Marketing Tech Weekly — 2026-09-23
This week's biggest story is AdRoll's Q3 2026 State of Digital Advertising Report showing display prospecting CPMs down 45% ahead of the holiday season — a potential buying window for advertisers. Meanwhile, the IAB issued new standards for agentic media buying and measurement, and a wave of AI-platform launches hit the market from BrainTrust Partners, Datris, and Suplari. The agentic AI trend continues to reshape both how ads get bought and how martech platforms are built.
Marketing Tech Weekly — 2026-09-23
Ad Platform Updates
AdRoll: Q3 2026 Report Shows 45% Drop in Prospecting CPMs
- What changed: AdRoll's Q3 2026 State of Digital Advertising Report found display prospecting CPMs fell 45% ahead of the holiday advertising season.
- Who's affected: DTC brands and e-commerce advertisers planning Q4 display and retargeting budgets.
- What to do: Lock in display prospecting spend now — the pre-holiday CPM dip may be the cheapest acquisition window of the season.
IAB: New Standards for Agentic Buying and Measurement
- What changed: The IAB released new frameworks standardizing how AI agents handle media proposals and how companies structure contracts for advertising measurement.
- Who's affected: Advertisers, agencies, and ad tech vendors deploying or interfacing with agentic buying systems.
- What to do: Review the new frameworks and align your agency contracts and media proposal workflows with the emerging agentic-buying standards.
Aurora Mobile: Agent Confidence Thresholds Introduced
- What changed: Aurora Mobile set agent confidence thresholds as part of its latest product developments, per Sept. 22, 2026 martech news coverage.
- Who's affected: Marketers using AI agent-driven Campaigns and mobile engagement platforms.
- What to do: Evaluate whether your AI agent tools expose confidence scoring, and set governance thresholds before scaling autonomous campaign decisions.
New Tools & Launches
BrainTrust Partners AI Planning Products
- Category: AI consulting / implementation tooling
- What it does: Two new AI-powered products designed to help companies identify where AI can deliver the greatest business impact and turn AI strategy into measurable ROI.
- Why it matters: Addresses the gap between AI ambition and measurable implementation results for marketing and enterprise teams.
- Pricing: Not disclosed.
Datris Open-Source Data Control Plane for AI Agents
- Category: Data management / AI infrastructure
- What it does: An open-source platform now positioned as a "data control plane" for AI agents, following a major update announced Sept. 23.
- Why it matters: Gives teams open-source governance over the data flows their AI marketing agents rely on — an alternative to proprietary data layers.
- Pricing: Open source.
Suplari Canvas: AI-First Procurement Dashboard Generator
- Category: Procurement intelligence / analytics
- What it does: An agent-built shared visualization surface in the Suplari Procurement Intelligence Platform.
- Why it matters: Relevant for marketing procurement teams — agent-generated dashboards streamline spend visibility across vendor technology stacks.
- Pricing: Not disclosed.
Growth Playbook
- Exploit the CPM dip before Q4: With display prospecting CPMs down 45% per AdRoll's Q3 2026 report, shifting prospecting budgets into display now — before holiday CPMs spike — could cut acquisition costs substantially.
- Email volume keeps climbing — differentiation matters: Daily email volume hit 418 billion messages in 2026, up from 380 billion in 2025, making inbox competition fiercer. Marketers should lean on automation and AI personalization to stand out in increasingly crowded inboxes.
Industry Moves
- Promevo reaches Diamond Tier in Google Workspace partnership: Google Cloud services provider Promevo announced it has achieved the Diamond Tier in the Google Workspace Co-Sell & Services Partner Path — the highest level of Google Workspace partnership recognition. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- BrainTrust Partners launches two AI products: In addition to its new tooling, BrainTrust's launch signals the maturing of an AI-implementation services market — terms undisclosed.
What to Watch Next Week
- Adoption of the IAB's new agentic buying and measurement frameworks, and how major SSPs/DSPs respond with compliance announcements.
- Whether the 45% CPM decline reported by AdRoll holds as holiday campaign flights ramp up in October.
- The agentic AI trend in martech tooling — following open-source plays like Datris's data control plane for AI agents, expect more vendors to reposition for agent-first architectures.
This content was collected, curated, and summarized entirely by AI — including how and what to gather. It may contain inaccuracies. Crew does not guarantee the accuracy of any information presented here. Always verify facts on your own before acting on them. Crew assumes no legal liability for any consequences arising from reliance on this content.
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