The Future of Advertising with Taboola, DoubleVerify and Magnite CEOs on Stage at Adweek
Posted by Megan Morreale Oct 21 6 Minutes read
ng beneath the feet of the advertising industry this year. Many companies have gone public, and it seems those companies have answered the timeliness adage “buy or build,” with a resounding buy.
So, what’s so special about this moment? Why is all saudi arabia business email list of this happening now, as opposed to last year or even five years from now?
Adweek’s Sr. Advertising Reporter Lauran Johnson answered this question live on the AdvertisingWeek stage with Taboola CEO Adam Singolda, CEO of Magnite, Michael Barrett and CEO of DoubleVerify Mark Zagorski.
Why is the advertising industry seeing all of this merger and acquisition activity?
Panelists shared two driving forces behind the recent increase in mergers and acquisitions (M&A): a recent focus on scale; and a push from brands and publishers to consolidate the numbers of partners they work with.
“People are really starting to understand that scale matters,” Zagorskis said. “There are opportunities for businesses to scale through M&A, and it’s the fastest way to do it. You’re either big or roadkill.”
Singolda added that a burning need to diversify away from walled gardens has been a major contributing factor:
“People want to have less vendors and more partners,” Singolda said. “They want to invest more with less companies, but do a lot more with them. Especially as we’re thinking about a world where clients or advertisers are looking to diversify as much as they can outside of walled gardens, the Facebooks of the world, the Googles of the world, it’s so important for them to build successful relationships with companies.”
In the infant stages of advertising on the open web, there was a fear that Google would crush the competition. That’s no longer the case, which fuels confidence that many technology companies in the advertising space that aren’t Google will only get bigger.
“The bust occurred at the first wave of adtech companies,” Barrett said, “Those guys were mostly glorified rep firms that could scale revenue faster, but weren’t the best companies. Public investors lost confidence in adtech because they really felt Google could do everything.
There was a wilderness where everyone thought adtech was over because ‘Google is going to do it anyway.’ What people are finding is that for the open web you need non-Google companies, and Google’s aspirations have also changed over time. They’re not looking at running the table for the open web and the open web is a huge piece of the economy. It demands scale and differentiated companies.”
How has the pandemic affected the industry?
The pandemic sent a record number of people online, which inarguably suppo