Brand and agency executives at the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit in Palm Springs aired widespread frustrations about the lack of transparency at major ad platforms including The Trade Desk, Google's Performance Max, Meta's Advantage+, and Microsoft. Following Dentsu, Publicis, and WPP pulling ad dollars from The Trade Desk in March over transparency concerns, attendees said TTD reps have become significantly more responsive, with one marketer noting “I talk to my reps like every day. Now they are always asking, what do I need, what do I want, how can we help?” Executives also took aim at Google, with one saying “Google doesn't care that [DV360 is] terrible because it's going to go away soon, and everything's going to be run through Google Ads,” and noting that Performance Max is “completely black boxed, with barely any information telling you what placement you're running in.” Meta's Advantage+ drew similar criticism, with one agency exec describing how Meta would silently turn on Advantage+ Audience features mid-campaign without notifying the buyer, leading to unexpected audience reach and increased costs.
