May 27th-June 2nd // Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. Location data: bad. Walmart data: good?!
Check out the latest AI Edge Podcast episode with Dr. Cecilia Dones, Founder of 3 Standard Deviations and AI Professor at Columbia University!
We discuss the latest AI developments, including Google’s AI search overhaul and ChatGPT CPA ads. We also get into the generational divide on AI and how marketers should be thinking about it.
Top Stories 👁
Walmart Connect expands offsite advertising ambitions with Yahoo, Magnite
Source: Marketing Dive
June 1st, 2026
Summary: Walmart's US advertising arm, Walmart Connect, is opening up access to its first-party data beyond its own DSP (which is powered by The Trade Desk). New partnerships with Yahoo DSP and Magnite mark the first time advertisers can utilize Walmart's shopper data outside of the Walmart DSP. The initial focus is on CTV, with Vizio inventory (acquired by Walmart for $2.3B in 2024) front and center.
This follows the end of Walmart's four-year exclusive deal with The Trade Desk last year. Walmart still operates its own DSP, powered by TTD, but now wants its data available wherever advertisers are buying, not just inside its walled garden. Magnite handles the supply-side plumbing; Yahoo is the first demand-side partner.
Offsite retail media spending is projected to top $17B in 2026, up 29.5% YoY. Offsite display campaigns through Walmart Connect delivered a median of 52% new-to-brand customers in 2025. More DSP partnerships are expected to follow.
Opinion: When Walmart first partnered with The Trade Desk, the popular take was: Walmart is using TTD's tech to prove out the ad business, then it will buy or build its own stack once the business is validated and they have enough direct demand. Amazon did it. Everyone assumed Walmart would too (including us).
When Walmart ended TTD’s exclusivity last year, the popular take was: Walmart is ready to buy or build.
That still may happen. But the Yahoo and Magnite deals suggest Walmart could be going in a different direction altogether.
Instead of owning ad tech and competing with all the other ad tech players, Walmart may be opening itself up — making its shopper data available across the ecosystem rather than locking it behind a proprietary DSP. Instead of being like Amazon and competing for demand, perhaps Walmart wants to be like Roku and Disney and access demand everywhere it possibly can.
You might be thinking, “Okay, that’s cool, but why would Walmart want to pay fees and cut into its margin to access demand?” Glad you asked. Walmart's first-party data is so valuable that it can likely dictate its terms to any company. Every ad tech company trying to compete against Amazon and Google (which is literally every ad tech company) has the same problem — they don't have scalable purchase data that closes the loop. Walmart does. Walmart can name its price.
So if you’re Walmart, why build and maintain a full ad stack — with all of the investment required, the time needed, the engineering overhead, the competition — when you can outsource that to the rest of the industry and not pay for it? Run your data across everyone's rails, tap into all the existing demand in the market, and cash checks on your terms. And if any company tries to play hardball on fees (TTD?), there's a line of competitors happy to take their place.
Walmart doesn't need to win the DSP wars. And it doesn’t need to be beholden to any DSP. Perhaps that’s been the strategy all along.
Other Notable Headlines
Peer39 acquires Adloox from Scope3 in ad verification push🔒 - Until now, Peer39 had focused on contextual targeting and brand safety across the open web and CTV. The addition of Adloox brings MRC-accredited fraud detection and viewability measurement and gives Peer39 visibility inside Google and Meta for the first time. That puts Peer39 in more direct competition with DoubleVerify and IAS, which have built their businesses around verification inside the major platforms. Scope3, meanwhile, is moving on from brand safety entirely, concentrating its efforts on Interchange, its infrastructure for agent-driven media buying. Terms were not disclosed.
Amazon is shoring up its publisher and advertiser tools while quietly leaning on outside help to sell some media inventory - At its annual summit, Amazon Publisher Services announced a wave of new products, including an expansion of its Signal IQ tool to help publishers pinpoint which bidstream signals move the needle with buyers. Amazon also released an AI chatbot for publisher monetization teams and new capabilities that let publishers package inventory with Amazon shopping and browsing data for advertisers running consideration campaigns. The announcements come alongside a new report🔒 revealing that Amazon has quietly brought in outside ad tech firms to help with Twitch and Alexa ad sales.
US military personnel are being targeted using location data, Pentagon letter shows - The same location data that powers digital advertising is now being used to track and target American troops in active war zones, according to a confirmation from US Central Command. A bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote to the Pentagon last week calling for protective measures, including disabling advertising IDs on military-issued devices and steering personnel away from data-hungry browsers like Chrome. Location data is typically harvested from smartphones by apps, sold to data brokers, and resold through layers of intermediaries. Senator Ron Wyden called on lawmakers to "start treating the ad tech industry as a national security threat."
The Trade Desk appoints Nate Olmstead CFO after a year of executive turnover🔒 - Olmstead is the company's fourth CFO in roughly a year, joining on July 9th and reporting to CEO Jeff Green. The hire comes as The Trade Desk works to stabilize its leadership team amid growing pressure from investors and agency partners. The company has seen a wave of departures across the executive ranks and board members in recent months. Olmstead comes from AI company Penguin Solutions, where he also served as CFO, and previously held the same role at Logitech. The Trade Desk's stock is down about 70% over the past year.
Other Notable Headlines
(that you should know about too) 🤓
Connecticut becomes the fourth state to ban the sale of precise location data - Governor Ned Lamont signed the bill into law, joining Virginia, Maryland, and Oregon in prohibiting companies from selling data that can pinpoint people's locations within a 1,750-foot radius.
Hightouch cuts out the identity middleman for Trade Desk advertisers🔒 - Brands can now match their ad exposure data directly to their own customer data in their cloud warehouse, instead of routing it through a third-party ID provider. The tool could reduce reliance on identity graph providers like LiveRamp, Experian, and TransUnion.
Anthropic files for IPO - The filing puts Anthropic alongside OpenAI and SpaceX as major AI players eyeing public IPOs this year. Anthropic is currently valued at $965B, and SpaceX is targeting a $1.8T public valuation.
Blackstone-backed mobile marketing platform Liftoff targets $3.7B valuation in US IPO - It’s not in the hundreds of billions or trillions, but a Liftoff IPO would be sizable, especially for an ad tech company. Analysts say a public offering could open the door for other software companies that have been sitting on the sidelines amid concerns about AI disruption.
Dentsu names Pacvue its preferred commerce media technology partner in the US - Pacvue's AI-powered commerce media platform will become the central technology layer for Dentsu's retail media and commerce work in the US, spanning strategy, execution, and measurement.
The stand-alone Hulu app is on its way out as Disney folds it into Disney+ - An internal document obtained by Business Insider outlines a plan to decommission the Hulu app by the end of the year, once all users have migrated. Disney claims there are no current plans to sunset it, but employees say major new feature development has already stopped.
Media agency transparency concerns are nearly as bad as they were a decade ago🔒 - A new ANA survey found 43% of advertisers still have concerns about transparency with their media agencies, barely budging from 46% in 2014. Principal media, where agencies buy inventory and resell it to their clients at undisclosed margins, is cited as the primary culprit.
That’s It For This Week 👋
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