WBD Ghosted CTV, Jellyfish Ghosted Humans, and Google Just Gaslit Everyone

Welcome to the Weekly AdTech Anxiety Report.

If it feels like your media plan is one part science experiment, one part hostage negotiation, and three parts AI-fueled hallucination—you’re not alone. This week in marketing’s fever dream:

• Warner Bros. Discovery is flirting with OpenPath like it’s a Hinge match they’re not quite ready to ghost—just don’t ask about CTV, it’s complicated.

• Jellyfish may have built a marketing Death Star, but it comes with a side of existential dread and zero human life forms.

• JW Player and Connatix hired a CEO with more adtech history than your Chrome cache—now let’s see if he remembers how to spell CTV.

• Meanwhile, Google’s Performance Max is having a full-blown meltdown, and marketers are quietly smashing the “eject” button while whispering "We were never that into it anyway."

Whether you’re running from automation or embracing your robot overlords, this roundup is here to remind you that yes, the industry is on fire—but at least we brought marshmallows.

🚨 Marketers Stage a Soft Revolt Against Performance Max — But Is Anyone Listening?

🧨 The Slow Burn:
Marketers are cutting their Google Performance Max budgets in half—or ditching it entirely. Why? Because they’re tired of praying to the AI gods while their campaigns vanish into the black box of “just trust us” automation.

📜 The Frustration Files:

• Budgets balloon overnight with no explanation.

• CPMs are sky-high, even when they’re supposedly just running “search.”

• Transparency? About as clear as a foggy windshield in a hurricane.

• And then came the Adalytics report: ads allegedly served next to child porn. That’s the brand safety mic drop nobody asked for.

📉 The Regret Spiral:
Marketers thought they were buying a Ferrari. Turns out, they got a self-driving bumper car. They’re now fleeing to open web display, online video, and even—gasp—traditional search campaigns. Why? Because at least they can see what’s actually happening.

🧠 The Existential Crisis:
Maybe the problem isn’t just Google or Meta’s AI. Maybe it’s the sinking realization that marketers handed over control way too fast, in exchange for “efficiency.” Spoiler: automation without insight is just expensive guessing.

🔥 The Big Question:
Is this the beginning of a real rebellion—or just some budget musical chairs while everyone keeps cashing Big Tech’s receipts?

🎤 Industry Response:
Google: “We hear you. Here’s some impression share metrics.”
Meta: “Advertisers love Advantage+!”
Marketers: “...We need a drink.”

🚨 Performance Max Is a Dumpster Fire Wrapped in AI Hype—and Marketers Are Finally Lighting the Match

By now, you’ve heard the whispers. The quiet budget cuts. The “pivot to manual search.” The Slack messages that start with “Is it just me or…?”

No, it's not just you. Performance Max is the Frankenstein’s monster of ad products—stitched together with automation promises, cloaked in algorithmic mystery, and now lurching through marketing departments like a rogue Roomba with a vengeance.

Let’s call it what it is: marketers got played.

🤖 "Set It and Forget It” Turned Into “Set It and Regret It”

Performance Max was pitched as the holy grail: one campaign to rule them all. Search, display, YouTube, maybe even the Google intern’s blog. Just feed the machine and let the AI “optimize.” Instead, you got:

• Budgets spiking like crypto in 2021—then tanking just as fast.

• CPMs so high you’d think you were buying Super Bowl airtime in the metaverse.

• A reporting dashboard that’s more interpretive dance than data science.

• And, oh right—the Adalytics bombshell: ads allegedly hanging out next to actual child exploitation content. Nothing like waking up to find your brand partying in the darkest corners of the web.

💸 The Great Reprioritization

Marketers aren’t just annoyed—they’re pulling out. Performance Max budgets are getting slashed, burned, and scattered like confetti at a fire drill.

Where are those dollars going?

• Open web display (you know, where you can see what you’re buying).

• Video and good old-fashioned manual search.

• And—cue gasp—email. That dusty relic is looking mighty trustworthy now.

🧠 The Existential Dread Kicks In

Here's the rub: this isn’t just a Google problem. It’s a you problem. The industry traded control for convenience. Replaced media strategy with checkbox automation. And now, everyone’s shocked that the AI overlords don’t ask permission before draining your ad budget into the void.

Automation without visibility isn’t efficiency. It’s just expensive guesswork wearing a hoodie.

🎤 The Industry’s Gaslight Routine

Google: “We hear your feedback. Here’s an ‘impression share’ metric and maybe, someday, some query data. Happy now?”

Meta: “Advantage+ is doing great, thanks for asking. No notes.”

Marketers: crying softly into a Negroni “We just want to know where our ads ran…”

🔥 So Is This a Revolt?

Kind of. Sort of. Not really. It’s less storming the gates and more angrily rearranging the chairs in a very smoky room.

Because, let’s be honest—everyone still needs Google. They just wish it came with less “Black Mirror” and more “Clippy from Microsoft Word.”

🧪 The Future, Maybe?

The smartest marketers are hedging:

• Hybrid campaigns that blend automation with oversight.

• Third-party tools (bless their semi-functional souls) for extra visibility.

• And a renewed appreciation for actual media planning. Remember that?

But unless someone builds a platform that doesn’t make marketers feel like passengers in an Uber with the windows blacked out, we’re all just holding on, hoping the algorithm doesn't crash us into a ditch again.

Stay Bold, Stay Curious, and Know More than You Did Yesterday.
And maybe—just maybe—check your campaign logs before the bots do it for you.

Here’s what’s inside the velvet-roped, paid-only section — the sharp, unvarnished truth behind the headlines. We go deeper into Discord’s mobile ad ambitions and the retail media land grab with insights that don’t make the press releases. Expect breakdowns of internal decks, executive backchannel chatter, and sharp analyses of the structural tensions plaguing both Discord’s monetization experiment and the RMN gold rush.

Why cough up for it? Because in a world drowning in surface-level hot takes, this section is where the gloves come off. You'll get the context CMOs whisper about but don’t post on LinkedIn, plus actionable intelligence that’ll make you the smartest person in your next meeting.

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