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CMO TLDR: Your Weekly Marketing Brief

Weekly Digest - August 15, 2025

Author

Peter Brendan
August 15, 2025

CMO TLDR: Perplexity’s Bid for Chrome, The Trade Desk’s Tumble, Amazon’s Post-Cookie Playbook

AI’s Bid for Chrome

Perplexity's $35B Chrome Gambit

AI search startup Perplexity has made an unsolicited $35 billion cash offer for Google's Chrome browser, despite being valued at just $18 billion itself and Chrome not actually being for sale. The audacious bid appears timed to coincide with potential antitrust remedies that could force Google to divest the browser, which controls the gateway to billions of users and their valuable search behavior data. It's the latest example of "funny money" dealmaking in AI, where inflated valuations and speculative synergies are driving increasingly creative transactions as nobody really knows what artificial intelligence assets are worth on traditional metrics.

The Trade Desk’s Tumble

Trade Desk Stumble Drags Down Entire Ad Tech Sector

The Trade Desk's stock plummeted from $45 billion to $26 billion in market cap after CEO Jeff Green downplayed Amazon as a competitor on last week's earnings call, triggering a sector-wide selloff that knocked programmatic advertising stocks down 10% or more despite strong quarterly results. Investors wanted a tougher stance against Amazon's rapidly growing advertising business, but Green instead suggested Amazon could become a partner, leaving Wall Street unconvinced about Trade Desk's competitive positioning. The contagion effect highlights how heavily other ad tech companies like DoubleVerify, Magnite, and PubMatic have tied their valuations to Trade Desk's performance, creating a rising tide that lifts all boats until it doesn't.

Amazon’s Post-Cookie Playbook

Amazon's Publisher Partnerships Reshape Post-Cookie Ad Strategy

Amazon is leveraging its massive shopper data and demand-side platform to forge deeper partnerships with publishers like Hearst Magazines and People Inc., creating a new post-cookie advertising model that combines purchase behavior insights with publisher audience data to target the 70% of the open web that's now unaddressable. The strategy is paying off as Amazon's ad business hit $56 billion in 2024, with publishers reporting campaign performance increases of over 50% when using Amazon's data-matching capabilities. Amazon's collaborative approach and lower DSP fees are positioning it as a formidable alternative to Google and The Trade Desk, transforming it from a walled garden into an open web advertising powerhouse.

Google rolled out co-branded partnership ads for YouTube and playable ads for AdMob alongside AI-powered target ROAS bidding for iOS app marketers, aiming to boost performance as App Store consumer spending jumped 24% to $91.6 billion in 2024.

Netflix wrapped its third annual TV upfront with commitments more than double last year's levels, securing deals across all major holding companies while selling out NFL Christmas Day inventory and partnering with brands like DoorDash for WWE Raw programming.

The Trade Desk shares fell 6% after reports that Walmart removed exclusivity requirements from their advertising partnership, allowing the retailer's shopper data to be accessed through rival platforms and potentially weakening Trade Desk's competitive position.

Samsung Ads is developing interactive TV formats, including GameBreaks and upcoming ShoppingBreaks that turn advertising into mini-games and direct commerce experiences, with early tests during a Jonas Brothers livestream showing six to 10 times normal engagement levels.

Key Article Takeaways - TLDR

  • Amazon is positioning itself as an alternative to Google and The Trade Desk. Amazon has some of the most powerful data that AI and other advertising platforms don’t have access to, what we buy.