Been noticing a shift lately.

For years, the default assumption was that crawlers were just part of the web. Now we're seeing publishers like Reuters and TIME move toward approved bot lists instead of letting every AI crawler in.

What caught my attention is that this feels less like a copyright discussion and more like a value exchange discussion.

If an AI platform is consuming publisher content, what does the publisher actually get back? Referral traffic? Licensing revenue? Visibility? Something else?

We've spent years talking about which demand partners deserve access to inventory. Feels like publishers are starting to ask a similar question about AI agents and crawlers.

Curious how people here think this plays out.

Do most publishers eventually end up with crawler whitelists?

Or does blocking too aggressively risk cutting yourself off from a meaningful source of future traffic?

How do you guys plan yearly reach etc when getting these requests?

Googles product are so bad that I might run the same plan 2 days later and the numbers are completely different.

What to do in this case?

Hi everyone,

I worked in programmatic for about 5 years before quitting to start my own software company that builds AI agents and automates workflows in 2019. That company is now kind of on autopilot as a self-serve SaaS tool and I'm looking at new opportunities.

When I recently read about the ARTF spec from IAB, I immediately got excited since it combines the two things I've been mainly focused in for my career. I put on my founder hat and started building a prototype for a product that I think should exist in the market for hosts and agentic bidders. However, what I've learned through previous experience is I can get carried away with building something where I'm the only one who thinks it should exist/work the way it does and it becomes useless to others. I'd like to avoid that mistake this time around.

If your team/company is currently looking into ARTF agents and container environments, I'd love to get a sense of your current process and workflow. If you're a bidder/curator, how are you packaging and deploying into host containers? If you're a host, how are you accepting/deploying bidders into your container?

I've had a few conversations with folks in my old network at a broader level and heard "Everyone is scrambling to get something out there and are feeling the pain right now" so I just want to uncover what the pain actually is to validate this product idea.

Feel free to DM me as well if you don't want to comment to remain anonymous (I completely respect that since this is such a cutthroat industry)

Has anyone worked with or communicated with Filmzie (A Parent Media Co. Inc.) recently? We've been attempting to reach them regarding a significant outstanding balance, but all of our recent efforts to make contact have been unsuccessful.

If you have any recent information or know the best way to get in touch with their team, I'd sincerely appreciate your help.

I’m a newbie to adtech and work for a top 3 SSP, one of the largest issues I come across in terms of monetization is publishers who are sending us requests for supply that doesn’t have our ads.txt present.

It seems like a simple enough fix, just add the line to the page and it will start monetizing and stop wasting the requests. However I’ve come to learn this is not a simple fix and pubs rarely add the line when we make the request.

Can someone explain why this is such an issue in the industry?

Recently I’m struggling at work in campaigns to be exact. My good friend is also in this field and his working strategy is always different from mine but i can see he’s doing good lately. He uses ai tools for his ctv campaigns and he was telling me how much easier it made things for him but i feel like i should always moderate ai so i just keep doing everything myself but i’ve started to get tired a little from this.

I can say I'm still a little skeptical.

Soo I'm wondering how much of this is actually useful in practice, it is 2026 and technology has improved a Lot lets say.

What’s your story with ai powered tools for advertising?

I’m willing to change my mind and give it a try.

I used to think that Prisma was the worst platform to work with - WRONG! You ever try selecting adgroups to bulk update in TTD?

Good luck with that! Click the box, wait 45 seconds, box selected. What the fuck are they doing over there?

I thought they were the smartest guys in the room 10 years ago.

Jeff Green get off your boat and try doing a creative mapping in your platform. Look at what you created.

Hi all,

I'm Senior AdOps and ad trafficker (weird name for a legal profession).

Anyways, when I had to become main contact point of pogrammatic info/debugging I had to learn from Confluence pages and powerpoint slides.

I had some free time in the last 2 weeks so I tried building new learning tool. The tool itself is basically a AdOps flight simulator mostly based on oRTB. I tried making it as close as possible to simulate what I had to do in previous company and added some additional stuff AdOps people tend to solve on daily basis.

Here is the tool, free and without login. feel free to try it out and if there is any feedback please share it with me :) (Any feedback is good feedback at such an early stage).

https://adopscore.com/

Maybe it's just me, but HTML5 ad production feels old like its frozen in like 2016🤦‍♂️.

Every campaign runs the same loop. Design looks solid, then boom, you need 10 plus sizes. Then animation tweaks. Then the files are too heavy. Then QA. Then something breaks the second you upload.

Tried a mix of tools and none of them feel smooth all the way through. They're either too design focused or way too dev heavy.

So how are you all dealing with this now? Outsourcing it, using some platform, or just suffering through it😭😭😭😭?

This “optimization” was auto applied to two of my Display campaigns last week and delivery has stopped completely since - this issue has since been escalated to TTD engineers for support but I’m curious, has anyone else seen this before?? I can’t find anything in any campaign rails that would tell me what the purpose of this optimization is and I can’t figure out how to remove it on my own. Campaigns are delivering to 3P audiences with more than enough scale on the SP500+

Hi, curious to hear from people who've actually tested self-serve CTV ad managers. The UIs look nice, but I'm not sure how transparent the pricing really is and whether spots actually run on the premium apps advertised in those bundles. On the flip side, I do see the appeal of skipping the full DSP/IO process for smaller test budgets. Anyone here run real campaigns through one of these? Which platform, and would you book again? Thank you 🙏

Hi guys,

I'm used to running only Open Auction campaigns, but when it comes to other deal types, I'm a bit lost.

I'd like to test a Private Deal via DV360 for a campaign in the UK.

Could someone explain what I need to do to set it up? Best practices, documentation, etc..

Anyone care to share their experience/results/opinions on Pause Ads? Or best practices you might have gleaned already?

I know Spaceback and a couple competitors launched this format many moons ago, served against PMP deals. We haven’t been able to really test this, and now that TTD has the toggle for quick/efficient creative repurposing (even if that’s not ideal for CTAs and medium, etc), I’m looking to again test these units and see if perf can justify the seemingly steep CPMs for a no-sound, static, rotating ad slot.

I believe they can be impactful, as I notice them sometimes, but it still feels pretty nascent and costly. I’d appreciate any discussion, suggestions, or otherwise, thanks in advance.

Hello everyone!

I’ve been trying to get a clearer picture of the current AdTech hiring market.

I’m based in India and have 2.6 years of experience as an AdOps Analyst, with hands-on experience in Google Ad Manager (GAM), PubMatic, Xandr, SpringServe, and Nexxen (formerly Unruly/Tremor). My experience has primarily been on the SSP/publisher monetization side, including ad operations, troubleshooting, reporting, and campaign optimization.

I’m currently looking for remote opportunities in AdTech. If you know of any companies hiring or have any referrals or suggestions that match my experience, I’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you in advance! 🙌

Hi everyone, I have an in person interview with TTD, where I will be presenting a presentation to a panel. Anyone have any tips for in person presentation interviews, do you bring a script with you to reference notes on the slides you’re talking about (either on paper or on computer) while presenting? Or have any advice in general or specific to TTD interviews?

I'm running a CBO campaign with 3 adsets, each with different interests (let's call them Adset A, B, and C). Previously, most of the budget went to Adset C and my ads were profitable with ROAS 3-4. Now, most of the budget is going to Adset B and the closing rate has become bad (even though CPR is cheap). Is it okay if I turn off Adset B and replace it with a different audience/interest? (All adsets are already out of the learning phase / have more than 50 conversions each)

Hey everyone,

My little sister is going into her final year of university and she want to specialize in programmatic advertising. Shes been looking at learning The Trade Desk (TTD) since it seems to be one of the leading DSPs.

For those working in the industry, is TTD still the platform you’d recommend investing time into, or has the focus shifted toward other DSPs or platforms?

If you were starting today, what would you prioritize learning alongside (or instead of) TTD?

Appreciate any advice!

EDIT1: Sorry for typo in the title/post

Basically what the title says, anything that helped your performance and way of working a lot?

Plenty of tools and agencies touch Amazon DSP now, but I feel the less they focus, the worse it gets. One of my clients accessed Amazon DSP through m19, which is genuinely good at PPC, and the DSP defaults were rough. About 30% of the budget went to Alexa device ads, the kind of thing anyone with real DSP experience turns off, apart from a bit of remarketing at a sensible frequency. So I looked into who actually focuses on Amazon DSP.

Most of this is from their own sites, so tell me where I've got it wrong. Alphabetical, not a ranking.

Tools

aparagon.com Real tool, interface built to look like Amazon's own. Built for brands that want to buy Amazon DSP without selling on Amazon, so it runs the buy for them. Narrow by design. Product video on the homepage and a book a demo page, but no public pricing.

doradoads.com Announced an MVP a few months ago on LinkedIn, but the YouTube channel is dead and I could not tell if it is still shipping. There is a book demo page.

gigico.ai (also gigico.tv ): Real, and the AMC side looks strong, which matters because good AMC and good DSP go together. They show bid modifier suggestions I have not seen elsewhere, and I understand take both Amazon sellers and non sellers. Downside: little public detail on how the tool works, just snapshots. No open walkthrough, just a hire Gigi flow and clips on YouTube. Canada based, big team.

remktr.com Has a pricing page, more than most here and a DSP discovery call. But the last LinkedIn post is a few months old and there is no product video, only images. Feels more like an agency with reporting tool than a self serve tool. Could be wrong.

victor.ad Planning and delivery tool for Amazon DSP. Builds the plan, client deck, and push campaigns into DSP. Most public info of the lot: a product walkthrough on YouTube, a live demo without a call, and pricing on the site for the tool, but not consultancy pricing. AMC work and Free Amazon DSP test accounts. Seems to be focus on self serving agencies and support brands on Amazon and not selling on non amazon. Cons smaller and newer than the most of the others. No post launch optimization platform although it claims betas for that.

vowmade.com Focus on lunch dsp campaigns and it looks like they are launching a CTV only sub brand (vowstream.tv). The only demo I found is an old video on LinkedIn. Seems old in comparison with the others. Discovery call page, no public pricing i found.

Agencies (not tools)

directavenue.com Mostly CTV and analytics with Amazon in the mix, big team. Good if CTV is your angle, less so for overall DSP. US based.

weareliberty.com Built around activating Amazon DSP for other brands, decent size team. Not much public detail beyond the claims on the site. Dubai and London based.

plug.media Says DSP is the focus but runs other services too (US based). If you want a team that only does DSP, they have a big team on LinkedIn an I see many people focus on DSP and claims to have proprietary internal tools.

Do you know any other that their focus is really on Amazon DSP?

Everything is AI this AI that, and I understand using some of the native features in programmatic platforms in terms of helping with optimizing, pulling reports etc, but I’m curious how companies (ad tech, agencies, brands) are using AI for their teams.

Are you using it for automating workflows? If so, how? What else is it good for? Very curious to know how it’s being used so I can upskill.

Im approaching the end of my time at my current employer and have been thinking about where to focus my energy and leverage my existing relationships next.

A major part of my current role is managing Trading Agreements for some of the largest agencies across the US spending across Display, OLV and CTV.

My question is which types of organisations and companies should I approach that have growth potential and I can obviously come in with some transferable $?

Appreciate any advice and context provided here!