Matt Plotnik

Closing out Season 2 of Embracing Erosion with Alena Morris, VP of Product Marketing at Kargo 🙌 Alena has spent 15+ years in ad tech and media, leading product marketing across the publisher, DSP, and SSP sides at PubMatic, Quantcast, and now Kargo. Few people have seen this ecosystem evolve as closely (or as practically) as she has. In this episode, we go deep on where ad tech is actually headed. How AI is unlocking creative intelligence - surfacing patterns, themes, and performance signals that were never accessible before, and turning creative into a true optimization lever. We also dig into: - The blurring lines between SSPs, DSPs, and retail media - Why competition in ad tech is more aggressive than ever - What it takes to lead product marketing and sales teams through real transformation and much more! A fitting way to wrap 20 episodes in Season 2... and 66 total since we started🤯 🎧 Full episode: https://lnkd.in/gwv7JhmW

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Excited to share that Aperiam has invested in Bedrock Platform. Obvious statement of the century: programmatic advertising has a complexity problem. The infrastructure that was built to give media buyers control has, over time, done the opposite. Burying teams under layers of operational overhead, legacy tooling, and opaque supply chains. Bedrock is built on a simple but powerful thesis: what if you stripped away the bloat and rebuilt the stack around what actually matters... precision, transparency, and speed to execution. Their platform combines AI-driven campaign automation with curated, premium inventory across video, CTV, DOOH, and audio, and aims to be flexible and get smarter over time. Plus, the team (Shane, Austin, Ryan, James) has deep roots in the infrastructure layer of ad tech and understands the plumbing better than almost anyone. We believe the next generation of programmatic will be leaner, faster and AI-first. Bedrock is building that.

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However much you think Roku is crushing it, you're still not giving them enough credit. Two major announcements from Roku Sports this week: 1) March 12th NCAA March Madness on Roku Operating System ⛹️‍♂️ 2) March 10th MoonPay X Games on Roku Channel 🏂 Last week: 3) March 7th 'Roklue' Interactive Game on Roku OS 4) March 5th Apple TV becoming available on Roku Channel 5) March 3rd Roll out optimized user search experience What does it all mean? It's no surprise that Roku CEO and Jeff Bezos have taken over the Connected TV and streaming media ecosystem so quickly. Amazon has been best described as a "disruption platform" that can dominate any category it chooses. So much so that The Trade Desk's CEO, Jeff Green believes Amazon DSP won't exist in 5 years. Not because it won't work. But because it's working too good. Take the same platform strategy, the same understanding of disruption dynamics, and you'll understand what Roku is doing - they're democratizing streaming television at scale. The buried lead in the Amazon x Roku integration story last year is that it made them the pipes for 80M U.S. connected households. According to the 2024 Census, there were 101,582,619 households with 'Broadband such as cable, fiber optic or DSL' - a hard wired internet connection. And according to Capital One Shopping Research, an estimated 88.3 million U.S. households receive Prime deliveries as of 2025. Do you see it yet? Roku and Amazon combined to control the pipes on 79.2% of internet hardline connected households. Arguably the most valuable audience - the Connected TV 'CTV' device type. Amazon WANTS Roku to win because they've got another 10% upside in the story. And this all being a side hustle for Amazon, seeing as AWS is what pays the bills, wanting Roku to win is easy. It's Amazon, Roku, and then everybody else. Which is important to understand. Because YouTube is not the same company as Apple who is not the same company as Netflix. They may all serve content Over The Top of traditional cable infrastructure, competing for the same finite amount of attention and ad dollars, but they are all operating independently unique strategies to satisfy distinctly different goals and objectives. That's it this week for $ROKU 📺

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This week, Mark Donnigan and I detail Roku's revenue growth of 16% YoY, [🎙️ https://lnkd.in/eiVcFyHc] with the number of streaming hours growing by 5.1B hours YoY. We also highlight Roku's announcement that more than a third of streaming households in the U.S. streamed monthly from its content row in Q1, with a total of more than 125 million people every day. We detail Fubo's earnings, with North America subscribers declining 2.7% YoY to 1.47M and a net profit for the quarter of $188.5M, due to the positive impact of the Venu Sports litigation. Finally, we touch on revenue numbers tied to AWS and Harmonic, some new TikTok data, and why Nielsen's new Gauge chart tied to ad-supported streaming services is flawed and misrepresents the streaming market. Listen here:🎙️ https://lnkd.in/eiVcFyHc #streamingmedia #SVOD #AVOD #roku #fubo #harmonic #DAZN

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Spotify reported €0.6B in Q3 Operating Income (+33% ex-FX), but the real story was user engagement, shipping velocity and pricing power. Daniel Ek (in his second-to-last call as CEO) highlighted at the top that Spotify optimizes for Lifetime Value, not quarterly results. "Our multi-format strategy is working exactly as we hoped", pointing to how higher engagement across music, audiobooks and podcasts are leading users to spend more time on Spotify than ever. Alex Norström pointed to pricing power, evidenced by strong retention rates despite price increases in many markets. "We continued to take market share even in our most competitive markets." "The user side of the business is really strong", tacitly acknowledging that the financials could have been even better (probably thinking about ad revenue, which was flat y/y in constant currency and down 6% in euros). "That doesn't mean we get a strong pass on our performance, and we expect you to hold us to account." The Streamonomics® view: Spotify continues to execute on its "Super-App" vision (covered on this week's newsletter, and more extensively two weeks ago on Should Netflix Buy WB or Spotify?). While Netflix measures shipping velocity primarily in the number of shows, movies and events it launches per day, Spotify measures it primarily in new features it delivered to its users. I will be updating this post with more comments. What stood out to you?

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🚨 The landscape of CTV Advertising has undergone a significant transformation with the recent Roku-Amazon Alliance announcement at Cannes Lions. This strategic partnership marks a pivotal moment, granting access to approximately 80% of U.S. CTV households, equivalent to around 80 million homes, as highlighted by John Tomase of LinkedIn News. 👉 Initial outcomes are already demonstrating the impact of this collaboration: - 40% increase in unique viewers - 30% reduction in repeated ads - 3x surge in the value of ad spend Having been part of Roku during its early stages, witnessing this development is not merely exhilarating but also the realization of our long-standing vision to establish a dominant presence in the CTV advertising realm through strategic alliances and unparalleled scalability. This partnership signifies more than a mere business deal; it marks a seismic shift in the future landscape of television advertising. 💡 Why This Development Is Significant: 1. The Strategic Move: Scale, Data & Authenticated Reach By amalgamating Roku's CTV reach with Amazon's DSP, a colossal authenticated identity graph is being constructed—a dream come true for advertisers. This translates to reduced wastage of impressions and enhanced precision in targeted, measurable ad delivery. 2. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence Empowered by extensive first-party data and user log-ins, AI can now be leveraged comprehensively to drive hyper-personalized ad experiences. Imagine dynamic ad placements based on real-time behaviors and preferences, transcending traditional demographic targeting. 3. Addressing Key Concerns Will this consolidation potentially stifle market competition? The dynamics of pricing control might shift with increased influence in Amazon's domain. The neutrality of DSP is under scrutiny—what implications will this have for platforms like The Trade Desk? 🔮 Anticipated Developments: ✅ Enhanced focus on authenticated data and AI integration ✅ Emergence of "super-platforms" consolidating inventory and data control ✅ Encouraging brands to adapt: If you're not already optimizing for Amazon’s DSP, now’s the time. ✅ Potential for both innovation and consolidation risks This is a moment of truth for the CTV ecosystem. As we adopt smarter, AI-powered advertising, we must also ask tough questions about data control, interoperability, and competition. Do you think this will reshape the future of media buying for the better or limit it? #CTV #Advertising #Roku #AmazonAds #DigitalAdvertising #MediaBuying #Marketing #AdTech #ConnectedTV Read more: https://lnkd.in/gAzSAAeb

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Game on. Sports video creation just got the AI Treatment. Minute Media, powerhouse behind sites like Sports Illustrated and The Players’ Tribune, just closed its biggest deal ever, acquiring VideoVerse, the AI engine behind Magnifi. Magnifi’s AI, built on computer vision, NLP, and machine learning, instantly turns games into short-form video gold: think multilingual subtitles, auto thumbnails, metadata, and digestible clips. It’s basically automatic highlights at scale. Minute Media is also integrating creation, distribution, and monetization, powering everything from league rights holders to publisher partners around the globe. And with Magnifi, Minute Media is enhancing its STN Video platform, making it faster to launch TikTok-style highlight reels, hyper-personalized by team, player, or fan behavior. Yes, Minute Media is positioning themselves as a platform operator and not just a storyteller. Distribution + monetization across 1,000+ sites and millions of fans. Platforms that own the tech, the content, and the flywheel will own the audience and their wallets. Huge move by Minute Media, a laser focus on owning video’s value stream without the fluff. #SportsMedia #AIinVideo #MinuteMedia #VideoTech #StreamingStrategy #ContentTech https://lnkd.in/gCxs284i

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Walmart+ is celebrating its fifth anniversary with a bold move 📺 Starting September 15, members can switch between ad-supported plans of NBCUniversal Peacock Premium (a net-new streaming partnership) and Paramount+ Essential, every 90 days at no extra cost. This new streaming perk is more than just entertainment. It’s a strategic play to deepen consumer while unlocking richer insights for brands. Curious how this shift impacts Walmart’s retail media ecosystem and what it means for brands? Watch the full video with Flywheel's Bernie Che below ⏬ #Walmart #STV #StreamingTV #retailmedia

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As an industry, we need better metrics to help make sure we're buying quality media in premium environments that drive results for our clients. We don't need to sacrifice quality for cost efficiency. From the linked article, "advertisers who prioritize data integrity and make a point of buying impressions from high-value publishers with better data practices see a 33% lower cost per action, a 32% reduction in CPMs and a 5% higher return on ad spend." https://lnkd.in/grKnzm_H

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CTV is a driving force for digital ad spend growth, but those of us who have been around since the days of "Ad Network 1.0" know that non-transparent "ad bundles" and fuzzy PMPs with fancy logos and no accountability will burn out the minute that the supply - demand imbalance come into play. With the rise of Amazon Prime Video and the growth of FAST channels reaching saturation overload, we are just about there. Program level transparency and full impression-level accountability across all CTV sources is only a matter of time.

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