Digital Roundup

 DIGITAL ROUNDUP

November 2025

Welcome to this month’s edition of the roundup to some core updates in the digital advertising industry.

NB: the following represents my own opinion

Google deprecates Privacy Sandbox initiatives

Google Privacy Sandbox logo

Google have made the decision to sunset the majority of their Privacy Sandbox APIs, after aligning with CMA considerations.

(https://privacysandbox.com/news/update-on-plans-for-privacy-sandbox-technologies/)

DEEPDIVE

Google and the Privacy Sandbox adventure has formally come to somewhat of a close, with the announcement by the Privacy Sandbox team that the large majority of their proposed APIs will now sunset. This comes several months after the u-turn to deprecate 3rd party cookies from Chrome, moving to a still yet to be confirmed opt out model. For all of adtech across the ecosystem, the news of the more famous advertising centric privacy sandbox proposals such as Topics / Protected Audiences / Attribution Reporting now going away is a bitter pill to swallow. A lot of time, money & engineering has gone into implementing these APIs in the same manner of app centric vendors doing this for the Android side of things.

But there is still somewhat of a future state for at least some of the aims of this “privacy” centric move for the future state of advertising. The more security centric proposals such as CHIPS will continue to move forward due to wider adoption beyond Chrome and should be at least given some credit for the Google engineers who made this happen. On the flip side, IP Protection disappearing is an interesting dynamic for the ads side of Google where recent ad policy changes to leverage IP in CTV more seems to have caused this crosswind.

We have also seen the CMA take aim at Google in other areas, being flagged as a strategic market status for both search services & mobile OS. This could see the UK aim more restrictions at what Google can do with their platforms / technologies.

Is it possible that this has damaged privacy based solutions through the lens of privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) in ads? My opinion is no not really and it will be fundamental to take this aggregated / API led approach to a lot of what digital marketing technology may look like in the future, even with AI supporting. The flack for the Privacy Sandbox was aimed more at Google being the gatekeeper and any potential benefit they would get from their ads business. In reality, the ads part of Google were the slowest adopters of the Privacy Sandbox, maybe by design or maybe because these 2 areas have contradictions in their business model. And I do have to compliment how Google attempted to make this open, with the CMA stepping in to act as the neutral body. In direct irony to what Apple did with ATT / SKAN, both of which are now in the crosshairs of EU regulators to potentially force Apple to deprecate.

The main move for advertisers now to keep an eye on is the future state of measurement / attribution. With no more attribution reporting API, which did have a lot of stronger opportunities, there is now added focus to make attribution work on the browser level through some standards aimed at the W3C working group. If this occurs over the next few years, this is a big deal to at least keep attribution based measurement somewhat relevant.

Ad Context Protocol Logo

AdTech debuts AdContext Protocol (AdCP)

AdCP is looking to bring agentic AI to drive efficiency within programmatic workflows.

(https://adcontextprotocol.org/)

DEEPDIVE

AdCP is the new buzzword in town. Over the past few weeks, this proposed Ad Context Protocol standard is aimed to bring agentic advertising to the programmatic space in some form of consistency to allow all parts of the marketing ecosystem to benefit from it. The aim ultimately is to allow agentic agents to operate on both the buy & sell side, to collaborate automatically and drive time saving / efficiencies. Thus the new acronym A2A agent to agent is born. Some good explainers exist via BOK who will be explaining it more over the next few weeks on his blog & Digiday.

Plenty of big companies are backing this open venture from the likes of Scope3, Pubmatic, Yahoo & Optable all helping to create these standards. Ebiquity are the latest more intermediary partner to also sign up as a founding member. Notably however, there are a wide range of SSPs not currently involved alongside the likes of TTD from the DSP end and IAB Tech Lab as the normal aggregator of standards. But ultimately this is aimed to move fast, primarily before the walled gardens decide to take over and determine a standard for the rest of the industry to make use of.

There is for sure value in this agent model, however there is a long way to go before this truly becomes the game changer it sets out to be. For sure it is aimed at allowing media planning & buying to become somewhat more interoperable, especially if the buyer is not particularly strong at what to do. But where the art of negotiation & optimisation fits in will remain to be seen, especially if it gets beyond the more deal centric nature of buying to what it is currently solving for.

Agentic advertising is for sure part of the future, driven by humans to make that final decision, so it is good to see that there is still human input / approvals in this initial AdCP workflow. But as it is becoming more prevalent, the use of AI can also go wrong whether it is in the targeting or creative manipulation. Safeguards & privacy need to be prioritised here, the same way traditional QA checklists are used today. I am interested to see where this nets out and the wider adoption of the industry, but without that wider buy in, it will likely to have the same challenges that the IAB Tech Lab know too well from some of their initiatives over the years.

OTHER KEY CALLOUTS

SOCIAL / SEARCH HIGHLIGHTS 📱

  • AppLovin have made a more formal launch of their performance marketing ad platform Axon (AppLovin)

  • Google have launched some new PMAX capabilities (Google)

  • Meta will start to use AI chatbot data in their ads targeting (WSJ / Meta)

  • Meta have a few AI centric holiday updates for 2025 via Advertising Week (Meta)

  • Google have made AI Mode available in non-english, spanning 35+ languages (Google)

  • Meta are rolling out new creative fatigue capabilities (Meta)

  • TikTok rolled out more automation AI features (TikTok)

  • Google have released additional YT reporting for paid vs organic (Google)

  • Meta have added a feature to serve limited spend on excluded placements via API (Meta)

  • Google have rolled out the ability to hide sponsored ads in their search ads (Google)

  • Google have put out a nice webinar on the evolution of search (Google)

  • LinkedIn have renamed their ads hierarchy in line with other platforms (LinkedIn)

  • DoubleVerify have expanded their brand suitability coverage into Meta Threads (DoubleVerify)

  • Meta have deprecated the ability to pull attribution window reporting for 7 / 28 days post impression (Meta)

  • Meta are testing skippable video on Reels (Adweek)

  • Amazon have released an API centric metric for sponsored brands ads called reserve share of voice (Amazon)

  • Google have released some more updates to their Demand Gen product (Google)

  • LinkedIn have more publicly added dynamic macros to their ads post products to use names / companies in ads (LinkedIn)

  • Amazon have rolled out single advertiser accounts to run all their ads products from 1 place (Amazon)

PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS 🌐

  • Amazon have partnered up with Spotify to integrate audio inventory through ADSP (Amazon / Spotify)

  • PayPal have released a new Agentic powered solution using their browser affiliated Honey setup (PayPal)

  • Mastercard have opened up their ads solutions into Commerce with Commerce Media launch (Mastercard)

  • Magnite have further integrated Clearline into their ads martech to unify curation with activation (Magnite)

  • TTD have partnered up with DirecTV to build a TV OS using Ventura (Adweek)

  • Amazon have made tweaks to campaign build for inventory targeting in DSP, to more easily select 1st party vs 3rd party (Amazon)

  • AMEX have launched a new ads platform powered by their 1PD (PMW)

  • Microsoft have made Amazon their preferred recommendation for when their DSP deprecates alongside a new SSP integration (Amazon)

  • Criteo have partnered with DoorDash for their ads commerce solution (Adweek)

  • ITV have launched a self serve GenAI Ads Manager with Magnite (Magnite)

  • TTD have increased their commerce presence with partnerships with Koddi / Gopuff (Adweek)

  • TitanOS have partnered with Tubi to expand AVOD UK ads opportunities (Einpresswire)

  • DoubleVerify have expanded their coverage on Microsoft into audience ads (DoubleVerify)

  • TripleLift have joined Amazon DSP’s certified exchange program (TripleLift)

  • Skai have partnered with Tesco to enable their commerce offering in their platform (Skai)

  • PayPal have partnered with Rokt to drive their agentic tools (Prnewswire)

  • Taboola have partnered with Paramount to expand into the CTV space (Axios)

  • Comcast have made traditional tv biddable for the first time in their ads solution (Businesswire)

  • Prebid have reacted to the Transaction ID drama with a little u-turn to changes they made (Prebid)

  • Teads have announced a new CTV performance outcome solution (Teads)

  • Google have made the DV360 API capable of returning assets for YouTube / Demand Gen (Google)

  • StackAdapt have introduced more capabilities to their DOOH solution (Businesswire)

IDENTITY HIGHLIGHTS 🆔

  • AudienceProject have announced a new partnership with Netflix Ads (AudienceProject)

  • AudienceProject have also showcased their product roadmap for the next period (AudienceProject)

  • LiveRamp have debuted more AI capabilities for segmentation & tooling (LiveRamp)

  • Scope3 have showcased their Brand Agents agentic technology (Scope3)

  • OpenAI have debuted Apps within ChatGPT for more integrated agentic workflows (OpenAI)

  • Nielsen have teamed up with Adelaide for attention cross-platform reporting (Nielsen)

  • Mozilla have picked Index Exchange as their partner for programmatic ads on their browser (Index)

  • Google have formally released their AI MCP server for Google Ads (Google)

  • Advertisers are pushing big tech to bring more transparency for ads (WSJ)

  • CCPA have moved forward with further privacy enhancements, aiming at browsers to allow ability to control opt outs (CCPA)

  • Dbt Labs and Fivetran have announced a new partnership to power AI led infrastructure (Dbt Labs)

  • Walmart have partnered with OpenAI for agentic checkouts (Walmart)

  • Aquila have made a partnership with SambaTV to measure video cross-media in the US (Globalnewswire)

  • Amazon have made a new AWS RTB Fabric product announcement to take on Google for adtech infrastructure (Amazon)

  • LiveRamp have made a new partnership with Meta to unlock Meta x Retail Media insights (Businesswire)

  • Tealium have released some more AI centric products alongside updates to their MCP (Tealium)

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