with Dan Salmon

Episode Summary

Equity research analyst Dan Salmon, discusses the evolving digital advertising landscape, highlighting the challenges facing AdTech companies on the open web as "walled gardens" like Google, Meta, and Amazon continue to dominate. The conversation covers key trends, including the shift to connected TV (CTV), the potential for AI in advertising, and strategic corporate moves by major players like Trade Desk and Criteo.

Episode Notes

💡Takeaways:

• 🛡️ Walled Garden Advantages: The business models of walled gardens are considered superior due to their use of first-party data, simplified advertising solutions, and inherent advantages in user identity and consent.
• 📺 CTV's Strategic Importance: Connected TV (CTV) is a key strategic growth area for ad tech companies, with Trade Desk, for example, successfully shifting its focus to this sector over the last four to five years.
• 🤝 Partnerships over Exclusivity: The lines between the open web and walled gardens are blurring, as evidenced by partnerships like the Netflix-Amazon DSP collaboration, which suggests a growing trend toward interoperability over exclusivity in the DSP space.
• 🤖 AI and Automation: Advertisers, especially smaller businesses, are increasingly drawn to the simplicity and efficiency of automated solutions like Google's Performance Max and Meta's Advantage+ suite, which are powered by AI.
• 🛍️ Rise of "Hedge Gardens": Retail media networks are emerging as a new type of "hedge garden" that combines the benefits of both open web and walled gardens by leveraging logged-in users, commerce data, and strong conversion signals.
• 📈 The Durable Ad Network Model: The fundamental ad network model remains durable and continues to reinvent itself as user attention shifts to new platforms, such as AI chatbot applications.
• ⚖️ Antitrust's Influence: Ongoing legal and regulatory actions against companies like Google are shaping the AdTech landscape, influencing partnerships and highlighting the need for more interoperability and transparency.

📚Bookmarks:

Market Dynamics in AdTech 00:02:42 

Trade Desk's Strategic Pivot to CTV 6:54 

Challenges in CTV Advertising 10:11 

Business Models: Open Web vs. Walled Gardens 15:44 

Criteo and Google Partnership 19:12 

Criteo's Assets and Positioning 25:20 

Outbrain's Acquisition of Teeds 29:34 

Magnite vs. PubMatic Performance 34:19 

Perplexity's Ad Strategy Shift 42:06

🎙 Guest: Dan Salmon

🎤 Host: Tom Triscari

📺 Sponsors: DoubleVerify & Anonymised