Goodway Group vs The COOL Company

CartographAI launches accelerator to help ad tech vendors market themselves

CartographAI, a startup founded by former Goodway Group CEO Jay Friedman and former McKinsey analyst Danilo Tauro, helps advertisers and agencies evaluate ad tech vendors using buyer-centric criteria rather than marketing materials. The company, launched earlier this year, provides free vendor rankings on its website, white-glove consulting services, and a new accelerator program that charges ad tech vendors between $1,000 and $3,000 per month for analyst-level insights on how to market their solutions. Early participants include The Trade Desk, Viant, MNTN, Adelaide, Optable, Gamera, Clinch and others. The rankings group vendors into vertical categories, scoring them as emerging, capable or advanced across five category-specific criteria. CartographAI plans to introduce an AI analyst solution later this year to further automate vendor discovery and RFP processes.

• CartographAI was founded by Jay Friedman and Danilo Tauro and launched earlier this year.
• The company offers free vendor rankings covering about 1,000 ad tech companies, grouped by vertical market and scored on five criteria.
• CartographAI's accelerator program charges vendors $1,000 to $3,000 per month for market intelligence and go-to-market guidance.

Judge Rules Google Won’t Have to Break Up Ad Tech Business

Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google illegally monopolized publisher ad-server and ad-exchange markets, but rejected the DOJ's proposed structural remedies, including divestiture of AdX and DFP. Instead, she imposed behavioral remedies largely based on Google's own proposals, requiring AdX to bid into Prebid via API integrations, mandating non-discriminatory bidding by Google Ads, eliminating UPR in the US, and banning first/last look. Google must share real-time bid data with publishers and stop AdWords from bidding directly into DFP or favoring Google's tools. The remedies apply globally but exclude video, in-app, and retail media, and do not require open-sourcing auction logic. A technical monitor will oversee compliance for six years with quarterly reporting. The ruling favors large exchanges and publishers with technical resources, while the DOJ lost on including DV360 and video/in-app inventory. Google retains AdX and DFP but intends to appeal. This parallels Judge Mehta's 2024 search decision, marking a second illegal monopoly finding without a breakup. Separate EU fines, state AG cases, and civil lawsuits continue.

• Judge Brinkema rejected structural breakup, imposing behavioral remedies, allowing Google to retain AdX and DFP and avoid open-sourcing auction logic.
• Remedies include AdX bidding into Prebid via API integrations, non-discriminatory bidding, UPR elimination in the US, bans on first/last look, and real-time bid data sharing with publishers.
• Google must provide publishers with historical and configuration data from DFP and AdX via an API, and stop AdWords from bidding directly into DFP or favoring Google's tools.

Google Changes Bidding; Agentic Advertising Faces Agency Problem

Google changed how target-based bidding behaves for budget-limited Google Ads campaigns, causing algorithms to bid more aggressively to meet set targets (e.g., moving a campaign delivering at $5 CPA toward a $10 target). The piece argues this exposes a principal–agent problem: platform-owned autonomous buying systems (Google, Meta, TikTok) operate with incentives misaligned with advertisers, devaluing agency expertise and requiring governance. The author cites Meta’s recent quarterly results — revenue +28% YoY, costs +55%, free cash flow down 91%, and a raised capex range — as evidence of platform pressures to monetize AI investments. The article urges advertisers and agencies to maintain independent baselines, disclose incentives, and retain human judgment amid increasing automation.

• Google Ads changed how target-based bidding behaves on budget-limited campaigns, bidding more aggressively to hit target ROAS/CPA regardless of historical overperformance.
• Google warned that a campaign with a $10 target CPA that had been delivering at $5 would move closer to $10 unless the advertiser changed the target.
• The article identifies major platform agentic/autonomous media buying products: Google PMax and AI Max, Meta Advantage+, and TikTok Smart+.

The COOL Company AI Challenge Finds 83% Fail to Identify AI Ads

The COOL Company's AI Challenge finds that 83% of consumers fail to identify AI-generated ads as AI reshapes advertising.

The COOL Company AI Challenge Finds 83% Fail to Identify AI Ads

The COOL Company's AI Challenge finds that 83% of consumers fail to identify AI-generated ads as AI reshapes advertising.

Omnichannel AI Breaks Down Agency Silos

The article describes how COOL AI, an omnichannel advertising platform from US ad tech umbrella The COOL Company, uses generative AI to create creatives, run media buys across channels, and perform attribution to optimise campaigns. The platform integrates creative automation and programmatic buying across search, social and programmatic (with integrations with Google and Meta) and plans to add CTV. Agency leaders say tools like COOL AI can relieve manual work, enable smaller markets or retention campaigns to be automated, and help restructure agency workflows by unifying formerly siloed teams. The article also highlights industry challenges such as show-level transparency for CTV buys and buy-side hesitancy around mid-tail CTV inventory.

• COOL AI is an AI-powered omnichannel advertising platform run by US ad tech umbrella group The COOL Company.
• The COOL Company is an amalgamation of multiple businesses: Insticator, COOL Media, Balihoo, OKO Digital and ADventori.
• COOL AI currently operates across search, social and programmatic via integrations with Google and Meta, with CTV slated to be added in the near future.