Gareth Glaser

TL:DR – Certain folks are going to fight the agentic shopping universe with everything they’ve got… who else do you think will hate it? --- I posed the question the other day: Are we moving towards this wonderous agentic universe that will cause brand websites to cease to exist and we will shop via robots scouring the interwebs to score deals and hot drops for us? For the purposes of this diatribe let’s assume that Agentic shopping will usurp standard eCommerce shopping soon. Who is going to fight that? Here are three… and there are ALOT more. 1) The major advertising gate keepers. I asked ChatGPT this question – so if it’s wrong --- well, insert GPT 5 joke (here). In fiscal year 2024, 77% of TikTok, 97.6% of Meta, and in 2023 (come on GPT… crawl 2024 data!) 77% of Alphabet’s revenue was advertising. If the agentic shopping universe truly emerges… people don’t click on this stuff as much, right? Sure, people may for the purposes of discovery --- but like --- branded search? That’s dead. Last click conversions? That’s dead. One of the core arguments of the “jaded capitalists” I referenced in my earlier blog is that these massive advertising juggernauts --- and ANY down funnel advertising platform (say goodbye to all affiliates, for example) --- are dead. Trillions of global advertising dollars are at risk. Agencies must be stoked about this too, right? 2) Highly distributed brands with no price control. I used to work in CPG, specifically in the VMS space (vitamins, minerals, supplements). We used to talk about products and pricing in context of Mass, Club, Drug and Grocery. There was an assumption that you could just go ahead and throw the same thing in various places with different prices, and it wouldn’t really matter. In an agentic universe… that’s dead. “Hey robot – go find me CuraPro at the cheapest per unit cost that can be delivered in the next 3 days – please make sure the total per unit cost includes all shipping costs”. 3) Marketplaces that don’t have the lowest price… and I mean total price including shipping and handling and even including monthly dues for things like Amazon Prime. Let’s go back to my earlier query looking for CuraPro. “Hey robot – go find me CuraPro, at the cheapest price per unit that can be delivered in the next 3 days but only search for truly reputable sellers that have a positive online reputation and also incorporate my membership cost into the cost arbitrage if relevant.” Do you really care where you get certain things? If Amazon sold you CuraPro at a fully landed 31 cents and you could get it for 29 cents from Walgreens… you’d get it from Walgreens, right? You could get obnoxious even and incorporate return policies, expiration dates, shipping providers… but the point is --- if your marketplace DOESN’T win on price… and CAN’T win on logistics… then how do you survive in a market that has now lost any semblance of price opacity? There are countless others… please add on here!!

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Roku just handed Amazon Ads exclusive DSP access to its CTV inventory and identity graph. This isn’t just a partnership — it’s the closest thing to an acquisition you can get without calling the FTC. 😅 Think of it like this: a fast-growing startup with valuable real estate just gave the keys to a trillion-dollar tenant… who now controls how customers enter the building, what they see, and how the rent gets collected. Roku needs scale and performance. Roku gets: 🟢 Massive demand from retail advertisers 🟢 Precision targeting via first-party shopper data 🟢 Technical muscle to activate that data across CTV In return, Amazon gets: 🟢 Exclusive control over Roku’s authenticated inventory 🟢 A deterministic ID graph linked to ~80 million households 🟢 CTV dominance without tripping regulatory wires This is a power play — clean, quiet, and extremely effective. For independent ad tech players? The moat just got deeper, and the performance gap is widening. I’ve spent years building DSP platforms and reporting tools — and deals like this always look clean on the outside. But there are always technical hurdles: mis-estimated audience overlap, fragmented measurement, and cultural misalignment between orgs. Best wishes to the product people who have to overcome that. 🤞 Conclusion: CTV is no longer just TV with better pipes. It’s becoming a closed loop performance channel, ruled by those who own identity, inventory, and demand. Roku placed its biggest bet yet — and Amazon didn’t even have to call Legal.

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🚨 (Adweek) LLM disruption also played a role in adtech's Q2 downward trend, "...the complexities of navigating the AI boom—which is causing upheaval in how people search and stifling publisher traffic—and adtech companies are finding themselves in a new kind of pressure cooker." 💡 I think a lot about the turbulence B2B tech marketing pros are navigating: ➡️ If traffic from Search to brand.com is collapsing, pipeline and revenue metrics are at risk due to far fewer high-quality lead volumes ➡️ If publisher traffic from Search is collapsing, content consumption signal is diminished making Intent data less reliable for TALs and ABM tactics. 🦺 Immediate solve: direct prospect engagement through high-quality demand gen - back to basics with tried and true, predictable pipeline will steady the ship during this uncertain time. #b2bmarketing #growthmarketing #revenuemarketing https://lnkd.in/dHQAA8bh

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Even the most skeptical voices are starting to acknowledge the value of LLM generated code. Not as a replacement for deep expertise, but as a practical tool for acceleration, exploration, and iteration. When someone as famously disciplined about code quality as Linus Torvalds publicly acknowledges that AI generated code can be useful, it signals a shift worth paying attention to. The takeaway is not that AI writes better software than humans, but that good engineers are learning where and how these tools create leverage. https://lnkd.in/eFbNFqYN

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Excited to see the IAB Tech Lab Agent Registry continuing to grow! 🚀 We’re expanding the registry with new agents from Amazon Ads, Burt Intelligence., Optable, Dstillery, and HyperMindZ.ai! The registry continues to help the advertising industry discover trusted capabilities powering agentic advertising workflows. We’ve also introduced a new deployment classification to make agents easier to understand and integrate: - Remote: Accessible to anyone via the internet, even if authentication is required. Best for hosted services, cloud APIs, and SaaS offerings. - Local: Must be downloaded and installed locally. Best for downloadable software, CLI tools, npm packages, or standalone applications. - Private: Deployed to a customer's private network or infrastructure. Best for enterprise on-premise installations or VPC deployments. This is another step toward building a transparent, discoverable ecosystem for advertising agents. Explore the registry and register your agents. It's free! https://lnkd.in/emEFdexH The agentic ecosystem is just getting started. 🤖 #AAMP #AgenticAdvertising #Agentic #AI #IABTechLab #Standards

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Nine years ago this week, my piece predicting the rise of “self-driving news” being automatically generated by the same platforms that were creating fake markets for commerce and social. Now, major publishers are seeing 90+% drop-offs in traffic from search engines as LLMs generate synthesized versions of news stories instead of sending readers to read original media articles. https://lnkd.in/eqPVVHgr

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What was impressive with Adtech/Martech tools three months ago is now table stakes. As a buyer you need to look for *durable* advantages: 👎 "It has an LLM." So do they all. 👎 "Context" within their LLM/chatbot is a claimed advantage. There are literally hundreds of vendors right now training LLMs for context in our industry. And you can get 80% of the way there yourself in 20-30 hours. 👎 "Workflows" are their biggest differentiator. Again, hundreds of vendors doing this specific to our space. 80% of tools out there are just these three. They're an LLM fed with context and deployed with pre-trained workflows. These will largely lose any differentiation in 3-6 months. So what DO you look for? 👍 More than anything, a vision for where the market is going and proof they've been right before. Have they implemented lasting differentiation several times in the last 5 years (the company leadership themselves if the company is new.) 👍 Feature adoption flexibility. There are 100 tools that will buy Google and Meta. Fewer that help you plan your buy in those tools well. Fewer that report on data in an insightful way. You already have a stack and aren't going to rip out all of your existing tools, and so the features you buy AND use will need to fit intelligently with what you're going to keep from your existing stack. 👍 Belief that the major models (Chat, Claude, Gemini) will eat most of what is being developed now, and the patience to develop what most of us don't believe would be worth the major models building out. I have no questions for you to thoughtfully answer in the comments section ;)

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I’m excited to share the results of our Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study, conducted by Forrester Consulting. The study found that TripleLift Creative Formats delivered a massive 272% ROI and an NPV of $2.2 million over three years for the agencies interviewed. Key benefits include: 🔅 $3.70 return on ad spend (ROAS) from TripleLift campaigns 💵 $1.3 million in incremental profit ⏳ 40 hours saved per campaign in labor costs The results highlight what we consistently hear from our partners - creative advertising formats, executed with efficiency and premium inventory, are essential for driving higher performance and navigating a fragmented ecosystem. Download the full Forrester TEI study here: https://lnkd.in/ebwQ49u9 #TheCreativeSSP #CreativeFormats #AdTech #ForresterTEI #TripleLift #ROAS #Profit

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Late January is where Q1 is quietly won or lost. This week’s E-Commerce Innovators Journal reinforces a simple truth: Momentum in Q1 doesn’t come from scaling faster — it comes from fixing fundamentals first. What stands out right now: Scaling traffic before refreshing PDPs is one of the most common (and expensive) Q1 mistakes Loyalty is shifting from “points” to profit-driven behaviors January volatility (returns, lower spend, emotional fatigue) rewards speed + precision, not hype Marketplaces and AI-driven discovery are reshaping how liquidity and demand actually form Strong brands use this moment to: tighten visuals, clean conversion paths, rethink loyalty, and prepare for AI-native commerce. There’s also a 🎁 from this week’s sponsor to help teams keep Q1 momentum strong. 🔗 Read this week’s edition: https://lnkd.in/di5h4QFg #Ecommerce #DTC #Growth #Q1Strategy #AIinEcommerce #Retail

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There are plenty of AI note takers doing simple recaps, but if your commercial team is processing high call volumes weekly, transcripts sitting in folders don't help much. Claap just released a significant product update that lets you mine thousands of conversations in three clicks. They let you interrogate all your conversations through an intuitive interface, extracting patterns, insights, and actionable intelligence from what was previously an unwieldy archive. You can see how power users are already finding creative applications through the template library below. While most B2B apps are trying to build data walls around their applications, I'm excited to see Claap take the opposite approach. They organize your sales conversations and data to fuel intelligent workflows across your different applications and jobs, wherever commercial insights add value. Next week, they're launching their MCP integration to make these datasets actionable by any AI agent outside Claap's platform... More to come! Robin Bonduelle Pierre Touzeau Thomas Hernandez https://lnkd.in/dVrUwPUW

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Crunchbase CEO Jager McConnell has the most non-obvious AI vision – he thinks VCs should plan for 2yr exits on everything 👀😳 today’s World of DaaS pod: super deep insights into every deal in venture https://lnkd.in/ebJ9rWrs

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Broadcasters didn’t lose the audience. The audience outgrew the operating model built to reach them. And here’s the part most underestimate: Gen Z and Millennials now are the majority — and they spend 1.5–4× more on streaming, content, and eCommerce than older cohorts. This is the most valuable audience in media history, and they are accessible everywhere any time.. But they don’t tune in — they flow: short-form → YouTube → OTT. And the most counterintuitive insight? Your archive — not your newest show — is your biggest untapped growth engine. Algorithms reward relevance, not recency. Broadcasters that align with how the New Majority already behaves will lead the next decade. Check out my latest blog (and download the full white paper for the blue print operating model)

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I've been in adtech for 25 years. Every time I dive into a new venture, people ask, "Why adtech? Are you a glutton for punishment?" Actually, adtech is a great investment sector. Not just my opinion. These are a few of the “good investment” criteria for venture capital: 1. High Growth Potential 2. Scalability 3. Technological Innovation 4. Favorable Regulatory Environment 5. Strong Exit Opportunities In a new byline that AdvertisingWeek published today, I break down how adtech scores on each of these criteria. And I arrive at a conclusion the bears won't like: Adtech is beautiful. Check out the link in the comments.

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Yesterday's IAB Workshop on Health Data & Adtech revealed what's becoming increasingly clear: most companies are ready to extract consumer insights from healthcare data but they’re unsure how to navigate the privacy and compliance requirements necessary to work with that data. (I unfortunately didn’t snap any photos beyond the event sign - felt a bit ironic trying to take pictures of everyone at a privacy summit in a packed room! 😂) Sharing the stage with Tony Ficarrotta from Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and Ben Chapman from Swoop, we explored how enterprises can transform compliance barriers into competitive advantages in digital advertising and where pitfalls exist today. Three key themes emerged that align perfectly with what we're building at Integral: 1️⃣ Regulated data is locked in silos - With multiple state laws requiring explicit consent for sensitive data processing, companies face unprecedented challenges in audience development and measurement. Many still view compliance as a liability rather than a strategic opportunity. 2️⃣ Bespoke insights create real differentiation - Organizations that can extract unique, previously unavailable intelligence from regulated data gain significant competitive advantages. The most valuable insights often remain hidden behind complex compliance requirements. 3️⃣ Continuous compliance unlocks innovation - The interplay between HIPAA and state privacy laws creates confusion, but those who implement end-to-end regulated data practices are turning months-long compliance processes into automated workflows that operate at the speed of business. At Integral, we're helping customers unlock the strategic value in their regulated data - reducing compliance timelines by 92% or more while revealing insights others can't see. Our platform continuously evaluates, transforms, and activates regulated data, enabling previously inaccessible data streams for healthcare marketing. Special thanks to Aaron Burstein at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP for orchestrating such a valuable discussion.

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Hot take about the NYC tech networking scene. Everyone is starting an “event series” now. Every week in New York there are dozens of “founder mixers,” “VC networking nights,” and “tech community gatherings.” The barrier to entry is basically zero. A group chat. A free bar space. A Canva flyer. An Eventbrite link. That’s it. Which means we’re seeing two very different types of hosts emerge. 1. The Monetizers (masked as impact) These are the people charging $25–$75 tickets, $5k sponsor packages, and “VIP access” to rooms they got for free. I mean literally free. Think about it, hotels need traffic, they need people buying rooms and drinks at the bar. Foot traffic. So the hotel gives event space away for FREE. No real curation. No real outcomes. Just volume. The math rarely adds up for founders or sponsors. If you’re charging people to get in the room, you better be extremely intentional about who is in that room and what ROI they will get from it. Because charging founders and sponsors for access without delivering outcomes isn’t community building. It’s extraction. 2. The real Builders (actual impact) Then there are people who genuinely care about building ecosystems. They host events because they want founders to meet investors. Operators to meet builders. Ideas to collide. No tickets. No sponsor exploitation. Just value creation. Yesterday I met Somya Gupta, and honestly he might be the best networker I’ve seen in the next generation of 20-something community builders. He’s hosted 75 events. Charged $0. Just focused on connecting great people. That’s the type of energy the ecosystem actually needs. Which is why I’m excited to soft launch a partnership where anyone attending Somya’s events will get free access to Vettable Because I only want Vettable aligned with value creation, not event arbitrage. If you want to make money hosting events, that’s fine. Just be honest about it. And deliver results that justify the price. Otherwise you’re not building community. You’re selling the illusion of it. Thanks for coming to my rant.

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What if your CMS could predict viral stories before you write them? The future of news publishing will be an AI-powered feedback loop. Here’s how I see it: 📊Step 1 – Real-time analytics Every article you publish feeds the CMS with traffic data, page views, engagement, traffic sources, Discover exposure. We already built this part. In Newsifier, publishers can see in real time which articles are taking off, where their traffic is coming from, and what readers are reacting to. 🤖 Step 2 – AI layer on top of the data This is what we’re working on now. Our AI will analyze the live performance of your articles and suggest what to do next. For example: “This article is trending in Google Discover — publish a follow-up on the same topic.” “Your story is going viral but hasn’t been shared on Facebook yet.” 🔍 Step 3 – Automated potential viral article discovery The AI scans the web and social media for emerging stories related to your niche and audience, and identifies which of them have the highest potential to go viral based on your site’s own analytics. It then automatically creates ready-to-review drafts, each with an explanation of why it’s predicted to perform well. ✍️ Step 4 – Human review & creativity Editors review, refine, and add originality — opinions, insights, local angles, or deeper research. That’s where human value comes in. 🔁 Step 5 – Continuous learning Once those articles are published, analytics kick in again — closing the loop, feeding the CMS with new data, and making the next suggestions even smarter. We already have in motion at Newsifier: ✅ Real-time analytics directly inside the CMS ✅ AI rewriting that helps editors refine content faster Now we’re about to build Step 3, an AI system that proactively suggests new articles by scanning the internet and social media, creating drafts, and continuously learning from what performs best. The result will be a true AI-driven publishing loop where: Editors become data-powered decision-makers. Newsrooms can focus more on original journalism while AI handles the heavy lifting. This is where I believe the industry is heading: a future where humans and AI co-create faster, smarter, and hopefully with more original news than ever before. What is your take on it?

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💰 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗠𝗥𝗥 𝗯𝘆 90% We recently ran a simple monetization test: • 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝗔: $19.99 • 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝗕: $29.99 The results? 📈 The $29.99 plan increased 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗹𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗯𝘆 90% — with a slight drop in trial activation rates, but an increase in 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹-𝘁𝗼-𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 (53% 𝘁𝗼 60%). This is why 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗠𝗥𝗥 without building a single new feature. And the upside isn’t just theoretical: • A 10% price increase can boost profits by 20–40% (McKinsey) • Many apps underprice because they’re afraid of churn — but 𝘪𝘧 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, higher pricing often works 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳. • Price tests can be done in weeks, not months, and usually pay for themselves almost instantly. 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆: Don’t just A/B test your onboarding, paywall design, or push notifications — 𝗔/𝗕 𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲. It could be the highest ROI test you run this quarter. 💡 Have you tested a higher price lately? You might be surprised at what your customers are willing to pay. See more monetization case studies from my MAU Vegas presentation (video in comments).

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It’s far too easy to get enamored with the technology de jour. While it’s exciting to talk about new platforms, protocols, etc. most new products are solving boring business problems. Boring business problems are often attached to big budgets and customers willing to pay to alleviate the pain or to gain a competitive advantage. If you’ve invested the time to do customer discovery correctly, you should be dialed in on one of the top 3 things that’s keeping your user awake at night. Let that be your Northstar for product development and you will have a much better chance at finding product market fit and the sustainable sources of revenue to grow your business. #startups #productmarketfit

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