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CMO TLDR: Your Weekly Marketing Brief

Weekly Digest - October 3, 2025

Author

Peter Brendan
October 03, 2025

CMO TLDR: Meta Mines Small Talk as Trade Desk Rewrites the Auction

Control of the Pipes

Trade Desk Launches OpenAds to Bypass Ad Tech Middlemen

The Trade Desk is building its own ad auction system called OpenAds after resellers modified industry standards in ways CEO Jeff Green says obscure the supply chain and hurt premium publishers. The new product, launching in October alongside a forked version of Prebid and a publisher analytics tool called PubDesk, aims to create what Green calls "the most fair and transparent auction the industry has ever seen" by cutting out duplicative middlemen. The move escalates tensions between ad buyers and supply-side platforms, with Green arguing the changes aren't about Trade Desk versus sellers but about resellers who profit from opacity versus publishers who want transparent pricing.

Roku Partners With AppsFlyer to Track Ad Performance Across TV and Mobile

Roku integrated its streaming ad platform with AppsFlyer's measurement tools to give advertisers cross-channel attribution from connected TV campaigns to mobile app installs and in-app activity. The partnership addresses a key challenge for marketers investing in streaming advertising by connecting Roku's 90 million global households with real-time performance data that links TV ad exposure to mobile conversions. Advertisers can now optimize campaigns across both screens using the same measurement methodologies they rely on for mobile marketing, helping prove return on investment for their CTV spending.

Discovery Wars

Meta to Monetize AI Chatbot Conversations Through Targeted Ads

Meta will start mining conversations users have with its AI chatbots to personalize advertising across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, marking a significant shift in how Big Tech plans to profit from its multibillion-dollar AI investments. The company, which says more than 1 billion people use its AI features monthly, will collect prompts and responses starting December 16 to serve up targeted ads and content recommendations based on chat topics like hiking or travel. Users won't be able to opt out of the data collection, though they can avoid using Meta AI entirely if they don't want their conversations analyzed for advertising purposes.

AI Chatbots Upend Search Marketing as Shoppers Bypass Google

Sixty-eight percent of global shoppers now use AI tools like ChatGPT for product searches, forcing marketers to rethink their search strategies as 62% report declining clicks and web traffic from traditional search engines. While 70% of marketers believe Answer Engine Optimization will reshape digital strategy within three years, only 20% are actually implementing it, hampered by unclear measurement standards and fragmented ad tech infrastructure. The shift has prompted some brands to redirect spending from search to connected TV and social platforms, though most remain cautious about moving too quickly in an uncertain landscape where 40% of shoppers say they're willing to fully delegate online shopping to AI assistants.

Belt Tightening

Ad Agencies Report Budget Cuts as Tariff Fears and Economic Uncertainty Hit Clients

Nearly half of media agencies say clients decreased their budgets in 2025, a sharp reversal from last year when 39% reported increases, as tariff concerns and economic uncertainty prompt advertisers to pull back on spending. Agencies expect budgets to remain flat in 2026 before rebounding in 2027, with clients directing available dollars toward flexible digital channels like streaming TV (72% expect increases), social media (66%), and search marketing (55%). Most clients still don't understand agentic AI, despite 47% considering its use in the next year, with marketers primarily focused on how AI-driven search features are draining traffic from their websites and affecting campaign performance.

Mastercard launched a digital media network that uses transaction data from 160 billion purchases to deliver personalized ads across banking and publishing partners, claiming up to 22 times return on ad spend for its 25,000 advertisers. The payments giant is partnering with Citi, WPP, American Airlines, and Microsoft to compete in the retail media space, which eMarketer projects will hit nearly $100 billion in spending by 2028.

Cloudflare's new Content Signals Policy lets publishers specify whether AI crawlers can use their content for search, training, or outputs like Google's AI Overviews, though the upgrade still lacks enforcement power and won't stop tech giants from scraping material that drives traffic away from news sites.

Spotify is plugging its 696 million user audio and video ad inventory into Amazon's DSP starting today across eight countries, letting programmatic buyers tap the streaming giant's audience even as the two companies compete head-to-head in music subscriptions.

Apollo-backed Yahoo is in advanced talks to offload the iconic email and media brand to the Italian app developer for $1.4 billion, adding AOL's ad revenue and growing user base to Bending Spoons' portfolio of revamped tech properties.

Key Article Takeaways - TLDR

  • OpenAds is less about another auction platform and more about resetting buyer leverage, which means agencies and publishers that do not audit their resellers’ value will likely lose margin in 2026.

  • AI assistants are already siphoning demand from Google, which makes early investment in Answer Engine Optimization the equivalent of buying search keywords in 2002.