Welcome to The Refresh, a weekly newsletter from Marketecture. Every Thursday we’ll bring you the latest advertising news, commentary, and memes.

• Key Privacy Issues in AdTech (Reuters)

• AppLovin Hires Law Firm to Investigate Short Report Claims (AdWeek)

• Infillion Taps Ad Tech Veteran Jeremy Woodlee to Lead Enterprise Business Unit (Yahoo Finance)

• IAB PlayFronts 2025—5 takeaways for brands (AdAge)

• Roblox Courts Programmatic Demand From Google With Rewarded Video And In-Game Ads (AdExchanger)

• Roblox announces new ad format, Google partnership to boost advertising business (Yahoo Finance)

• Spotify announces ad exchange, SAX (link)

Can AdTech Balance Privacy & Performance?

Digital marketers are navigating a precarious transition as third-party cookies fade into obsolescence. While there's a pressing need to adopt new ways of understanding audiences, this shift is happening amid growing consumer and regulatory scrutiny around privacy. Fingerprinting has emerged as a flashpoint drawing backlash from regulators like the UK’s ICO and raising alarms among privacy-conscious consumers.

Still, marketers aren’t out of options. Techniques such as probabilistic tracking, identity graphs, contextual targeting, and first-party data collection offer alternative paths though each comes with trade-offs in accuracy, scale, and compliance. Industry leaders argue that privacy and personalization can coexist, depending on user context and consent.

Yet confusion and inertia remain widespread. Advertisers can’t wait on Big Tech to resolve these issues; instead, they have to take ownership of data strategies and start testing privacy-centric solutions now, such as Google’s Privacy Sandbox and PETs.

Read ExchangeWire

The Brand Forum with Alex Birchmeier from Conagra Brands Magic

The Brand Forum is a new weekly series from Marketecture Media hosted by Jeremy Bloom and Josh Palau, diving deep into what really matters to today’s brand marketers. Each episode features candid conversations with top brand leaders, offering insider perspectives on the shifting landscape of advertising, media, and marketing. Kicking things off, Josh and Jeremy sit down with Alex Birchmeier of Conagra Brands to talk channel testing, bold moves, and how he juggles a powerhouse portfolio. Don’t miss it!

Listen here

Botched Detection: How Did So Many Ad Platforms Miss the Obvious?

An Adalytics report reveals that major ad tech and verification platforms failed to block blatant bot traffic raising serious questions about oversight, accountability, and the effectiveness of pre-bid fraud filters. As finger-pointing ensues, industry insiders say the fix starts with buyer-side pressure and a willingness to actually understand the tech behind the spend.

Read ExchangeWire

Samsung’s GameBreaks Turns CTV Ads Into Playtime

Samsung Ads has unveiled GameBreaks, an innovative ad format that embeds interactive mini-games into premium commercial slots on Samsung TV Plus. Aimed at transforming passive ad breaks into moments of active engagement, GameBreaks lets brands customize questions, themes, and gameplay to align with their messaging. Early results are impressive: 98% of users play through to the end, there's a 1.5x boost in brand recall compared to standard video ads, and nearly 90% of viewers say they prefer GameBreaks to traditional commercials. With plans to roll out more than eight games in 2025, Samsung is betting big on the power of play.

Read Adweek

TikTok Ban Panic Fades as Marketers Embrace Calm Before the Deadline

Marketers were recently scrambling over the potential U.S. ban of TikTok, a scenario once unimaginable but now tied to an April 5 deadline for a forced divestiture from its Chinese parent, ByteDance. Yet, instead of escalating anxiety, the mood has turned surprisingly composed. Advertisers, who initially rushed to rethink strategies, are now adopting a wait-and-see approach. TikTok’s remaining ad sales team has worked to reassure partners and maintain a sense of continuity, even as staffing cuts and regulatory uncertainty hang overhead. Whether this calm is justified—or just the eye of the storm—remains to be seen.

Read Digiday

Upfront TV Buyers Push Back as Sellers Seek Guarantees

As programmatic advertising cements its role in the TV and streaming upfronts, a tug-of-war is intensifying between ad buyers and sellers over deal structures. Buyers continue to favor private marketplace (PMP) deals for greater control, while networks and streamers prefer programmatic guaranteed (PG) deals to lock in revenue. But the divide is blurring. Networks like AMC and TelevisaUnivision are introducing “guardrails” to allow PMP deals while still protecting their bottom lines. Some buyers are even rethinking PMP due to higher DSP fees, nudging interest back toward PG. Meanwhile, excess CTV inventory and pricing pressure from giants like Amazon and Google are creating downward CPM trends, adding more complexity to this evolving ecosystem. As negotiations heat up ahead of this year’s upfronts, the question isn’t whether programmatic will play a role but who controls the terms.

Read Digiday

Miami Lights is almost here—and spots are limited.

After our packed Thriving in Chaos event in NYC, we’re heading to Miami this April for the ultimate AdTech, marketing, and media experience.

Entry priority is for sponsors. If you want in, now’s the time to reach out.

Join us at the exclusive Soho Beach House for premium cocktails, top-tier networking, and live Marketecture interviews. The MadTech Blowout Bar offers glam for female leaders, and Preach on the Beach brings oceanfront real talk from The Advertising Forum.

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