Ad Tech Bears Beat The Bulls; Back When Traffic Was A Good Thing

Recorded: Sept. 18, 2026, 4:10 a.m.

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Ad Tech Bears Beat The Bulls; Back When Traffic Was A Good Thing | AdExchanger

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Home Daily News Roundup Ad Tech Bears Beat The Bulls; Back When Traffic Was A Good Thing

Daily News Roundup
Ad Tech Bears Beat The Bulls; Back When Traffic Was A Good Thing By AdExchanger

Friday, September 18th, 2026 – 12:03 am
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Cut The Bull
After a few optimistic years of ad tech IPOs, the past year or two has been brutal.
Plenty of ink has been spilled over The Trade Desk (guilty), which has seemingly gone from the industry’s David fighting evil Goliaths to a Goliath itself.
But at least it’s still listed (albeit not in the S&P 500 for much longer).
Other ad tech companies have been exiting the public markets like they’re in escape pods in a sci-fi movie. Mediaocean acquired and delisted Innovid in 2025, for example, and Integral Ad Science’s run on the Nasdaq exchange also came to an end last year after its acquisition by Novacap.
Meanwhile, rumors are swirling about a potential take-private deal involving Criteo, as Digiday reports from ExchangeWire’s ATS event in London this week. Criteo’s market cap has dropped below $1 billion, which is exactly when predatory private equity firms start circling.
To be fair, not every ad tech stock has gone down in the past year. But the biggest platforms have captured almost all of the growth, at least as Wall Street measures it. And where there are challengers taking share, most people point to other giants like AppLovin or Walmart, while third-party programmatic receives very little investor love.
Business Insider-Out
Business Insider’s traffic peaked back in 2021 when it was clocking some 95 million average monthly unique visitors. So far in 2026, that average has cratered to 21 million. Last year it was roughly 28 million.
These numbers were reportedly presented by CEO Christian Baesler during a Wednesday morning all-hands meeting, according to Status.
The underlying data comes from Comscore, but there’s an important caveat worth noting. Traffic measurement has changed a lot since 2021, mostly for the worse (just ask anyone stuck with the new Google Analytics dashboard). Even so, it’s a grim picture for Business Insider, specifically, and for digital news publishers in general.
And so Baesler is looking “elsewhere” for potential growth opportunities.
Unfortunately, “elsewhere” usually means burrowing deeper inside the walled gardens. Business Insider’s YouTube channels, for example, which total 38 million subscribers, are, in Baesler’s words, “under-monetized.” You can bet he feels the same about TikTok and Instagram.
“It’s going to be a continued time for transition as we build this future,” he said.
Mistrust The Process
On Thursday, Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) submitted a letter to the FTC outlining their concerns about Alexa and Sparky, Amazon’s and Walmart’s respective AI shopping chatbots.
The letter cites research purporting that both bots obscure information about product origins, specifically, whether or not something was made in the US.
Amazon refuted the claims point blank, telling The Wall Street Journal that “country-of-origin information, when available, is currently displayed on product detail pages” and that Amazon constantly updates Alexa to make this information “even more accessible for customers” when there are related follow-up questions.
But the concern is bigger than just over Walmart and Amazon. If consumers feel that their questions aren’t being answered accurately by AI – or, worse, that an agent isn’t serving their interests – they’ll lose trust in shopper agents in general.
Earlier this week, ChatGPT rolled out an ad format that sends people who click on a brand’s ad into a conversation with that brand’s AI agent, rather than to its website. But this sort of model will struggle if consumers don’t trust brand agents in the first place.
But Wait! There’s More!
Publicis dropped out of Coca-Cola’s global agency review to take PepsiCo’s business, leaving WPP poised to win the Coke account. [Digiday]
OpenAI publicly disclosed six new instances of “misalignment” – as in, times when its model went badly astray – and shared a new framework for self-reporting future incidents. [post]
How did Crocs become a top TikTok Shop seller? [Adweek]
Existential fears and marketing run amok are shaping the debate around AI in the US. [Bloomberg]
You’re Hired!
Consumer marketing research and analytics company Prodege names Todd Parsons, Criteo’s former chief product officer, as CEO. [release]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

Tagged in:

AI chatbots

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amazon

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Amazon Alexa

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Business Insider

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Christian Baesler

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comscore

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criteo

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ftc

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ipo

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Publisher Monetization

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Rick Scott

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sparky

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Tammy Baldwin

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the trade desk

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TTD

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Walmart

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The ad technology sector has experienced significant turbulence, marked by market challenges following previous public offerings, where some companies have exited public markets. Major platforms have captured the majority of growth, leaving challengers in the background, and third-party programmatic advertising has received limited investor interest. Specific entities have seen shifts, such as Mediaocean acquiring Innovid in 2025 and Integral Ad Science being acquired by Novacap. Rumors persist regarding potential take-private deals, notably involving Criteo, whose market capitalization has dropped below one billion dollars, attracting attention from private equity firms.

The broader landscape of digital media faces monetization and traffic challenges. Business Insider, for instance, has seen a substantial decline in average monthly unique visitors, dropping from approximately 95 million in 2021 to 21 million in 2026, according to data from Comscore. This indicates a grim trend for digital news publishers in general, prompting leadership, such as CEO Christian Baesler, to seek growth opportunities by focusing on internal platforms, such as under-monetized YouTube channels, suggesting a larger transition is underway in the media space.

Furthermore, evolving artificial intelligence technologies are introducing complex issues surrounding consumer trust and data privacy. Concerns have been raised by lawmakers regarding AI shopping chatbots, such as Amazon Alexa and Walmart Sparky, concerning their ability to accurately disclose product origin information. Although Amazon has asserted that country-of-origin information is displayed and updated to be more accessible, the underlying concern remains regarding consumer confidence in AI agents serving their interests. This trust issue extends to emergent ad formats, such as those utilizing brand AI agents, where skepticism about brand agents could hinder adoption.

In parallel with these business and trust dynamics, other significant corporate and technological shifts are occurring. Publicis exited its global agency review for Coca-Cola to pursue PepsiCo, positioning WPP to secure the Coca-Cola account. On the technology front, OpenAI has publicly disclosed instances of model misalignment and introduced a framework for reporting future incidents. Additionally, the success of entities like Crocs in the TikTok Shop environment highlights the rapidly changing dynamics of commerce integration. Concurrently, the marketing landscape is seeing changes, evidenced by Prodege naming Todd Parsons, Criteo’s former chief product officer, as the new CEO. These developments demonstrate a complex interplay between financial market performance, digital traffic metrics, evolving regulatory scrutiny over AI, and strategic realignment within the advertising and technology industries.