Agencies tell Digiday that The Trade Desk (TTD) is softening its long-held stance on pricing, opening the door to fee negotiations as Amazon DSP gains traction with lower costs and competitive performance. Advertisers should revisit programmatic fee structures, elevate competitive benchmarking in annual planning, and negotiate for joint business plans that tie costs to incremental spend or measurable outcomes.

Global sports rights costs across streaming and TV will increase 20% by 2030, per an Ampere Analysis estimate. That growth will send the total cost of sports media rights to over $78 billion. Marketing around live sports is paramount because sporting events deliver reliable audiences and high ad effectiveness, especially on streaming platforms. Advertisers with tighter budgets might struggle as costs increase—but there are still opportunities to advertise around live sports without breaking budgets.

Generative AI is rapidly moving from novelty to necessity in advertising, collapsing production costs and timelines while expanding creative possibilities. National TV ads that once required six figures and weeks of work can now be made in days for a fraction of the budget, opening broadcast-quality campaigns to smaller advertisers. With nearly 90% of large video advertisers already adopting AI, use cases like personalization, ideation, and versioning are proliferating. Yet consumer skepticism remains strong—especially among older audiences—underscoring that human craft and cultural nuance still matter. The challenge ahead: merging automation’s efficiency with trust and authentic creativity at scale.

Trump spent less on social media and won anyway: An established political brand and shifting social landscape reduced the need to lean on social platforms.

Privacy Sandbox transition poses steep costs: Smaller advertisers are concerned that moving away from cookies could leave them behind.

Digital ad spend grows in Q2 2024, says Skai: Retail media leads with 21% YoY increase, despite higher CPC and CPM across channels.

Amazon’s ad portal crashes during Prime Day: Though sales are unlikely to be impacted, the outage highlighted tensions between Amazon and sellers.

Industry KPIs highlight advertising’s rising cost per acquisition: Some sectors with elevated CPAs enjoy strong conversion rates, but others are saddled with high costs and low return.

Retail media search is gaining steam while Google and other traditional search players lag. Marketers will grapple with genAI and measurement challenges as they rely more heavily on retailers’ search ad offerings.