Public backlash against Big Data is forcing advertisers to seek alternatives to the walled gardens. --- De-risking from the duopoly However, media buyers and independent ad tech, both buy- and sell-side, have made attempts to reduce their reliance on the industry’s biggest names. “A lot of the agencies are constantly evaluating where investments are going, and asking what exactly do they get in return,” said one media agency source, who requested anonymity because Big Tech is a client. “To make sure we’re not just consolidating into those two partners, we’re always trying to find the partners, vendors or publishes that we can work with that can replicate the output of those types of companies.” Recent years have seen several such initiatives led primarily by the independent ad-tech sector with the Advertising ID Consortium, The Trade Desk’s Universal ID push plus Prebid on the industry’s sell side. Rubicon Project CTO Tom Kershaw, who’s also co-founder of Prebid, said publishers want to reduce their reliance on companies such as Google both in terms of ad spend and software. “Things have changed over the last two years, as people want to take control of their actual tech stack. A lot of the advertisers want to have full visibility into the processes of how things are working, such as how they run,” he explained.
