Join us Sept. 14-16 in Miami to connect with top publishing leaders
DIGIDAY+ MEMBER EXCLUSIVES
X creates a new revenue model for creators — but will it actually win them over?
X’s new “original content rewards program” seeks creators who publish high-quality content on the platform. Will it bring in more creators?
OpenAI's ads program matures
Media
Media Briefing: Ads for AI agents have a measurement problem
A wave of startups is racing to solve AI ad measurement and attribution as publishers and advertisers experiment with serving ads to agents.
The winners and losers of YouTube’s view count and monetization overhaul
YouTube is changing how it measure views and raising the bar for creators to get monetized. Who wins and who loses?
As AI automates everything, The Atlantic is building games by hand
The Atlantic is bucking the AI automation trend with a new trivia game handcrafted by “Jeopardy!” champion and senior editor Drew Goins.
Marketing
Discord adds lower funnel with outcomes push
Discord is pushing its ad business further down the funnel, betting that its gaming communities can deliver more than impressions.
Future of Marketing: For the source of Nike’s decline, ignore the easy answers
The markets have the vaunted apparel brand in last place. But to understand why it’s lagging, and the hurdles in the way of recovery, marketers should ignore hobby horse explanations.
Creators are moving into brands’ AI search playbooks
As brands race to show up in AI-generated answers, creators are becoming part of the strategy.
Future of TV
Future of TV Briefing: YouTube Shorts gains ad dollars but needs to crack social budgets
This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at advertisers’ spending on YouTube Shorts inventory as the platform raises the revenue-sharing threshold for creators.
Ad Tech Briefing: TV measurement’s competitive reset gathers pace (with more job cuts)
ComScore and VideoAmp confirm large job cuts, just days after rival Nielsen makes bold M&A move.
Future of TV Briefing: In TV ad market’s swing to streaming, cheap inventory is in demand
This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how TV and streaming companies’ advertising businesses fared in the second quarter of 2026.
Media Buying
Butler/Till extends agentic media buying tests into audio with iHeartMedia
Tests of autonomous media buying tools are spreading into more channels; publishers hope they can make direct buys easier and more attractive to advertisers.
‘Waste in the system’: Why Georgia-Pacific is holding out on buying agents
According to its senior director of digital media Paras Shah it’s less that the tech isn’t ready and more that online advertising isn’t.
Media Buying Briefing: How ‘outcomes’ has become the latest term to be overused
After throwing around transformation for the last few years, holdcos are now obsessed with delivering outcomes — but it’s not as easy as they make it sound.
Annual research reports
Podcasts
Research
Upfronts
Future of TV Briefing: The upfront is overtaking streaming’s programmatic marketplace
This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how major TV and streaming ad sellers are seeing upfront deals represent a larger share of their programmatic businesses.
Why Amazon and YouTube pitched operating systems, not just TV inventory at this year’s upfront
Negotiations over identity, infrastructure, AI-driven buying take place as much as programing.
Unpacked: How brands and retailers like Ulta Beauty are building data-driven loyalty programs
Discover how loyalty programs and lifecycle marketing drive growth, using verified data to personalize experiences and build lasting customer trust. Partner insights from SheerID.
Curology is testing Walmart as a new acquisition channel for its prescription skin-care business, with early conversion rates running five times higher than online.
Curology is testing Walmart as a new acquisition channel for its prescription skin-care business, with early conversion rates running five times higher than online.
The latest celebrity brands to shut down are Messi’s Mas+ and Alex Cooper’s Unwell, proving that major buzz fades quickly in the saturated celebrity-led CPG space.
The latest celebrity brands to shut down are Messi’s Mas+ and Alex Cooper’s Unwell, proving that major buzz fades quickly in the saturated celebrity-led CPG space.