April 2024 in MarTech and AdTech

Looking back at everything that happened last month, it’s hard to believe so many industry-changing events can fit in a single month.

As we reflect on the pivotal moments in AdTech and MarTech throughout April, it’s clear that the industry has been buzzing with activity. From Google delaying the deprecation of cookies to publishers focusing on gaming and sports, there’s been plenty for our community to unpack and discuss.

To ensure you’re up to speed on all the latest news and noteworthy conversations, we’re thrilled to present the top stories of the month:

🔸 Google delays cookie deprecation due to regulatory pressure

🔸 LinkedIn is making its way into CTV

🔸 Comcast is breaking records with ad sales for the upcoming 2024 Olympics

🔸 Forbes’ MFA subdomain is raising eyebrows in the industry

For ongoing updates and monthly roundups from Xenoss, be sure to follow Xenoss MarTech Insider on LinkedIn.

Google is delaying cookie deprecation

After repeatedly promising it won’t pull back on shutting down cookies in 2024, Google still put off the deprecation.

The reason behind this delay is not a mere technicality. The CMA has officially requested a review of the Privacy Sandbox, a process that requires thorough analysis and careful judgment.

Besides, developers and industry leaders are unhappy about Google’s up-to-date releases. A while back, we covered IAB’s report that called the search giant out for many blind spots in its APIs, from limited targeting to the inability to use VAST tags.

Technically, Google Privacy Sandbox is not flawless either: investigations reported higher latency and lower yield in Google Protected Audiences API.

What’s more, there have been concerns about Google preferring its ad stack to the rest of the market, and the company did not convincingly address these concerns at the time of writing.

The bottom line? The industry is likely better off for not having to make do with a half-baked replacement to the Internet’s key tracking technology. Also, we are again free to make bets on when Google finally follows through with its timeline.

We were curious to hear what AdTech industry leaders think on Google backpedaling on its move and asked Jon Walsh, Xenoss’ Brand Ambassador, to share his view. We are excited to share Jon’s opinion with the community.

Comcast sold $1.2 bn in ads for the Paris Olympics (Bloomberg)

The 2024 Paris Olympics are a few months away, but publishers are ready to make the most out of it. In April, Comcast reported $1.2 billion in advertising sales for the event, setting an all-time Olympic record.

LinkedIn introduces CTV and Live Event Ads to help B2B marketers connect with decision-makers (LinkedIn)

LinkedIn is helping B2B advertisers tap into CTV with a series of dedicated offerings: LinkedIn CTV Ads, LinkedIn Premiere, and Live Event Ads. The company partnered with NBCUniversal to target the viewers of their inventory and help companies promote their events.

Netflix will no longer share its quarterly subscriber gains (Reuters)

For years since its release, Netflix has been reporting quarterly subscriber numbers (for the record, in Q1 2024, the company acquired 269.6 million new users). However, the company decided to no longer reveal its subscriber numbers from 2025. This decision has led AdTech professionals to worry about the potential consequences if The Walt Disney Company , Amazon, and other streaming services were to follow suit and scrap the industry’s key metric.

Verve Group Capitalizes On The PET Trend With On-Device Cohort-Based Targeting (AdExchanger)

In 2021, Verve started working on ATOM, short for Anonymized Targeting On Mobile. In April, the company rolled out ATOM 3.0, which is now more feature-rich and enabled with a proprietary machine learning model. The platform is fully integrated with the HyBid SDK, offering a total reach of up to 1.5 billion users.

Why the New York Times is building relationships with gamers to expand its audience

The New York Times might remain known as a news media outlet, but it has been shifting into gaming for some time now. NYT games like Wordle alone brought “tens of millions” of new users to the media.

Venturing into gaming is a powerful way for The New York Times to diversify its audience. In fact, over 1 million people pay exclusively for NYT Games (the subscription costs $6/month). Even those who might disagree with the newspaper’s editorial policy or coverage of sensitive topics have a hard time resisting the dopamine rush of a 5-minute Wordle session.

On a larger scale, NYT solidifying its gaming presence is part of a larger-scale trend of trying to leverage in-game advertising among publishers.

Netflix has a full-blown commitment to expanding its gaming catalog, and YouTube explored adding playable games for selected users back in 2023.

I think it’s safe to say that more publishers will adopt this approach in 2024 and beyond.

PubMatic partnered with GroupM to deliver a first-of-its-kind AI-generated cohort modeling capability for advertisers (Adweek)

PubMatic and GroupM partner to deliver first-of-it-kind AI-enabled cohort targeting. New technology helps generate compliant audience segments based on impression-level data.

Infosum launched a data clean room solution with Samsung Ads (InfoSum)

InfoSum was selected as a leading technology vendor for Samsung Ads to release a data clean room offering. Samsung plans to bolster its Onboarding Partner Program with Infosum’s Secure Clean Room technology.

MiQ solidified leadership in Advanced TV advertising with the global expansion of TV Intelligence solutions (MiQ)

MiQ, a leading programmatic media partner, is expanding its TV intelligence solution, previously available only to US users in the UK, Canada, and Australia. The platform aims to solve CTV’s key challenges: fragmentation, privacy, and measurement discrepancies.

In April, AdTech industry leaders were discussing:

🔸The Adalytics report that exposed Forbes’ MFA subdomain

In April, Adalytics released a report that exposed Forbes’ shady MFA domain (www3.forbes.com). Industry leaders actively shared their views on the matter and expressed the need for publishers to step up their transparency game.

🔸How an April Fool’s Day Joke on cookie deprecation came true

On April 1st, Kaitlin O’Brien made an April Fool’s Joke about Google postponing cookie deprecation. It was good – she almost got us. But, in the light of the latest news, it looks like Google had the last laugh.

🔸The difficulties of hiring AdTech salespeople

Everyone agreed that finding a salesperson skilled enough to untangle the complexities of AdTech is no easy feat.

According to the report by Criteo, released in April, 56% of brands and 47% of agencies globally are currently investing in retail media onsite and offsite.

Xenoss is now an AWS Select Tier Services Partner

We are ecstatic to announce that Xenoss has joined the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network as a Select Tier Services Partner. This milestone is one more proof of our engineers’ expertise in leveraging the Amazon Web Services toolset. See the details.

Xenoss attended Possible

In April, Dmitry Sverdlik, CEO at Xenoss, and Maria Novikova, Xenoss CRO, attended Possible, one of the year’s leading advertising and marketing events. It was a pleasure to connect with AdTech and MarTech industry leaders from GumGum, MiQ, Activision Blizzard, Criteo, and other trail-blazing teams. See the recap.

Xenoss was at The Future of Brands and The Future of Audio & Entertainment

In April, Anastasia Bushuieva, AdTech Engineering Consultant at Xenoss, was in London for two industry conferences hosted by Adwanted Group. It was insightful to hear firsthand experiences from industry leaders on building memorable brand identities and pushing the frontier on programmatic advertising. See the recap.

This was Xenoss MarTech Digest for April. Subscribe to the newsletter to stay updated with the next roundup of monthly updates.