[a] design agency

Wall Street’s Tough Take on Ad Tech Earnings

Publicly traded ad tech companies reported mixed Q2 results but faced sharp negative investor reactions, highlighting Wall Street’s skepticism about their ability to compete with Big Tech. AppLovin, The Trade Desk, Criteo, Taboola and Teads all saw sizable share-price drops after earnings despite some revenue growth, while PubMatic, Magnite and Zeta Global posted positive stock moves. Analysts and investors cited the growing share of ad spend going to Meta, Amazon and Google, rising expectations around AI-driven performance, and a preference from marketers for scale and convenience over best-of-breed stacks. The quarter also accelerated consolidation and take-private activity, including Nielsen’s agreed $2.15 billion purchase of DoubleVerify and Novacap’s $1.9 billion take-private of Integral Ad Science. Observers say measurement vendors may reposition toward multi-signal activation and omni-channel measurement to regain investor appeal.

2Q26 AdTech Portfolio Update: Consolidation & Exits

The Quo Vadis 2Q26 portfolio update reviews performance since January 2022 and highlights accelerating consolidation across the public AdTech landscape. BigTech (Google, Meta) continued to outperform; the AdTech11 portfolio remains down since inception but improved slightly from 1Q. Several mid-market AdTech names have exited public markets via strategic or PE deals (IAS to Novacap, LiveRamp to Publicis, Criteo to Vista, DoubleVerify to Nielsen). The note ranks remaining AdTech11 names by probability of being acquired in the next 12 months (PubMatic, Teads, Viant, Taboola, Magnite, MNTN, Zeta, The Trade Desk). The author argues scale and valuation pressures are driving a stampede of M&A, leaving fewer independent public AdTech assets and reshaping sector dynamics.

PI LIVE BuildLab Launches to Build Next‑Gen Partnership Tools

Hello Partner's newsletter announces the launch of PI LIVE BuildLab, an initiative at PI LIVE Europe this September aimed at architecting next‑generation partnership tools. Impact.com is announced as a supporter of the first edition. The newsletter also highlights industry stories including new research showing LLM chatbots struggle to find discounts, VideoAmp cutting 20% of its workforce amid an AI push (including the CTO role), and PubMatic rolling out a 'guardrail architecture' for agentic advertising. The edition includes a limited‑time Boutique Agency Pass offer for PI LIVE and practical advice for affiliate managers.