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CMO TLDR: Your Weekly Marketing Brief

Weekly Digest - May 9, 2025

Author

Peter Brendan
May 09, 2025

CMO TLDR: Ad Tech Q1 Verdict: Earnings Surprises, Stock Reactions, and the Persistent Buzz of AI

Earnings Roundup

Criteo's Stock Falls 15% Despite Bullish Outlook on Retargeting After Cookie Reprieve

Criteo shares plummeted 15% after reporting Q1 earnings, despite a 3% revenue increase to $451 million, as its largest retail media client unexpectedly announced plans to stop using the company's managed services by November, which will significantly impact growth rates in Q4 2025 and beyond. The ad tech firm was also dealt another blow when Uber ended its US ad sales partnership in April, choosing to work with Instacart for Uber Eats advertising in the United States while maintaining partnerships with Criteo in other markets. Despite these setbacks, CEO Michael Komasinski expressed optimism about the company's performance media segment following Google's decision to keep third-party cookies in Chrome, while highlighting new strategic partnerships with Tinuiti and Microsoft Advertising, the latter making Criteo the preferred monetization partner for Microsoft's retail clients.

Magnite Sees Google's Legal Troubles as $50M Revenue Opportunity Per Market Share Point

Magnite reported Q1 revenue of $155.8 million (up from $149.3 million year-over-year), with its CTV segment growing to $63.2 million as the company's fastest-growing channel. However, it has softened its 2025 guidance citing "an abundance of caution" about economic conditions. CEO Michael Barrett expressed optimism that potential forced divestiture of Google's ad tech business following the DOJ antitrust trial could significantly benefit Magnite, estimating that each percentage point of market share it gains from Google's dominant 60% position would add approximately $50 million to its bottom line. Barrett also highlighted an emerging trend of data sellers testing ways to package and sell audiences within the SSP layer (what he calls "curation"), suggesting a potential shift in how data is monetized within the programmatic ecosystem.

PubMatic Sees Video Growth Despite Revenue Dip; Expands Share Repurchase Program

PubMatic reported Q1 revenue of $63.8 million (down from $66.7 million a year ago), though its omnichannel video revenue, including CTV, grew 20% year-over-year to represent 40% of total revenue, with CTV specifically growing over 50%. The ad tech company highlighted that Supply Path Optimization represented a record 55% of platform activity (up from 50% a year ago) and announced that its board has authorized a $100 million expansion of its share repurchase program through 2026. PubMatic's upgraded Gen AI buyer platform, which provides access to nearly 1,950 premium publishers, privacy-safe audience data from 190 data partners, and over 829 billion daily ad impressions, delivered efficiency gains that helped the company process 75 trillion impressions in Q1 (a 29% increase) while reducing cost of revenue per million impressions by 20%.

The Trade Desk Rebounds with 25% Revenue Growth, but Agency Tensions Loom

The Trade Desk reported Q1 revenue of $616 million, exceeding guidance of "at least $575 million" with a 25% year-over-year increase that sent shares surging after a rare earnings miss last quarter, with the company issuing Q2 guidance of "at least $682 million." CEO Jeff Green's 15-point turnaround plan appears to be working despite growing frustrations from agency partners, who claim the company's publicly stated 20% take rate is closer to 30% and have nicknamed it "the Spirit Airlines of the DSP world" due to alleged hidden fees in invoices. The industry's largest demand-side platform faces significant challenges, including stalled ambitions in CTV after Sonos canceled its TV plans, Google's AI Overviews potentially reducing available web inventory, and increased competition from Mediaocean, which has secured investments from major agency holding companies WPP, Omnicom, and IPG.

AppLovin Shares Surge 15% on Ad Revenue Growth and Gaming Division Sale

AppLovin shares jumped as much as 15% in after-hours trading after the ad tech company reported Q1 revenue of $1.48 billion (beating $1.38 billion expectations) and announced the sale of its mobile gaming business to Tripledot Studios for $400 million in cash plus a 20% ownership stake in the buyer. The company's advertising revenue reached $1.16 billion in the quarter, a dramatic increase from $678 million a year ago, as its AI-powered AXON advertising software continues to drive growth despite a 12% stock drop in February following critical short-seller reports. AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi also revealed the company has proposed a partnership with TikTok that would address security concerns while "leveraging our strengths," though he characterized it as "a long shot" while emphasizing that pairing "our algorithm with the TikTok audience" would drive advertising expansion "through the roof.”

AI search engines and chatbots are dramatically reducing publisher traffic and ad revenue potential, with Google's AI Overviews (now appearing in 13% of all search queries, up from 6.49% in January) correlating with 34.5% lower clickthrough rates for publishers, while AI bots continue aggressively scraping content despite blocking attempts—scrapes per website doubled from Q3 to Q4 2024 with AI bot scrapes bypassing robots.txt growing by over 40%.

WPP is planning to retire the 20-year-old GroupM brand and rebrand its media investment division as WPP Media before summer, a significant change that follows CEO Mark Read's description of 2024 as a "year of transition" under new GroupM CEO Brian Lesser. The rebranding of GroupM, which manages $63 billion in media budgets and employs 40,000 people (over a third of WPP's global workforce), comes amid declining year-on-year revenue for the division in Q1 2025 and follows Read's pattern of consolidation across WPP's business units, with reports suggesting potential layoffs as part of the process.

GroupM CEO Brian Lesser has confirmed in an internal memo that WPP's $60 billion media division will transition to "a single operating model" with agency brands housing client teams but "no longer operating as distinct business units," leading to layoffs and the elimination of "agency-specific titles" as the company consolidates operations. The restructuring, expected to be completed by mid-year, comes as WPP positions GroupM at the center of its turnaround plan after reporting a 5% revenue decline in Q1, with Lesser emphasizing that becoming "a stronger, more connected company" would require "difficult decisions" to "improve team structure" and "reduce overlap" across markets.

Uber's advertising business has reached a $1.5 billion annual run rate—a 60% year-over-year increase and triple its value since launching three years ago—as the company brings on Edwin Wong as its first head of measurement science to bolster advertiser confidence. Wong, who previously held roles at Vox Media, BuzzFeed, Pinterest and Yahoo, joins as Uber expands its measurement capabilities with five new partners added in Q1 2025 (Comscore, Happydemics, DISQO, VideoAmp, and Kochava), positioning the platform's unique combination of mobility, delivery and commerce as an opportunity to connect with consumers "in the middle of doing" rather than merely showing intent.

Amazon unveiled AI-powered advertising solutions at IAB NewFronts 2025, including "Performance Plus" and "Brand Plus" tools designed to combat media fragmentation and signal loss through the company's vast first-party data ecosystem. The tech giant's DSP now offers advertisers like PepsiCo consolidated capabilities across the marketing funnel, with additional innovations including a "Complete TV" tool that bridges linear and streaming television measurement and "Amazon Publisher Cloud," a clean room solution enabling privacy-compliant data collaboration with publishers.

Vizio unveiled its first advertising plans under Walmart's ownership at its 2025 NewFronts presentation, allowing brands to purchase Vizio's inventory through Walmart's demand-side platform with reported $200,000 minimum commitments. The smart TV manufacturer, which claims to reach 79 million people, is testing streaming ads that leverage Walmart's extensive shopping data—with Unilever among early adopters—while expanding content offerings through new advertiser-friendly hubs for sports, gaming, and news, plus a "MyHub" section described as "a first step towards a shoppable experience.”

Major advertising platforms like Google, Meta, and Amazon are winning market share by offering "one-click" simplicity that appeals to brand marketers who often lack deep programmatic knowledge or understanding of the ad tech supply chain. Mark Zuckerberg recently articulated this strategic shift, telling Stratechery: "You're a business, you come to us, you tell us what your objective is, you connect to your bank account, you don't need any creative, you don't need any targeting demographic, you don't need any measurement, except to be able to read the results that we spit out.”

Disney reported a profitable streaming quarter with its DTC division posting $336 million in operating profit (up from $289 million last year) as the company prepares to showcase its advertising offerings at the upcoming upfronts. Despite streaming competition creating a "glut of supply," CFO Hugh Johnston cited "strong demand" for Disney advertising with the company expecting its overall ads business to grow by more than 3% this year, bolstered by significant investments in ad tech and robust sports viewership trends, including a 32% increase in prime-time ESPN viewing among 18-to-49-year-olds.

Key Article Takeaways - TLDR

  • Google's legal troubles and cookie policies are reshaping the ad tech landscape. Magnite estimates that each percentage point of market share gained from Google's dominant 60% position could add $50M to their revenue. Meanwhile, Criteo is bullish on performance media following Google's decision to keep third-party cookies in Chrome, showing how platform policy and antitrust actions are creating both threats and opportunities across the ecosystem.

  • AI is significantly disrupting publisher economics. Google's AI Overviews now appear in 13% of all search queries (up from 6.49% in January), correlating with 34.5% lower clickthrough rates for publishers. AI bots are aggressively scraping content, with scrapes per website doubling from Q3 to Q4 2024 and bypassing robots.txt, growing by over 40%. This poses an existential threat to traditional publisher revenue models.

  • Major platforms are consolidating power by simplifying the advertising process. Amazon is using AI to combat media fragmentation through its first-party data ecosystem, while Meta's Zuckerberg articulated their strategy as "You're a business, you come to us, you tell us what your objective is, you connect to your bank account, you don't need any creative, you don't need any targeting demographic..." This "easy button" approach is winning market share as many brand marketers lack deep programmatic knowledge.