November 4, 2025  |  SIGN UP

 
Ronan Shields

Ronan Shields
SENIOR REPORTER, AD TECH

A three-point “grand bargain” has emerged among ad-tech middlemen to resolve the flare-up around TIDs and auction transparency.

At a late-October meeting of DSPs, SSPs, agencies and publishers, attendees discussed: publishers limiting to one bid request per impression with a TID included; DSPs submitting up to five bids per request to boost bid density; publishers dropping brand-level floor pricing to simplify auctions.

These proposals follow months of tension after Prebid 10.9 quietly altered how TIDs are generated — shifting from a shared global ID to bidder-specific IDs. That change sparked buy-side alarm about deduplication capabilities, and sell-side resistance over yield and control.

While there has long been friction between transparency and supply-chain inefficiencies, the new framework represents the first concrete attempt to align incentives across the ecosystem.

ADVERTISEMENT

 
 

Top stories

 
 

THE PROGRAMMATIC MARKETER

Inside the ‘grand bargain’ to reconcile ad tech’s warring middlemen

The latest transparency saga to engulf the ad tech sector, or transaction-IDs or TIDs, has thrown up several terms that have had some of the industry’s most erudite names debating terms such as auction density, bidding rings and deduplication.

 

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

Pitch Deck: How Amazon plans to turn Q3’s $17 billion ad haul into Q4’s next big DSP push

Amazon is leaning hard on a familiar message this holiday season: its ad tech isn’t just for buying its ad inventory. The company wants advertisers to see its demand-side platform as the backbone for buying across the open web. 

 

PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM TVSCIENTIFIC

How marketers are building a winning performance TV strategy

When brands add performance TV to their advertising efforts, they aren’t just duplicating the reach of other media channels, they’re reaching new audiences who might not be reached otherwise. Marketers get incremental value from their TV ads, which translates into stronger brand awareness and purchase intent.

 

DIGIDAY PUBLISHING SUMMIT

How Forbes is using ChatGPT referral data to create audience cohorts

AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude account for a single-digit percentage of Forbes’ monthly referral traffic. That’s nowhere near enough traffic to offset the 40% year-over-year decline in search referral traffic Forbes has seen this year, but the AI platforms are providing something more valuable than simple pageviews. 

 

DIGIDAY EVENTS

Your 2026 advantage, all in one bundle

Secure your seat to the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit Dec. 1–3 in New Orleans and get a full year of Digiday+ membership with this special offer. Connect with the leaders driving programmatic’s next phase and unlock access to the insights you need to shape your strategy for the year ahead.

Secure your seat

 
 

EVOLVING AGENCIES

WPP’s ‘unacceptable’ results show scale of turnaround challenge facing new boss Cindy Rose

WPP’s latest set of results reveals the full scale of the task facing former Microsoft exec Cindy Rose if she’s to turn the company around.

 

GENERATIVE AI

WPP’s Open Pro AI suite already faces competition from Google and Canva

Based on its recent earnings, WPP’s financial outlook (and perhaps the traditional agency model overall) looks glib. But the holding company is banking on its AI arsenal, including its newly launched self-service platform aimed at small-to-medium-sized businesses, Open Pro, to turn things around.

 

PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM URBAN SCIENCE

Smarter audience insights are helping marketers avoid wasted ad spend

As shopping preferences shift and market conditions evolve weekly, reaching the right buyer at the right time has never been more important. But relying on outdated audience data is costing marketers — one recent ANA study found that annual global inefficiencies in digital ad waste are around $26.8 billion.

 
 

Other things to know

 
 

PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM CRITEO