Ideas and observations

Thinking about the machinery of change.

Adtech, artificial intelligence and the operating decisions that turn an interesting idea into something useful.

Latest thinking

10 essays

Goode Media ConsultingTHE SCALE TEST10

06 September 20268 minute read

Adtech · Market power · Regulation

The Big Ad Platforms Can Absorb Almost Anything.

Google kept AdX, Meta can absorb billions in penalties and Amazon's advertising business is still growing. What would actually change the market?

A matrix showing how transparency improves the performance conversation without replacing results

06 September 20266 minute read

Adtech · Transparency · Performance

Transparency doesn't win the plan, but it might get you on there in the first place.

Transparency will not rescue poor performance. It makes economics, incentives and outcomes easier to examine in a market short on trust.

Goode Media ConsultingLocal Advertising’s Real Problem Is Everything Between the Brief and the Result.08

04 September 20266 minute read

Local media · Agentic advertising · Decisioning

Local Advertising’s Real Problem Is Everything Between the Brief and the Result.

Thousands of small campaigns make fragmented media uneconomic to manage by hand. A decisioning layer could help, provided the data and authority are real.

Overlapping LUMAscapes for AI, video, agencies and display advertising

03 September 20265 minute read

Adtech · Open web · Market structure

Look at the LUMAscape. Then Try to Buy Something.

The open web gave advertisers choice. The latest LUMAscapes show what happens when an industry keeps adding choices and forgets that somebody has to buy them.

Stacked bars showing Meta, Google and YouTube, Amazon, other closed environments, publisher direct and three open-web segments within US digital display spend from 2025 to 2030

27 August 20265 minute read

Adtech · Market sizing · Open web

The Open Web Will Grow to $63 Billion. Its Share Will Still Shrink.

My forecast has US open-web programmatic spend reaching $62.6 billion by 2030. The growth is real, but it comes almost entirely from video.

Goode Media ConsultingVerification won the hygiene argument. Now it has to explain value.05

20 August 20265 minute read

Adtech · Verification · Media value

Verification won the hygiene argument. Now it has to explain value.

Avoiding bad media became standard. The next commercial problem is deciding which media deserves more investment.

Goode Media ConsultingThe DSP may survive agentic advertising and still lose control.04

13 August 20265 minute read

Adtech · Agentic AI · DSPs

The DSP may survive agentic advertising and still lose control.

DSPs can remain essential infrastructure while agencies and advertisers take back the logic behind the media decision.

Goode Media ConsultingThe first killer app for agentic advertising won’t buy a single impression.03

06 August 20265 minute read

Agentic AI · Media planning · Adtech

The first killer app for agentic advertising won’t buy a single impression.

Most of the commercial value sits in deciding what the buy button should do before activation begins.

Agency holding company acquisitions from July 2023 to July 2026

30 July 20265 minute read

Adtech · M&A · Media intelligence

The Open Web Isn’t Dying. Its Intelligence Layer Is Being Bought.

The open web can remain large while the independent AdTech layer around it becomes considerably smaller.

An abstract network of sparse signals orbiting an empty centre

23 July 20264 minute read

AI · Adtech · Operating models

The agentic Fermi paradox: if agents are everywhere, where are they?

Agents are increasingly easy to demonstrate. The harder question is whether organisations will trust them with genuine authority.

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