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Programmatic Advertising: Season 1 Recap

By Max Legrand · GreyFox Ads · A French perspective on the Open Web

GreyFox Ads programmatic advertising season one recap

Worried you might run out of programmatic reading material at the beach this summer? 🏖️ Fear not. Here is the GreyFox Ads Season 1 reading list: 37 posts exploring the Open Web, AI, curation, media quality, first-party data and the everyday headaches of Media Traders.

Season 1 in a nutshell: Better programmatic advertising is not just about finding cheaper impressions. It is about understanding the supply chain, questioning the metrics and giving quality publishers—and the people buying their inventory—a fairer deal.
Explore the season by theme

1. Open Web quality, trust and sustainability

From MFA and CTV washing to attention, brand safety and the low-CPM trap: what does “quality” really mean when you buy programmatic media?

  1. Attention and the Open Web · Original LinkedIn post
  2. The three blocks of the Open Web · Original LinkedIn post
  3. Carbon footprint and MFA · Original LinkedIn post
  4. The overrepresentation of resellers · Original LinkedIn post
  5. CTV washing · Original LinkedIn post
  6. Made-for-advertising (MFA) websites · Original LinkedIn post
  7. The viewability trap · Original LinkedIn post
  8. The cost of brand safety · Original LinkedIn post
  9. The value of a quality Open Web · Original LinkedIn post
  10. Opacity and programmatic advertising · Original LinkedIn post
  11. Social publishing · Original LinkedIn post
  12. The low-CPM trap · Original LinkedIn post

2. Publishers, curation and monetisation

How can publishers retain more value, improve their routes to market and develop smarter monetisation strategies?

  1. Publishers and Curators · Original LinkedIn post
  2. Differentiated floor-price strategy · Original LinkedIn post
  3. Mobile interstitial advertising · Original LinkedIn post
  4. What are Curators? · Original LinkedIn post
  5. A shared app for publishers · Original LinkedIn post

3. First-party data and audience strategies

A look at audience provenance, lookalike fragmentation and the opportunities for a more transparent data market.

  1. Boosting first-party data investments · Original LinkedIn post
  2. Lookalike audiences and fragmentation · Original LinkedIn post
  3. Making first-party data more fluid · Original LinkedIn post

4. Campaign optimisation and measurement

Practical ideas for Media Traders who want to make better decisions using placement-level analysis, attribution and reverse analytics.

  1. Incremental targeting strategy · Original LinkedIn post
  2. Why placement IDs matter · Original LinkedIn post
  3. Managing campaigns with a DSP… or Excel? · Original LinkedIn post
  4. Attribution models · Original LinkedIn post
  5. Reverse analytics · Original LinkedIn post

5. AI, DSPs, identity and technical foundations

A tour of the plumbing behind digital advertising—from ads.txt and robots.txt to fingerprinting, throttling and the evolving role of AI.

  1. AI & Programmatic: the end of Media Traders? · Original LinkedIn post
  2. The future of desktop advertising · Original LinkedIn post
  3. What is throttling? · Original LinkedIn post
  4. How to conquer Safari inventory · Original LinkedIn post
  5. Is your DSP really your ally? · Original LinkedIn post
  6. Understanding the Transaction ID · Original LinkedIn post
  7. What is ads.txt? · Original LinkedIn post
  8. Ad blockers · Original LinkedIn post
  9. Build your own scraping bot · Original LinkedIn post
  10. What is robots.txt? · Original LinkedIn post
  11. Browser fingerprinting · Original LinkedIn post

6. GreyFox Ads goes international

A French perspective on programmatic advertising, shared with Media Traders and AdTech teams around the world.

  1. GreyFox Ads now speaks English · Original LinkedIn post

7. What connects all these stories?

Across the season, a recurring question kept coming back: are we optimising what matters, or simply what is easiest to measure? A high viewability rate can coexist with a poor ad experience. A low CPM can conceal weak inventory quality. And a highly sophisticated targeting segment can remain a black box.

Here in France, GreyFox Ads believes the quality Open Web deserves better: more transparency about publishers and intermediaries, clearer audience provenance, and activation strategies that put real-world effectiveness before vanity metrics. (These posts are perspectives and practical frameworks, not a claim that every DSP, publisher or data provider behaves the same way.)

Whether you are a French publisher or a Media Trader managing France from London, New York or another EMEA hub, we hope this collection gives you a few useful ideas—and perhaps a couple of reasons to challenge the status quo.

Enjoy the reading, and have a great summer! 🏖️

About the author

Max Legrand founded GreyFox Ads, a French programmatic curation specialist helping advertisers and international trading teams activate quality Open Web inventory in France.

Want to activate quality French Open Web inventory?

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