The ad tech Jenga tower just lost a stabilizing block. Microsoft’s move to shutter its Xandr platform is more than just another market consolidation; it’s a jolt that exposes how fragile the ecosystem has become, propped up by too few points of failure.
Mike Hauptman is the Founder and CEO of AdLib DSP, a platform built to give advertisers more control over media buying. He argues that programmatic advertising has reached an inflection point that demands a rethink of its incentives, tools, and assumptions.
A wake-up call: “This highlights how fundamentally brittle the ecosystem really is,” Hauptman says. “It’s not the first time a DSP has disappeared and left brands scrambling. Marketers are still heavily relying on a single point of failure, and that’s a dependency risk.” He contrasts this vulnerability with standard practices in other tech sectors. “In any other part of the software world, not having redundancy in place for the amount of dollars flowing through these pipes would be unheard of.”
Crisis, meet opportunity: The shutdown is already creating a domino effect of both panic and opportunity. Even with a long runway, the reaction is immediate. “I’ve already gotten a ton of inbound from panicked marketers and clients,” Hauptman says. “They know they’re going to have to pull down and start again. They don’t want to miss those targets, especially going into the summer and then the holiday season.” The scramble for a new home is creating what Hauptman calls a “windfall for independent DSPs.”
“When you’ve looked at the big three, it’s been Google, TTD, and Xandr,” he says. “Pretty much all the big agencies—and even most of the indie agencies—have those licenses, so that budget’s going to have to go run through somewhere else.” It’s a sharp reminder of how concentrated programmatic buying has become, and how exposed the ecosystem is when even one platform goes dark.
Grading their own homework: Hauptman identifies an industry shift away from platform-centric metrics toward independent, objective measurement. He calls it the end of an era of “relying on homework that’s being graded by the student.” The core problem with this old model is conflicting data. “A marketer can’t operate effectively when they get five different answers from five platforms for the same sale,” Hauptman says. The real revolution is marketers taking back control with tools that measure across all digital channels and put the advertiser back in the driver’s seat of attribution.
The path to 10x: That push for objectivity must be built on a clean and transparent open internet. Hauptman backs third-party validation tools like Jounce to protect supply chain integrity, calling them essential for trustworthy outcomes. He’s pragmatic about cookies sticking around for now, but sees the real future in combining measurable channels like CTV and audio with independent attribution. Add AI to the mix, and the upside multiplies. “We’re not far away from 10x outcomes,” he says.
