August 6th-August 12th

Below is a roundup of last week’s notable industry news, with summaries and our opinions. Q2 earnings this week did not paint as rosy of a picture for the industry as last week’s earnings…

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Q2 Earnings Letdown…

The Trade Desk (👎): Revenue was up 19% to $694M, beating estimates, but growth decelerated from 26% a year ago. CFO Laura Schenkein departed, replaced by Alex Kayyal. Kokai, Trade Desk’s AI-powered interface, accounts for 75% of all budgets now. Analysts voiced concerns about Amazon's expanding DSP market share, to which Jeff Green said, "Amazon is not a competitor, and Google really isn't much of a competitor anymore either.” Q3 guidance suggests further slowdown amid tariff uncertainty. Analysts didn’t like any of this and downgraded TTD’s stock.🔒 Shares crashed 39% for its worst day ever.

AppLovin (👍): Revenue was up 77% to $1.26B, missing estimates. Net income more than doubled, and AppLovin's AI-powered AXON platform is driving growth. CEO Adam Foroughi said the Apple-Epic legal fallout could create a "tailwind" within 4-8 quarters as developers spend more on ads and avoid Apple's 15-30% App Store fees. Q3 guidance topped expectations. Shares popped 12%.

Pinterest (👎): Revenue was up 17% to $998M, beating estimates. Pinterest's monthly active users were up 11% to 578M, with Gen Z now comprising over half the user base. The CFO cited lingering advertiser concerns over tariffs and "broader market uncertainty." Q3 guidance topped expectations. Earnings per share missed expectations, sending shares 10% lower.

Magnite (👎): Revenue was up 6% to $173M, missing estimates. CTV revenue was up 14%, driven by partnerships with Roku, Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Paramount. CEO Michael Barrett said Magnite is positioned to capture Google's SSP market share following the upcoming DOJ antitrust ruling, and highlighted SMB growth in programmatic CTV. Shares fell 7%.

PubMatic (👎): Revenue was up 6% to $71.1M, beating estimates. CTV revenue was up 50%, and omnichannel video grew 34%, now representing 41% of total revenue. The SSP also sees an opportunity to grab some of Google's market share in 2026. But management warned of headwinds from platform changes by a top DSP partner, putting pressure on PubMatic to diversify its DSP mix. Shares fell 28%.

LiveRamp (👎): Revenue was up 11% to $195M, beating estimates. LiveRamp says it is seeing momentum in its Data Collaboration Network and new Cross Media Intelligence measurement solution. LiveRamp raised its full-year revenue guidance but its guidance for this quarter came in below expectations. Shares fell by 6%. 

IAS (👍): Revenue was up 16% to $149.2M, beating estimates. The media measurement platform saw strong growth across all segments: optimization revenue up 16% to $67.9M, publisher revenue surging 36% to $24.3M, and measurement revenue up 8% to $57M. IAS raised full-year revenue guidance, citing strong adoption of AI-powered products. Shares rose 11%.

Viant (👎): Revenue was up 18% to $77.9M, beating estimates. CTV now accounts for 45% of ad spend on the platform. The company touted the launch of the third phase of its ViantAI product suite, AI Measurement and Analysis, and a $250M pipeline in potential ad spend opportunities. Shares fell 10%. 

Perion (👎): Revenue was down 5% to $103M, beating estimates. Advertising Solutions revenue was up 8%, the first year-over-year gain in two years. The company launched a new performance CTV solution, expanded to Korea, and the Greenbids integration is on track. Shares fell. 

Taboola (🤷): Revenue was up 8.7% to $465.5M, beating estimates. The native ads company bought back nearly 12% of shares in H1 and expanded its repurchase program by $200M. Taboola raised full-year revenue guidance, beating estimates. Shares rose 4% before falling.

Teads (👎): Revenue was up 60% to $343.1M, missing estimates. It's the first full quarter for the combined company, which includes Outbrain, and some integration benefits "are taking longer to materialize." Teads chose not to reaffirm its full-year guidance and will focus on reigniting growth. Shares fell 19%.

WPP (👎): Organic revenue was down 5.8%. Operating profit for the first half of the year was down 47.8%. The agency holding company has reduced its headcount by 7,000 employees. WPP will conduct a strategic review of its business (see below). Shares fell nearly 5% to a 16-year low.

Disney (👎): Revenue was up 2% to $23.65B, missing estimates. Disney+ added 1.8M subscribers to reach 128M, with direct-to-consumer streaming delivering $346M in operating income vs. a loss last year. Linear TV revenue is still a drag, but Disney raised full-year guidance. Shares fell 2%.

Warner Bros. Discovery (🤷): Revenue was up 1% to $9.81B, beating estimates,🔒 powered by strong box office wins. Max added 3.4M subscribers to reach 125.7M and turned profitable. Studios revenue is expected to remain strong. WBD plans to split into two companies next year. Shares gained initially before falling.

Opinion: Last week, we talked about the "AI dividend"—how Google, Meta, and Amazon turned AI investments into measurable, incremental revenue and soaring stock prices. This week's earnings reveal the flip side: independent ad tech is getting crushed by the same AI revolution enriching walled gardens. (okay, yes, we know, AppLovin is an outlier)

The irony is brutal. Independent ad tech built its reputation on transparency, flexibility, and human control—attributes AI makes obsolete. The Trade Desk gave agencies granular control over programmatic buying; agencies, in turn, billed clients for time spent optimizing campaigns. The Trade Desk rode this playbook to a $60B+ valuation at its peak. But now that AI can optimize 75% of budgets automatically, that control becomes a liability, not an asset.

Walled gardens don't have this problem. Google, Meta, and Amazon sell outcomes, not transparency, and not control. They have proprietary data and inventory at scale, which enables them to push advertisers toward black box AI that “works”. Advertisers happily trade transparency and control for performance.

When independent platforms automate away transparency and control using AI, they lose their differentiator without gaining performance advantages. The problem compounds when you take into account that open web publishers are also getting crushed by AI. Since indie ad tech relies on the open web for ad inventory, they're getting hit from both sides—their value proposition is eroding while their inventory base shrinks.

So what? The future belongs to:

1. Walled gardens

2. AI-first companies building for the future

3. Legacy ad tech willing to aggressively cannibalize itself and evolve FAST

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That’s It For This Week 👋

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