Memo to the IAB: Require the industry to occasionally take a week off from big announcements so we can get some work done. Good lord, we’ve moved from one big thing to two a week. I’m glad we talked about resilience at Base.Camp in Savannah, ‘cause I need me some right now.
Prebid Summit: It was smart to include The Trade Desk and Scope3 in the event, but I feel these two sessions overshadowed the other work to be done… and there is a lot of work being done. To the people who post on LinkedIn that they can’t believe we talk about SDKS and identifiers, etc. and not just AI: shut up. People are working here.
BOK’s announcement about the agentic advertising age has all the buzz and seems to signal a new way of doing business. Maybe it’s the operations side of me that’s a bit skeptical. The demonstrations focus on a friendly, conversational approach. A buyer wants X and a seller provides X. Great. But isn’t there a risk of an arms race among agents, with some trying to find the buyer’s pricing floors? The future is full of possibilities, with almost an endless mix of good and bad. At the end of the day, if publishers can better represent their inventory, I’m in.
I thought The Trade Desk session at Prebid was necessary. Let the LinkedIn sniping stop and start working on solutions. TTD has to find quality inventory to buy; they are taking steps to do so. Accept it. Now, would I prefer not to add more code and an additional path in an attempt to reduce duplicative paths? Yes. Hopefully, there are roads by which we can realign around our common goals.
DanAds Summit: It’s been great to see the conversations at this event grow. Having PayPal, Criteo, Stripe, and Magnite talking about the use of purchase data was a great move and a fascinating topic. Sara Fischer dropped some copyright truth bombs that I’m still recovering from, and there was real talk about automation. Automation isn’t automatic, folks. Great job, Team DanAds!
Optable Connect 2025: Overpacked with great sessions and balanced the present with the future very well. If AI can provide me with thousands of junior data scientists, we’re going to drive some outcomes.
For those keeping track since the return of the event harvesting season: nine new blazers have been rolled out, with a new one coming for Digital Day Camp this week and a couple more for Base.Camp Lisbon. Follow along on my Beeler Blazers Instagram account. I’m going to need some of that influencer juice heading into 2026.
📚 Required reading
Start your week off strong with a few essential reads from us and our partners.
- 4 ways publishers are consolidating to survive (and thrive) in 2025
Michael Edwards, VP of Sales & Accounts at adops.com
It’s been a tough year for publishers. Traditional ad revenues have been sliding, new platforms are changing the rules, and now clickless search is shaking up how people discover content. That’s why many publishers are joining forces. Through acquisitions, partnerships, or even full-on restructures, the aim is to achieve greater scale, efficiency, and market power.
- As publishers, we don’t serve readers, we serve shareholders
Anonymous publisher op-ed
If you’re a publisher, you can keep playing the game as it’s set up: clutter the pages, pile on widgets, serve shareholders first, and hope the math doesn’t break under you. But that’s killing the very product you’re trying to sell. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually you’ll reach a point you can’t recover from.
- Publishers, chasing revenue at all costs is costing you
Deep-dive analysis by Rob Beeler
Why don’t publishers feel like they can walk away? Part of it’s the reality: infinite supply, limited demand. Buyers have more options than you do, and it’s true. Larger publishers can flex in ways that mid-tier publishers can’t. But a lot of this is simply the power of perception; you’ve been led to believe you have no power
- Fixing the flaw in data collaboration, a conversation with Permutive’s Joe Root
With third-party cookies disappearing, user authentication rates remaining low, and legacy tools failing to deliver on their promises, it’s fair to say publishers are at a crossroads. Hot on the heels of their latest white paper, Rob sat down with Joe Root, CEO and co-founder of Permutive, to discuss the future of publisher data collaboration in a world where identity alone can’t scale.
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For publishers and partners only, this month’s Camp.Fire call (on October 29 at 12 p.m. Eastern) is going to be a great one! We’re digging into publisher strategies in the LLM era with Scott Messer. Together, we’ll unpack the challenges and opportunities of this moment, exploring how publishers can shift from passive targets to active participants in shaping the future of AI-powered content.
We’re only 2 days away from Digital Day Camp!
This is your LAST CALL for Digital Day Camp in Toronto on October 22, 2025.
It’s the only event where Canadian industry leaders from publishers, agencies, brands, and ad tech companies will come together to discuss the challenges, opportunities, and innovations we need to focus on:
- In the attention economy, brand loyalty is the new scarcity. Canada Goose and Bell Media leaders will discuss how they are reengineering marketing, measurement, and media alignment to capture attention, and keep it Canadian.
- With 80-85% of ad dollars flowing to foreign platforms, Canadian media risks losing its cultural mirror. We’ll examine how data, planning, and buying decisions marginalize diverse voices, and how inclusion can become an economic strategy, not a talking point.
- AI is rewriting audience strategy, but not always in ways we expect. Together, we’ll ask whether engagement, not scale, should define success, and how editorial and commercial teams can collaborate without compromising trust.
- Canada has quietly become a proving ground for AI and identity collaboration. We’ll go deep on how publishers, agencies, and ad tech are building privacy-first, data-smart partnerships that actually drive measurable business outcomes.
- Streaming has blurred the line between global and local. Industry leaders explore how Canadian media companies can protect homegrown storytelling, navigate CRTC realities, and compete with Netflix and Amazon without losing their national identity.
This is your last chance to join us. So, if you’re interested in being a part of the conversations that will decide the future of Canadian digital media, register today.
The questions we’re tackling at Base.Camp Lisbon will impact everything we do
In a few short weeks, leaders from BCN, Público, Future Today, Expedia Group, Medialivre, News UK, OLX, MEDAL, Skyscanner, BBC Studios, Mail Metro Media, The Economist, Reach PLC, Schibsted, Immediate Media, Bauer Media Group, Adevinta, Planet Sport, News Corp, Telegraph Media Group, Condé Nast, and others have already committed to joining us in Lisbon.
That’s because our agenda is built around the questions our publisher community say we must find answers to:
- Is consent the key to identity? We’ll discuss how publishers can connect audience signals across systems to build smarter, more compliant relationships with readers and advertisers.
- What’s the hardest part of AI, building it or getting people to use it? The team at The Telegraph will show how a people-first approach turned hesitation into adoption and created a blueprint for real transformation in a real-world case study.
- When traffic dips, does direct-sold revenue have to collapse? Learn how publishers are rethinking sales, packaging, and partnerships to stay profitable when audience numbers fluctuate.
- Are all visitors equally valuable? Together, we’ll break down how to identify and monetize audiences that truly move revenue for you and your advertisers.
- With privacy rules always changing, how do you keep campaigns compliant and profitable? We’ll talk about the new realities of compliance and how to stay profitable while staying legal.
- How can publishers adapt to agentic buying, shifting platforms, and changing partners? The future won’t wait for you to predict it. We’ll focus on what publishers can actually control as the landscape evolves.
We only have a few spots left, because we keep these events intimate by design. So, if you’re interested in joining us, now is the time to raise your hand.
A full list of our 2025 events all in one nice little package:
- Digital Day Camp Toronto - October 22, 2025 this week!
- Base.Camp Lisbon - November 2-5, 2025
- Base.Camp San Antonio - March 1-4, 2026
- Advertising Economic Forum NYC - March 19, 2026
- Digital Day Camp: Spring, April 15 & 16, 2026
- AI Publisher Response Event - TBD
- Navigator NYC - May 5, 2026
- Navigator London - June 9, 2026
- Base.Camp La Jolla - October 4-7, 2026
- Digital Day Camp: Fall - October 21 & 22, 2026
- Base.Camp Madrid - November 8-11, 2026
More things to keep your eyes out for:
- Read our take on the top updates/news items from around the industry.
- Look for your next job on our job board. Also - sign up for our Jobs Newsletter (delivered every Thursday). Subscribe here.
- Fill your open positions by helping us help you: Submit a job and check out a job seeker like Job Seeker 2, just search “Job Seeker 2” to be taken directly to their description.
Is Ad Tech is becoming a contact sport?
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