• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, December 16, 2024

Publishers and advertisers both are wondering how the ad tech business will shake out next year. 

Here are some partially upbeat predictions from Bennett Crumbling, head of marketing for Optable. But publishers shouldn’t get too comfortable. 

1. Privacy and regulation will continue to loom, driving fragmentation and continuing reliance on first-party data. “Publishers and media owners will need to take a renewed look at their data and technology stacks to meet market needs, identify inefficiencies and drive new growth,” Crumbling writes.
2. Programmatic will consolidate around higher quality identity data. “The massive explosion in alternative ID frameworks has created a headache for both the buy & sell side of the ecosystem,” Crumbling says. “Although the promise of more deterministic (better quality data) is strong, these frameworks are often complicated to implement and even more so to manage across an increasing amount of demand partners.”
3. Programmatic advertising will consolidate around higher quality identity data. The massive explosion in alternative ID frameworks has created a headache for both the buy & sell side of the ecosystem," Crumbling predicts. Although the promise of more deterministic (better quality data) is strong, these frameworks are often complicated to implement and even more so to manage across an increasing amount of demand partners. We see this getting easier to manage in 2025 and ultimately the best partners from the demand side will emerge as publishers glean insights.”
4. The role of the data vendor will evolve in the post 3rd party cookie/identifier era: “Data vendors will find new ways to partner more closely with media owners through unique commercial agreements and demand generation techniques (direct licensing and integration, rev share agreements, etc),” Crumbling argues. How will that affect publishers? “In some cases, publishers may even act as data vendors themselves,” he continues. “Publishers will need flexible data stacks to support server-side integration so that activation and optimization are possible.”
5. Publishers will pursue direct sales. “Data clean room collaboration unlocks all new possibilities for sophisticated publishers to work directly with their agency and advertiser clients,” Crumbling says. “This will drive all new forms of media planning engagements and activation workflows with the end goal for publishers to increase revenues.” He adds that “the continued move away from open market programmatic will mean that publishers and media owners need to invest in direct sales efforts to drive demand even through programmatic partnerships (while carefully managing channel conflict).” 

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