Amazon is dialing up its DSP in pact with SiriusXM by Ronan Shields
This morning SiriusXM and Amazon DSP (demand-side platform) announced a new deal that brings over 160 million listeners from SXM’s Pandora and SoundCloud to the platform, making them the largest audio partner in Amazon DSP. SiriusXM podcast inventory is also slated to be added to the DSP. This announcement serves as another rough one for The Trade Desk, as evidenced in AdExchanger’s Friday issue of Optimizing the News that rounded up complications for the company before the SiriusXM deal was public. Now with the new deal, Amazon DSP is another notch in the belt of a company performing well across the board with CTV, audio, influencers, streaming, gaming, retail and even physical out-of-home (see: the box advertising Dexter: Resurrection that my cat food arrived in last week). The Trade Desk’s position as the defacto DSP is no longer as rock-solid as it once was.
Ad fraud hasn’t gone away – it’s getting more widespread with AI by Ronan Shields
Cybersecurity firm HUMAN has a new report showing a modern evolution of good old-fashioned ad fraud. The scheme, which HUMAN has cutesily named SlopAds, relies on ‘AI slop’ to fudge numbers. The unknown actors behind SlopAds hid malicious behavior in hundreds of mass-produced apps on Google Play, often using AI-themed branding. Apps which were able to generate billions of fraudulent bid requests before being taken down. Any app made by SlopAds would behave as-designed if a user found it on Google Play naturally, but if they downloaded it via an ad, it would activate a hidden module that would open hidden web browsers that would go to special domains to auto-click ads “from” that compromised device. A system built around piggybacking off legitimate attribution tech to avoid detection. The investigation points to at least 224 apps collectively downloaded more than 38 million times across 228 countries, with the top three countries of origin being the U.S, India, and Brazil. Google has since nuked the identified apps and set Google Play security protections to block similar apps in future, though HUMAN anticipates the actors behind SlopAds have such expansive infrastructure established they will likely adapt instead of giving up outright.
Premium media must do ‘better job’ of differentiating itself from social platforms by Maria Iu
At the recent Trade Desk Rise of the Premium Internet event, a panel discussion featuring advertising executives discussed the advantages of advertising in premium environments. Channel 4, famously, uploads full episodes of popular series to YouTube (shoutout to my fellow Taskmaster series 20 viewers), but stress brands must work with them directly, not buy through YouTube and target Channel 4 videos. As Sky director of digital advertising Pippa Scaife notes, premium media (be it premium content uploaded to YouTube, or TV networks in general) has to figure out how to communicate to brands their ability to work at scale, deliver performance, and still shine as “premium” environment.
As for the rest of the news…
- Sony Music’s 2025 edition of the Sony Music Podcast Academy is now taking applications from London-based content creators aged 18 to 30 interested in a six week program at Sony Music’s Podcast Headquarters.
- Southern Cross Austero has announced a new exclusive sales relationship and LiSTNR distribution deal to bring Audacy’s podcasts to the Australian market.
- Serena and Venus Williams are launching a new biweekly podcast called Stockton Street, distributed exclusively on X.
- Station has a new AI Revenue Assistant designed to find brand sponsorship matches and provide new revenue strategies to creators.
- Comedy podcast festival Cheerful Earful has announced a slate of star comics for their international festival in October, including Brett Goldstein, Ben Whitehead, and Nish Kumar (again, I see you, Taskmaster nerds).
