Freestar vs Prebid

M&A Deals: Stagwell-Freestar and DoorDash-Instacart Analyzed

AdExchanger's podcast 'The Big Story' analyzes two recent acquisitions: Stagwell's purchase of publisher monetization network Freestar, and DoorDash's acquisition of Instacart. The episode questions the strategic logic behind these deals. For Stagwell, Freestar's connections to 1,000 publisher sites could support its principal media business, potentially echoing GroupM's 2007 acquisition of 24/7 Real Media. For DoorDash and Instacart, the merger would combine their retail media offerings (DoorDash Ads and Carrot Ads), potentially consolidating a fragmented retail media market. Carrot Ads also offers white-label retail media services to other retailers, adding another layer to the consolidation. The podcast discusses implications for marketers working with retail media networks.

• Stagwell acquired publisher monetization network Freestar.
• DoorDash announced intent to acquire Instacart at a $17 billion valuation.
• Freestar has 1,000 publisher site connections.

Freestar has been acquired by Stagwell

Breaking News: Freestar has been acquired by Stagwell!

Stagwell acquires Freestar to bolster publisher ad sales

Stagwell, a US-based agency group, has completed the acquisition of Freestar, a publisher monetization platform, marking a strategic move closer to the sell-side of the advertising ecosystem. The deal, announced on October 26, 2026, gives Stagwell access to Freestar's technology, services, and customer relationships, including a network of over 1,000 publishers such as Fortune, Boston Globe Media, The Associated Press, and Essence. Freestar processes nearly one billion ad requests daily. Stagwell aims to leverage this to enhance its audience intelligence, shorten supply paths, and support its AI Media Machine for agentic media buying. Freestar will continue to operate independently under its existing leadership and brand, with Stagwell promising not to interfere in its relationships with DSPs, SSPs, or other ad tech providers. The purchase price was not disclosed. This acquisition supports Stagwell's supply-side buildout and 'Future of News' initiative, though industry observers raise transparency concerns.

• Stagwell has completed the acquisition of Freestar, a publisher monetization platform.
• Freestar's network includes over 1,000 publishers, including Fortune, Boston Globe Media, The Associated Press, and Essence.
• Freestar processes nearly one billion ad requests daily.

Getting Paid in the AI Era: A Field Guide to the New Monetization Models

Article by Anton Nashkerskyi (Sigma Software) and Krish Arvapally (Dappier), for the Prebid LLM Taskforce. Part of the publisher series. Earlier articles in this series covered AI traffic and …

Prebid.js 11.46.0: CI workflows upgraded to Node 24

Prebid.js, the open-source header bidding wrapper, has released version 11.46.0, which updates its CI (Continuous Integration) workflows to use Node 24-based checkout action v6. Specifically, the bounded-qwen-review.yml and open-code-review.yml workflows were migrated to the newer checkout action. This technical release focuses on infrastructure improvements, ensuring compatibility with the latest Node.js runtime for automated code review processes. No functional changes to the ad serving library were included. This release is part of Prebid.js's ongoing maintenance and modernization of its development tooling.

• Prebid.js released version 11.46.0 on October 30, 2026.
• CI workflows bounded-qwen-review.yml and open-code-review.yml were moved to Node 24-based checkout action v6.
• The release is tagged by patmmccann.

Prebid.js 11.44.0 adds priority bids support

Prebid.js has released versions 11.44.0 and 11.45.0, introducing significant features and improvements. Version 11.44.0 centers on priority bids (allowPriorityBids opt-in, bid.priority, priority-adjusted ranking), enabling publishers to influence auction outcomes. It also includes core enhancements like hardened layout calculations, caching layout reads, using multibid's originalRequestId, and resetting GPT targeting after BID_WON. New bid adapters were added: Roockmobile, VisionForgeX, MonetiseUp, Onebidtech, Adhouse, and Shopnomix. Version 11.45.0 adds house bids (zero-CPM) from priority-enabled adapters, an option for bidder-specific supply chain replacement (firstPartyData.replaceGlobalSchain), late CMP API support, and better reset handling. It also improves error recovery in the currency module for malformed rates, allows video auctions to complete when cached bids are discarded, and includes a new Publink.io adapter. Maintenance includes OpenRTB migration for Yieldlab and bug fixes.

• Prebid.js 11.44.0 (Oct 24, 2026) introduced priority bids (allowPriorityBids opt-in, bid.priority, priority-adjusted ranking).
• Prebid.js 11.45.0 (Oct 28, 2026) added house bids (zero-CPM) from priority-enabled adapters and option firstPartyData.replaceGlobalSchain.
• New bid adapters: Roockmobile, VisionForgeX, MonetiseUp, Onebidtech, Adhouse, Shopnomix (11.44.0) and Publink.io (11.45.0).