Elon Musk’s battle with a brand safety group, programmatic quality, and Google's trials led ad tech talk this year.
It was anything but a boring year in ad tech circles—there was a Google ad tech antitrust trial; there was a showdown between X owner Elon Musk and one of the ad industry’s most prominent groups; and the rise of AI in programmatic and automated advertising.
As Ad Age looks back on the year that was, ad tech trends were among the most widely discussed. Below is an alphabeticized overview of the biggest moments in ad tech in 2024.
Ad tech platforms such as Viant have started adopting more AI in their programmatic offerings.
AI has made its way into every corner of the ad business: Ad agencies are partnering with generative AI platforms to build up their services; Google, Meta, TikTok and Amazon are creating automated ad products based on AI decision-making; and within ad tech, AI is increasingly being used to power programmatic ad campaigns.
Demand-side platforms are developing GPTs—generative pre-trained transformers—which are based on the same large language model technology that powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The DSPs are trying to use the GPTs to help ad buyers plan campaigns, and eventually make most of the decisions in programmatic advertising. Some ad tech firms, such as Chalice AI, are experimenting with custom algorithms that brands can use to make smarter ad buys. Meanwhile, Google has expanded its AI campaigns called Performance Max and Demand Gen; Meta continues to push its Advantage+ platform; and Amazon redesigned its DSP this year with AI flourishes, including expanding its Performance+ program.
X owner Elon Musk fought brand safety group Global Alliance for Responsible Media this year.
Billionaire owner of X Elon Musk took on ad world’s most-established brand safety group—and won. The group, Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a part of the World Federation of Advertisers, folded in August after a lawsuit from X. Musk claimed the group colluded with advertisers to instigate a boycott of X after he bought the platform in 2022. The episode was part of a wider conflict between Musk and advertisers, which had pulled back spending on the platform over concerns about offensive content. In July, Musk allies in the U.S. Congress even dragged representatives of GARM, GroupM and Unilever before a House subcommittee to discuss how brands decide which media to support with their ad dollars. Unilever has since mended its relationship with X.
In August, Musk sued GARM, and the organization promptly closed shop, alarming members of the ad community that helped stand up the group to create a more favorable advertising environment online. In 2019, GARM was introduced during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as a standards-maker in digital media. The group’s work was instrumental in getting platforms, such as Meta and TikTok, to give advertisers ad tech controls and transparency over where their ads run.
Google’s ad tech trial focused on its ad manager and AdX ad server, which could break up if Google loses.
It was a litigious year at Google, which lost one antitrust trial over its search business in August and then in September faced another monopoly trial regarding its ad tech business. The two cases still have ongoing rulings, remedies and appeals to sort through, which will likely mean they drag on for years, but they already effected Google. Especially within ad tech, Google’s antitrust woes have made it more hesitant to innovate its products such as its Display and Video 360 DSP, according to ad experts. Also, the trials have opened Google’s internal documents to the world, including advertisers, generating some mistrust around the company’s business.
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Both cases, search and ad tech, were brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, and they could have sweeping ramifications across the industry. Late next year, judge Amit Mehta will decide the remedies to Google’s search monopoly—what Google will have to do if it loses its appeals. The DOJ is asking that Google sell Chrome, which could impact the default search behavior of consumers on the popular browser, which right now goes directly to Google search. Meanwhile, U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema is expected to issue a ruling in the ad tech case early next year.
Google spared cookies this year, but advertisers are still looking for ways to combat data signal losses in ad tech.
Google couldn’t catch a break this year with ad tech setbacks. In July, the ad giant was compelled to reverse course on its longtime plan to kill cookies in Chrome, restoring the internet tracker’s role in the ad tech ecosystem. Google caved to regulatory and industry pressure by coming up with a new plan to allow cookies to persist in Chrome while presenting an option to users on whether to accept them. Google has yet to delineate how it will ask Chrome users about cookie preferences, but it is expected to give a framework next year. Of course, Google was expected to entirely kill cookies this year, and that did not happen.
Google had been trying to remake programmatic advertising be developing Privacy Sandbox, which put ad auctions entirely within its Chrome browser prohibiting data about user behavior to leak to ad market participants. The Privacy Sandbox tests were messy and led to intense ad tech debates in 2024. If Google allows consumers to choose “cookies or no cookies” next year, that will mean a percentage of users will be available to advertisers through traditional cookie tracking methods while others will be reachable through Privacy Sandbox. Regardless of the outcome, the industry is contending with restrictions on data that affect how they conduct digital campaigns.
Groups that fight low-quality ads in programmatic markets created a stir around “made for advertising” sites.
The ad tech community faced significant drama this year, with continued pressure on programmatic ad markets to clean up the online supply chain. Advertisers, and industry groups such as the Association of National Advertisers, prodded ad tech platforms to tackle the problem of “made for advertising” websites, as ads were appearing on spammy pages.
In 2023, the problem of MFAs emerged as an industrywide issue, when newly formed watchdog groups such as Adalytics and Check My Ads started gathering data about the prevalence of low-quality websites taking ad dollars from the ecosystem. The new watchdogs have become a source of tension in the industry, challenging the norms and companies that governed ad quality. The watchdogs questioned the effectiveness of companies such as DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science, which report to brands about where ads run and on viewability metrics.
In March, Adalytics issued a report saying the crackdown on MFAs was failing. This month, the ANA reported that programmatic waste, to MFAs and elsewhere, was in decline, Ad Age reported.
