Andrew Byrd, Author at AdExchanger

Social Media App Spill Wants Relevance More Than Reach. Can Its Culture‑First Ad Model Scale?

Andrew Byrd — Mon, 04 May 2026 05:00:25 +0000

When Twitter began to unravel under new ownership in late 2022, Black users were among the first to look for the exits. Changes to content moderation and enforcement rattled communities that had long treated “Black Twitter” as a cultural home. Brands were rattled, too. The changes at Twitter left advertisers asking whether the platform remained […]

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What A Lead Generation Conference Taught Me About Fixing Ad Ops

Andrew Byrd — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:00:55 +0000

I didn’t expect to walk into a lead generation and customer acquisition-focused event and come out thinking about ad ops. But that’s exactly what happened when I traveled to Las Vegas for Leadscon last week. Lead gen and programmatic tend to live in different corners of the ecosystem. Lead gen is obsessed with calls and […]

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Trusted Media Brands Gets An AI Assist To Sell Cross-Platform Audiences

Andrew Byrd — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 05:00:37 +0000

For all the advancements in programmatic ad tech, buyers’ expectations haven’t changed much: They still want a single, coherent view of reach and performance. But for publishers, the operational reality is messy, with inventory spanning print, web, social, streaming and newsletters, each with their own currency and blind spots. Stitching these audiences together requires organizing […]

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As RFPs Shrink, Multicultural Publishers Fight For Dollars With First-Party Data

Andrew Byrd — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:00:09 +0000

Multicultural publishers aren’t just competing for ad dollars anymore. They’re under pressure to grow and scale their audience to remain competitive in an increasingly selective marketplace. Shrinking referral traffic and cooling diversity budgets have combined to squeeze a category that once saw a surge in brand investment. To adapt, some publishers are turning to tools […]

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Hearst Built A Unified Ad Marketplace To Simplify Omnichannel News Buys

Andrew Byrd — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:00:40 +0000

Hearst is stitching together its far‑flung news properties into a single programmatic marketplace to make buying local news simpler and to shore up its business as the ad market shifts. With the Hearst News ad network, announced today, the company is pulling inventory from its TV stations, newspapers and digital news sites into one coordinated […]

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Inside RTL’s Plan To Aggregate Europe’s Fragmented TV And Video Supply

Andrew Byrd — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:00:44 +0000

European TV has never been an easy market for buying or selling advertising. Much like the US TV market, national broadcasters still dominate in Europe, but their content is spread across different languages, currencies and regulations. Also much like the US, Europe is undergoing a transition from linear TV to streaming and CTV. But reliable […]

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Indie Agency Wpromote Dishes On How It’s Testing New Agentic SSP Tools

Andrew Byrd — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:00:39 +0000

Ad agencies have an overwhelming amount of buying tools to choose from. And they’re increasingly relying on AI to focus just on what will help them meet their clients’ needs. Between general-purpose and specialized DSPs, social platforms, CTV environments and direct publisher deals, agencies have to stitch campaigns together across a variety of fragmented systems. […]

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Local Publishers Hit By AI Traffic Drops Collaborate For Revenue Relief

Andrew Byrd — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 05:00:38 +0000

Referral traffic is drying up, and for local news publishers, the impact is inescapable. AI-generated answers are replacing clicks, pushing links further down the page or removing the need to visit a site altogether. The trend accelerated traffic downturns caused by social platforms locking engagement inside their walled gardens. For smaller publishers whose revenue still […]

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Higher Programmatic CPMs Drove 44% Revenue Growth For The Guardian US

Andrew Byrd — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:00:41 +0000

Conversations around publisher revenue have been gloom and doom over the past couple of years. But here’s a bit of good news: The Guardian US grew its programmatic revenue by 44% year over year in February. That’s an outlier in a market where many publishers are grappling with AI-driven shifts in search behavior and stubbornly […]

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What Does A Beta Test Of A Sell-Side Agent Look Like?

Andrew Byrd — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 05:19:03 +0000

Using machine learning to automate and optimize ads is familiar to publishers. For years, this tech has helped publishers tune floors and serve the best ads behind the scenes. Now, publishers are exploring automation and optimization through agentic AI. Many publishers have identified a similar use case: sales agents who actively make decisions in the […]

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