Spotlight
Welcome to the March Spotlight, your recap of some of the main headlines from across adtech and digital marketing.
What we have for you today: Criteo partners with Open AI, digital advertising’s sustainability focus matures, and ad fraud rears its ugly head.
Earlier in March, Criteo announced that it has become the first adtech partner for OpenAI’s advertising pilot in the US. Through the integration, marketers on ChatGPT can leverage Criteo’s commerce data and activation tools for campaigns. The announcement highlights an important fact: AI engines will need to leverage data beyond generic web-crawl intelligence if conversational ads are to be relevant and impactful for consumers. As elsewhere in digital advertising, having access to rich, privacy-compliant audience signals will be key. In this respect, AI companies are little different to any digital publisher.
A theme we’ve returned to time and again in Spotlight in recent months is the ways in which publishers are fighting back against the competitive threat posed by AI. In the UK, a new initiative launched by the Guardian, BBC, Financial Times, Telegraph, and Sky News is looking to establish standards around AI licensing. The aim is to control AI scraping and protect content. It is of course vital that publishers protect their intellectual property. But this is only half of the equation. Publishers that also focus on defending ad revenues through efficient and effective audience verification and activation will be even better placed to protect against AI competition. The moves are also supported by the fact that the UK Government is backing down on plans to weaken copyright in favour of AI firms, meaning things are beginning to look up for publishers.
According to the IAB Europe’s “State of Readiness: Sustainability in Digital Advertising Report 2026,” the digital advertising industry is broadening its impact focus from carbon emissions alone to broader societal implications including privacy, media plurality, accessibility, diversity, and responsible media. We welcome this trend wholeheartedly. As Novatiq we’ve long championed sustainability in all its guises – whether that’s reducing carbon emissions through more accurate ad targeting or protecting user privacy through consent-based mechanisms. We look forward to seeing more progress on this front in the years ahead.
New research reveals that European streaming-service subscribers are now accustomed to ads. Forty-seven percent of respondents now exclusively watch streaming services with ads, while 49% say that they deliberately selected a plan with ads when signing up. However, ad relevancy is a challenge. Seventy-two percent of viewers report that ad relevance has not improved or has worsened in the last five years. If streaming and CTV are to live up to their potential as a key digital advertising channel, then this relevancy gap needs to be addressed as a priority. As always, the solution lies in integrating high-quality, accurate, and privacy compliant data into the advertising process. Clearly, first-party IDs verified by telcos would have a lot to offer.
Ad fraud is once again back in the headlines. This time, Google’s Android App store was the vector of choice. The fraud scheme saw over 115 mobile apps used to propagate fraudulent ad activity. When users downloaded an affected app, hidden in-app browsers pushed traffic to AI-generated domains to monetise ad engagement. AI has opened another front in the battle against fraudsters. In this world, it’s more important than ever that brands look for adtech solutions that can 100% verify users at source so they know their ad budgets are being spent on legitimate inventory.
If you’re looking for comment and thought leadership on some of the biggest trends in digital advertising, then swing by our blog.
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