The Industry Speaks: AdExchanger’s Most Popular Opinion Columns Of 2023

To find out what truly matters in digital advertising, there’s no better source than the professionals who work in the trenches.

The thought leaders highlighted here have their fingers on the pulse of programmatic. From clear-eyed looks at the industry’s shortcomings and conflicts of interest to prognostications that presage the next batch of conference panel talking points, you can count on these astute industry voices to drive the conversation.

And our audience is listening. The columns collected below generated the most engagement with AdExchanger’s readers throughout 2023 and are sure to drive discussions into next year.

All of the key topics are here: the tensions between user privacy and financial incentives, the rise of generative AI, ad waste and fraud, walled gardens as black boxes, open questions about made-for-advertising inventory, consolidation among SSPs and DSPs, the push for more sustainable ad tech and, yes, the ever-present concerns about the end of third-party cookies.

Unpacking The Latest Changes To The IAB Tech Lab’s Video Ad Guidelines

Jenn Chen, President & CRO, Connatix

When the IAB changed its definition of in-stream video in August 2022, it triggered pushback from publishers. Suddenly, around 90% of what had previously been considered instream was declared outstream. That pushback prompted the IAB to again revise its definition of in-stream video in March 2023. In her piece, Connatix’s Jenn Chen clarifies what’s new, defines terms and explains how publishers, SSPs and DSPs can adopt the new video.plcmt attribute in their header-bidding stacks to transparently classify video inventory and ensure fair pricing.