What Walmart, Google, Meta, and Mastercard Know About Marketing’s Future

As AdTechGod, I've been watching Vibe.co for years. The unhinged ads. The absolute domination of New York subway OOH. The CEO dressing up as a woman for a campaign. (It’s true. Watch it here.) And, of course, the tweets. So many tweets.

Now Walmart is paying $1.4 billion to acquire the company. FACTS! The company’s last raise was $410 million, so a 3X sounds reasonable. But wow… $1.4 BILLION!

All the trades will focus on CTV, retail media, attribution, and performance TV. Those things matter. But here's my biggest takeaway from this monster of an acquisition: Marketing works.

Vibe.co didn't quietly build a business in the shadows. It demanded attention. It built a brand. It made people talk. And now it’s cashing in.

Congrats to the entire Vibe.co team, but especially to its marketing team. Fantastic job.

Note to Walmart: If you want to rebrand me as AdTechGod Connect to complete your stack, please feel free to reach out to my people. I’m sure there are $1.4 billion reasons for me to make this move.

Read Walmart PR

AppsFlyer just raised more than $1 billion, one of the largest funding rounds the ad tech industry has seen in years. Even more interesting is who wrote the checks: Google, Meta, Unity, and Moloco all invested.

The size of the investment says a lot. As AI takes on a bigger role in media buying and campaign optimization, the industry is realizing that measurement may be more important than ever. If AI is making decisions automatically, advertisers need trusted data and independent attribution to understand what's actually driving results.

AppsFlyer plans to use the capital to accelerate its measurement and AI roadmap, with an IPO still firmly in its sights.

I had the opportunity to interview Oren Kaniel, the CEO and cofounder of AppsFlyer, on the AdTechGod Pod. You can listen to the interview on Spotify or Apple Podcast. Congratulations, my friend.

Read Axios

Mastercard's former marketing chief cut the company's ad budget by 70%, and the business kept growing. The strategy was simple: Invest less in interrupting people and more in creating experiences, partnerships, and real connections.

As AI floods the world with more ads and content, that lesson feels even more relevant. Attention is limited. Human connection matters.

Speaking of connections, if you're looking to connect with some of the smartest people in advertising, marketing, media, and ad tech, join the AdTechGod Slack community.

Read Business Insider

DoubleVerify has launched DV Neura, a new AI engine designed to power media quality, verification, optimization, and measurement across its platform. Advertisers can already access DV insights through Claude, with Gemini and Copilot integrations coming next.

The bigger move is toward agentic advertising. DV's upcoming Activation Agent will not just provide recommendations; it will execute approved campaign changes automatically within advertiser-defined guardrails.

As AI generates more content and more noise across the web, trusted verification signals become increasingly important. DV says it has already blocked more than 500 million impressions across AI slop sites this year, positioning itself as a key intelligence layer for the next generation of AI-powered media buying.

Read DoubleVerify

The Marketecture team is on the Croisette, bringing the heat from the Riviera straight to your feed all week long.

From Hot Yachts and Hot Takes to fireside chats and spontaneous run-ins, we’ve been capturing candid conversations and exclusive industry intel from the people shaping media, marketing, and technology. We’ve hosted conversations about the creator-brand connection, commerce media’s ongoing evolution, and the less obvious places AI is making an impact. There have even been exclusive interviews with the players behind some of the biggest headlines of the week (looking at you, Vibe.co 👀).

Catch all the action by keeping an eye on your feed. From the Croisette to your timeline, we’re delivering Cannes coverage that goes well beyond the headlines.

This fall, Marketecture Live is headed to the beating heart of ad land: Chicago. The Windy City serves as the industry epicenter for some of the biggest shifts happening across brands, agencies, media, and tech. If you’ve been wanting to attend Marketecture Live but couldn’t make the trip to NYC, meet us in Chicago on Sept. 23. Lock in your seat and the lowest price of the season today.