The week of 25 October 2026

00The week in one paragraph

This was the week the rules behind the platforms’ moves became visible, and most of them pointed at who a publisher can verify and who it can’t. Apple’s engineers explained that the Safari block targets email-based IDs and that even a single-company ID graph counts as tracking, while The Verge showed what a publisher does with the readers it can identify: more than half of its subscriber acquisition now comes from people who go straight to the sign-up page. Amazon pitched Thursday Night Football as a gateway to its DSP and launched an AI ads agent it says cut beta CPMs 18%, Netflix added a pixel and The Trade Desk, and LinkedIn took its B2B audiences to CTV through DV360. Independent agencies described paying a DSP and a reseller on top of each other, an Axis executive argued that more CTV partners can mean the same impression sold three ways, and a study found 2,116 AI recipe sites in the ad supply chain. U.S. and U.K. publishers backed near-identical laws to make stealth crawlers identify themselves. The week is thinner than a full twelve, and publishers do not hold a majority of it: they have four stories, platforms four, buyers two and regulators one.

01The Verge Rebuilt Its Audience Team for a Post-Search Web. Over Half of Subscriber Sign-Ups Start at Its Own Page

The Verge has reorganised its audience team around turning casual visitors into direct readers, with specialists in newsletters, platform engagement and audience analytics replacing generalists. More than half of its subscriber acquisition now comes from readers going straight to the sign-up page, and the audience is split into anonymous, registered and subscribed segments with their own tactics. The team has grown, and its director declined to give headcount, subscriber numbers or revenue.

02Amazon Uses Thursday Night Football to Pull In Brands Two Ways. Sellers Without Retail Data Should Answer the Pitch

Amazon sells Thursday Night Football to brands that do not sell on Amazon, who use it as a way into its DSP, and to brands that do, who get sports without a TV upfront. Prime Video reports a 6% rise in advertisers this season, and the 1 October game ran 19% above the 2025 week-four game on Nielsen Big Panel data. Colgate, which has not run a Super Bowl ad in seven years, is the example, and a media buyer warns that the buy wastes money outside the regions where a product is sold.

03Apple Says Safari’s Block Targets Email-Based IDs. Publishers Who Pay Outside Firms To Match Data Are In Scope

A month after Safari started cutting off identity companies, Apple’s engineers explained why: email addresses have replaced cookies as the tracker, and outside firms matching data across sites are the target. LiveRamp, ID5 and The Trade Desk’s UID 2.0 all work this way, the block reaches Macs and the Vision Pro as well as iPhones, and it shuts out whole web addresses. Digiday’s testing found most of the ad tech addresses it checked still loading, and Apple has 86 open roles tagged Apple Ads.

04Amazon Says Its Ads Agent Cut CPMs 18% In Beta. Agencies Should Ask What The Baseline Was

Amazon Ads has merged its console and DSP into one AI-powered platform where a programmatic campaign can launch in as few as four clicks. A vice president says beta advertisers saw 18% lower CPMs, 16% lower CPAs and a 65% improvement in delivery, and that Amazon’s authenticated graph connects 90% of US households. The figures come from Amazon in an interview, with no baseline, sample size or campaign mix given.

05Apple Says Even A Single-Company ID Graph Is Tracking. Publishers Should Map Every Vendor Domain Before iOS 27

Three WebKit engineers published the full case behind the Safari blocklist, and it closes the route vendors were counting on: a graph built on one company’s data is still tracking, because the central resolver is a third party. The block works on whole domains and starts with iOS 27. The Trade Desk, LiveRamp, Experian’s Audigent, ID5 and Permutive have already spun up new domains, and The Trade Desk created TTDCDN.org as a backstop for adsrvr.org.

06DecryptAds Found 2,116 AI Recipe Sites In The Ad Supply Chain. One SSP Is Tied To 1,631 Of Them

A supply chain study found 2,116 recipe sites filled with AI-generated content carrying ads from blue chip brands, with fake author profiles and the same owners running other site types. DecryptAds ties HBAgency to 1,631 of them, Ezoic to 407, Culture G to 34 and MonetizeMore to 11, and the named companies dispute or qualify the links. The report found no evidence of crimes; the partner links came from account IDs in publishers’ ads.txt files.

07Netflix Adds A Pixel And The Trade Desk To Its Ad Stack As Ad Revenue Growth Misses Plan

Netflix unveiled the Netflix Pixel, an add-on to its conversion API, and will open programmatic targeting to The Trade Desk next month, after Amazon DSP and Yahoo DSP earlier this year. Revenue grew 12% year over year, in line with its forecast, but executives said ad revenue growth did not meet expectations. The FTC also cleared Publicis to buy LiveRamp, with five-year conditions to keep LiveRamp neutral, including neutral access, a firewall for competitors’ data and an independent auditor.

08Publishers On Both Sides Of The Atlantic Back Stealth-Bot Laws. Until One Passes, Block By Default

U.S. and U.K. publishers are lobbying for near-identical laws that would force AI crawlers to identify themselves and their purpose, the U.K. bill modelled on the Stealth Bot Prohibition Act. DataDome found scraping up 185.2% over twelve months, and Centinel found 84% of GPTBot requests and 99% of Perplexity-User requests were fake, with one in seven claimed Googlebot requests failing verification. People Inc. lets through 38 bots a day among tens of millions of blocked requests.

09A 15-Person Agency Pays The Trade Desk 17% And Its Reseller 12%. Publishers Should Read The Fee Stack

Independent agencies say big DSP spend has not bought direct access or lower fees. A 15-person New York agency pays 17% to The Trade Desk and 12% to its reseller, and a 25-person agency pays a 10% reseller fee on top of Amazon’s 15%. Ten media buyers called the reseller route “a toll booth with no exit”; Amazon and The Trade Desk answer that direct seats carry per-client commitments and certified resellers are available.

10LinkedIn Takes Its B2B Audiences To CTV Through DV360. Publishers Should Expect The Deal Requests

From 22 October, advertisers can use LinkedIn’s professional audiences to buy streaming ads inside DV360, steering programmatic CTV by job titles and company information. VistaPrint ran the test, which ended in September with a brand lift study the company says is positive but not yet fully measurable. LinkedIn claims 2.6 times stronger awareness lift for B2B audiences, and Meta is reported to be talking to SSPs about taking its audiences to streaming.

11More CTV Partners Can Mean The Same Impression Sold Three Ways. Axis Argues For A Supply Path Reset

Adding monetisation partners does not automatically add CTV revenue, argues an Axis director of growth. In her worked example the same household-level inventory reaches the buyer by one direct integration and two reseller paths, so bid requests are counted more than once, latency rises and the buyer competes against itself. The fix is to keep the most direct route and remove the rest, and reported volume may fall while actual reach stays the same.