// advertising platforms

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Oct 6

Niche Brands Are Now Competing for Attention in Social Video and CTV

Source: Beet

Democratized ad production and lower barriers to entry on platforms like TikTok and YouTube have flipped the economics of motion advertising. Brands that lacked the $100K+ budgets for traditional TV spots can now reach similar scale through social and connected TV at fractional cost. Product-specific or vertical-focused brands can now outcompete legacy CPG players on reach and precision targeting, pressuring incumbents to move budgets or face margin compression. This accelerates fragmentation of media spending away from traditional premium inventory into programmatic and platform-native formats, directly weakening the negotiating power of cable networks and traditional media sellers.

theme-commerce retail media advertising platforms marketing funnel

Sep 16

Retail Media Networks Force Marketers to Rebuild the Entire Funnel

Source: Beet

Retail media has matured from a narrow sponsorship play into a full-funnel ecosystem that competes directly with traditional advertising platforms. Brands can no longer treat it as an afterthought tacked onto paid search or social. As retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target expand into awareness-stage content, CRM, and off-site inventory, they're capturing consumer journeys at moments that traditionally belonged to Google, Meta, and DSPs. CMOs are reordering their media stacks and attribution models in response. Retail media networks now own too much of the customer journey for marketers to optimize around product pages alone.

theme-commerce advertising platforms performance metrics auction mechanics

Sep 9

Six Months In, ChatGPT Ads Lacks Basic Transparency for Advertisers

Source: Search Engine Journal

OpenAI's ad product operates without auction data, reliable CPM standards, or audience insights. Advertisers face CPCs ranging from pennies to $22 and cannot optimize or compare performance against competitors. The transparency gap mirrors early Google Ads friction but with a key difference: Google built an ecosystem of third-party measurement tools. OpenAI has released neither the infrastructure nor the data needed for advertisers to move beyond guessing. Until OpenAI commoditizes performance visibility the way search incumbents did, ChatGPT Ads remains a testing channel rather than a predictable media buy.