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Vaudit Automates Ad Refunds, Secures $9M Funding

Vaudit, a startup founded by Mike Hahn, aims to automate reconciliation of ad campaigns on major platforms, enabling advertisers to claim refunds or credits when placements or targeting do not meet contract terms. The company has raised $9 million in seed funding, led by Omar Hamoui and with participation from Binh Tran. Vaudit’s platform integrates with advertisers’ systems to analyze ads served on Google and Meta, and works with measurement partners like Branch, AppsFlyer, and Google Analytics. Its client roster includes Panasonic, BMW, and RE/MAX. Vaudit charges a 2% media fee and guarantees at least $6,000 in incremental ad credits for every $100,000 spent; if the guarantee isn’t met, Vaudit does not get paid. The ecosystem revolves around platform terms that classify refunds as credits or adjustments, with Google and Meta as primary platforms; Vaudit is exploring audits for Amazon ads.

Specialist DSPs Challenge Giants in Niche Advertising Markets

The article argues that there are no new omnichannel DSPs winning broadly and that dominant players like Google, Amazon, and The Trade Desk have largely saturated the market. Instead, it highlights growing specialist DSPs focused on niches such as politics, out-of-home (OOH) media, local SMB advertising, B2B, and healthcare as viable growth paths insulated from the omnichannel giants. Examples include IQM, a political DSP using a voter-file–based identity graph and sourcing data from census and state voter files; AdQuick, an OOH DSP bidding on static placements with first-party data and mobile location data; Simpli.fi, founded in 2010 with a focus on regional and SMB advertising using unstructured data and lower campaign minimums; Channel99, a B2B DSP co-founded by Chris Golec, emphasizing touchpoints like emails and white papers; and DeepIntent, a healthcare/pharma DSP targeting providers and patients, which has added CTV integrations with Roku, Univision, and LG. The piece also notes political advertising risks for platforms and the largely non-digitized nature of many OOH inventories.

Google Faces Antitrust Showdown: A Quarter-Life Crisis

Google’s quarter-life crisis centers on a major U.S. antitrust trial in Washington, DC, started by the Justice Department in September 2023. The case argues Google’s dominance in online search — reportedly over 90% of the US market per Similarweb — was cemented through traffic acquisition costs paid to device makers and browsers to keep Google as the default search engine. The trial is expected to last ten weeks; four weeks in at the time of reporting. It could set the tone for related actions, including the states’ antitrust suit over Google’s DoubleClick integration and the federal ad-tech case filed earlier in 2023. Testimony highlighted Google’s ad head Jerry Dischler and Branch Co-Founder Alex Austin; Satya Nadella testified as well. The piece mentions Bing’s AI threat and notes a Wired story cited by the podcast was removed, with a Facebook deal allegation later thrown out by the judge.