Raptive has partnered with Intent IQ to deploy Bid Enhancement technology across its publisher network, improving monetization in both traditional and ID-less digital environments. The integration will enhance bid performance across cookie-based browsers like Chrome and identifier-limited platforms including iOS. Intent IQ's Bid Enhancement strengthens identity signals in programmatic bidding, delivering revenue increases for publishers whilst enabling advertisers to reach high-value consumers more effectively. The privacy-first technology operates across mixed-identity media ecosystems, addressing environments where traditional identifiers are unavailable. The partnership combines Raptive's publisher ecosystem with Intent IQ's identity resolution technology to maximise yield through improved identity accuracy. The solution is designed to maintain consistent performance as platforms and privacy standards evolve across the digital advertising landscape.

Three key themes from Prebid Ascent germany: Developers Conference. This fall, I joined a few members of the Raptive team in Cologne for the Prebid Ascent Developers Conference. Prebid is a unique organization where industry giants work together to shape the future of ad tech. And while many industry consortiums are all talk with no follow through, Prebid is different. While Raptive did plenty of networking, its role at the conference wasn't passive; Raptive were there to contribute, build, and help guide solutions that matter to creators. Much of the technology that powers the open web comes out of Prebid. Conferences like this one spark innovations that directly influence how creators and publishers earn a living on the open web. What brought Raptive to the Prebid Ascent Developers Conference. At Raptive, Raptive is passionate about solid partnerships as a path forward in an increasingly complex digital world. At the Prebid Developers Conference, Raptive partnered with its friends at Magnite on a presentation to help demystify the open source technology that helps power the open web: Prebid Server. Prebid Server was developed to speed up pages for readers while maintaining strong monetization for creators. Because Magnite and Raptive both have deep experience running Prebid Server, Raptive laid out common pitfalls teams run into when getting started. Its ultimate goal was to engage more people with the Prebid community, because the more people who use Prebid Server, the better it gets for everyone. Outside of conversations about using and improving Prebid Server, three main themes emerged from the conference: mobile, audio and agents. Three key themes from Prebid Ascent germany. Monetizing mobile. Mobile is hard to monetize for a variety of reasons, one being that mobile devices lack the computing firepower of desktops. Prebid Server is special because it can help reduce the amount of work your phone needs to do to serve ads. Its extensive experience with Prebid Server helps Raptive increase your revenue without compromising performance. Monetizing audio. In the nascent realm of audio advertising, Prebid is simplifying programmatic monetization. Most audio content is still monetized with direct deals that can be time consuming to negotiate. In a world where platforms can turn articles into "podcasts" for zero marginal cost, this needs to change. With support from Raptive and other companies, Prebid is developing tools to monetize audio with less overhead, making sure creators don't get left behind. Outside of mobile and audio, the focus was on agents. Raptive is in the early days of agents and there's still argument over what exactly an "agent" is. The best examples Raptive has so far are the browsers released by Perplexity and OpenAI - Comet and Atlas - which can perform actions on behalf of users. Paul Farrow from Microsoft highlighted key questions arising in a world of agents: Who gives consent when the browser is acting on its own? Who is being advertised to? The answers aren't yet clear, nor do Raptive know how agentic privacy and monetization will work given the patchwork of local, regional, and global regulations. What comes next. What is clear is that the discussions that take place at conferences like this one have a direct impact on the future of content. By being part of the conversation, Raptive ensure creators and publishers have a seat at the table. And the work doesn't end when the conference wraps; its team sits on committees in Prebid and IAB Tech Lab, and Raptive'll continue to work with Google, Microsoft, and more to push for the world Raptive want to see: one where open standards thrive and you can build strong, sustainable businesses on a faster, healthier open web.

Raptive sues Google for billions alleging ad-tech monopoly. Raptive, a digital media company that manages ads for thousands of independent publishers, filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Google and its parent, Alphabet Inc., last month accusing them of running a decade-long scheme to monopolize the open-web advertising market. The 93-page complaint, filed in federal court in New York, alleges that Google used its control over the tools that publishers rely on to sell ads and the exchanges where those ads are bought to secretly rig auctions, depress prices and siphon revenue away from content creators, costing the publishing industry billions of dollars. Raptive is seeking billions in damages from Google under U.S. antitrust law and additional punitive damages for alleged fraud. It argues that Google's conduct artificially suppressed publisher revenues for years. The company is also asking the court to impose structural remedies, potentially forcing Google to separate its ad server from its exchange, and to require greater transparency in how digital ad auctions are run, aiming to restore fair competition and revenue to independent publishers. "This case is in response to Google's unlawful conduct in digital advertising and pertains to Google's conduct across the ad-tech stack," Raptive's senior director of public relations Stephanie Woodin told AMO. She also stated that Raptive made creators aware of the filing, but declined further comment. And in AI news. The suit follows new terms of content use published in September by Raptive. That framework is meant to protect its 6,000 creators from AI, explicitly prohibiting AI scraping, copying or republishing content posted on creator websites that are part of Raptive's independent creator network. "We've been working for the last two and a half years to really try to understand the impact that AI will have on our creators and make sure that it's a tool that's going to help them grow their business, not a tool that's going to ultimately be detrimental to their business," Marc McCollum, Raptive's chief growth officer, told AMO. Google's implementation of AI overviews has significantly reduced the number of users who click through to websites, he said. The reduction in traffic results in less revenue, but there's more at stake than that, according to McCollum and the creators AMO spoke to about the issue. "The main point is that Google is using the creator's content without their permission, with no compensation and with no citations back to the original website," McCollum said. "We view that as copyright infringement." Google's terms of service explicitly state that content creators retain ownership but also give Google "a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content." That language was followed by "limited use" language that states,"the rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones." Whether AI overviews fall under limited use is currently playing out in the courts. In July, the EU filed an antitrust complaint about the issue. ClutchPoints, Love and Lemons. Raptive's two paragraphs of legalese deliberately highlight the time and energy creators put into their work - the human part of creating. The terms state that, "Content we make available on this website...was created, developed, compiled, prepared, revised, selected, and/or arranged by us, using our own methods and judgment, and through the expenditure of substantial time and effort." That is a key point for Nish Patel, owner of sports site ClutchPoints, which is a part of Raptive's network. He is among the more than 5,700 writers, publishers and creators who have adopted the terms. Sports media is competitive, Patel said. It "takes a village" to create the original content that their readers rely on, and "for AI to scrape that... it does hurt us." ClutchPoints's primary revenue stream is programmatic ads. ClutchPoints and its syndication partners get 20 million views per month and the top performing sports stories are about the NBA, NFL, MLB and college sports. It's the evergreen content, in particular, that has taken a hit since AI overviews started, Patel said. Users who encounter an AI overview when they search Google are 50% less likely to click on the search result than users who don't see an AI overview, according to a July Pew Research Center report. A lower click through rate means fewer eyes on the ads running on the post, which hurts revenue. Love and Lemons, also part of the Raptive network, shares ClutchPoint's AI overview woes. The "how to" content of the multi-million dollar vegetarian food and recipe site has been hit hard by the overviews, Jeanine Donofrio, co-founder, told AMO. For instance, the post on how to boil eggs still ranks high in Google Searches - often it's the top link depending on the number of sponsored posts above it. But the click through rate dropped by almost 50% in July and August, according to Love and Lemons editor Phoebe Moore. Boiling corn on the cob is getting hit even harder - those pages took about an 80% hit this past summer. Love and Lemons, which began as a blog in 2011, joined the Raptive community about seven years ago, and its revenue stream shifted from sponsored content and cookbooks to programmatic ads. Donofrio has always dealt with people using her work without permission, like swiping a photo of a section of her website. "If you're going to be on the internet, you have to be ready for people to take stuff," Donofrio said. But AI is different because of the pace and the scale. Raptive's terms and other efforts at least help creators feel like there's someone on their side, according to the Love and Lemons team. "It's comforting to be able to have someone in your court," Donofrio said. Because, above all, Donofrio, like Patel, wants to make sure that the human-art and creator-effort are at the forefront in the rapidly changing world of content creation.