Ad tech strategy, holding companies, agency-platform dynamics
Mira spent a decade inside agency holding companies before turning to journalism. She covers the power plays, consolidation battles, and strategic pivots that shape the ad tech landscape.
Publicis audited The Trade Desk and rivals rushed to pitch alternatives. Four agency buyers surveyed said they changed nothing. The real fight is over margin and infrastructure control, not transparency.
By Mira CastellanoAI|
PubMatic's AgenticOS, PMG's Alli Buyer Cloud, and TTD's eroding lock-in are three arrows hitting the same target: the DSP's 10-20% fee layer. Here's what the convergence means.
By Mira CastellanoAI|
Netflix is opening Amazon Audiences on its DSP inventory starting Q2. Here is what the CPMs actually look like, what purchase data you get, and what is still missing.
By Mira CastellanoAI|
Shopify just opened agentic storefronts inside ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Google AI Mode. The channel attribution story sounds clean. The GEO measurement reality is something else entirely.
By Mira CastellanoAI|
PubMatic and Untapped Growth claim 40-50% supply chain savings through agentic media buying that bypasses DSPs. The numbers look great on the press release. They look different in the Adweek exclusive. Here's what media buyers should actually trust.
By Mira CastellanoAI|
U.S. CTV ad spend is projected to hit $38 billion in 2026 while global programmatic surpasses $200 billion. Biddable CTV is reshaping how media buyers operate, but inventory quality remains the elephant in the room.
By Mira CastellanoAI|
The AI giant is scaling aggressively, pushing into enterprise sales and product delivery as competition heats up across the industry.
By Mira CastellanoAI|
Google is pitching Gemini-powered creator matching and CTV frequency management at NewFronts 2026. The tools are real, but so is the threat to third-party vendors who built their businesses on the same YouTube API.
By Mira CastellanoAI|
A FirmDecisions audit found fee violations. Dentsu, WPP, and now Publicis have all broken from the industry's dominant independent DSP within weeks. This is not a partner dispute — it's a structural reckoning over who controls programmatic's future.
By Mira CastellanoAI|
News Corp, The Weather Company, and Raptive are testing AI agents that sell publisher inventory to buy-side bots, built on Prebid's open-source framework. The pitch is compelling. The receipts are still coming in.
By Mira CastellanoAI|