Microsoft Advertising

Human Craft, Chaos, and Creativity — Agency Value Shift

The webpage (published 2026-08-06) includes an IAB TCF vendor registry embedded in an article titled 'Human Craft, Chaos, and Creativity: Navigating the Agency Value Shift.' It enumerates dozens of adtech, martech, publisher and data vendors with their declared IAB TCF purposes (consent and/or legitimate interest), special purposes, features, categories of data collected, data retention periods, and consent/tracking details (e.g., 'Cookies only'). The content functions as a detailed consent/TCF vendor listing showing how many vendors describe purposes such as personalised advertising, measurement, device identification, fraud prevention and audience understanding, plus retention and consent expiry values.

Shopify Expands Advertising, Not Becoming Ad Tech

Shopify is expanding its advertising capabilities through a merchant-focused approach it calls “merchant marketing,” rather than building a traditional ad‑tech business. The company hired Samir Pradhan as VP of product for merchant marketing (November 2025) and recently launched an in‑platform tool called Campaign Autopilot to simplify ad setup and allocate budgets across Shopify channels, email, Google Performance Max and Meta Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns using merchants’ own Google/Meta accounts. Shopify says it does not take CPM cuts or commission on ad-driven sales (unless it is the payment processor). It is also adding demand partners for Shop Campaigns — including ChatGPT, Pinterest, Snap, TikTok, Bing and Microsoft Monetize (the former AppNexus SSP) — and plans to span walled‑garden campaign types to optimize spend for merchants while keeping the offering merchant‑first and often free.

When High‑Performing Campaigns Shouldn't Get More Budget

This MarTech contributor piece explains why a top-performing paid campaign is not always the right place for additional budget. It advises advertisers to validate that performance reflects real business value (accurate conversion tracking, lead quality, and revenue signals) and to check structural limits such as market saturation, impression share, and auction rank before scaling. The article notes that material changes to budget, target CPA, or ROAS can trigger a learning period — Microsoft Advertising estimates changes above ~15% are likely to introduce volatility — and recommends incremental weekly increases, expanding reach (new geographies, audiences, channels), or launching separate campaigns to protect existing performance. Budget increases are appropriate when a campaign is budget‑constrained (not rank‑limited), when a campaign is new and still learning, or when spend is paired with demand‑generation efforts.