The linear marketing funnel is no longer the guiding model for consumer behavior—at least not according to Google. At the 2025 NewFronts in New York City, Kristen O’Hara, Google’s VP of Agency, Platform and Client Solutions, unveiled a new paradigm: one where streaming, scrolling, searching, and shopping now occur simultaneously and contextually.
This seismic shift is not only reshaping how brands approach their audience strategies—it’s also accelerating the importance of unified, data-driven platforms. At MarkApp, we anticipated this transformation early and have been building a cross-device, full-funnel programmatic stack for exactly this moment.
DV360 and the Future of CTV — A Shift MarkApp Mirrors Globally
Google’s demand-side platform, Display & Video 360 (DV360), is now positioned as the go-to platform for reaching U.S. CTV households, currently touching 98% of CTV homes and delivering 5 billion monthly hours of ad-supported viewing. Google’s strategy here signals that CTV is no longer a silo—it’s a central node in the modern media ecosystem.
MarkApp’s DSP and contextual media infrastructure mirrors this philosophy. We operate across mobile apps, CTV, and the web, leveraging real-time contextual intelligence to deliver audience-relevant experiences. Whether buying through DV360, top-tier SSPs, or our own curated exchange, we bring unified access to premium inventory in a format that aligns with the way today’s audiences consume media, across screens and without interruption.
Biddable Live Inventory & Real-Time Engagement
Live content is another battleground where Google is expanding aggressively—opening up biddable access to live events on YouTube and Peacock. From “Saturday Night Live” to major sports broadcasts, these formats offer advertisers premium, culturally relevant engagement.
MarkApp partners directly with CTV publishers, AVOD apps, and global media owners to offer live and time-sensitive inventory across verticals like entertainment, lifestyle, and sports. Our buyers can tap into live video in real-time, enabled through our transparent auction infrastructure and automated contextual targeting layers, ensuring brand-safe, high-impact visibility for campaigns that need to be in the moment.
This aligns closely with what Ryan McConville of NBCUniversal called a “democratization of access,” as more programmatic buyers, regardless of budget, can now activate on premium live content. At MarkApp, we enhance that access further with AI-optimized campaign tools and cross-publisher contextual matching, helping mid-market and challenger brands compete on equal footing with large-scale advertisers.
Retail Media + CTV: A Commerce Convergence
Another major development from Google’s NewFronts was the integration of retail media into DV360 and YouTube, enabling commerce data to inform CTV and video ad placements. With new partnerships like Costco, Intuit, Regal Cinemas, and United Airlines’ Kinective Media, the goal is to unify shopper intent signals with media buying.
MarkApp is already at the forefront of this convergence. Through our proprietary contextual engine, we blend retail signals, location data, content analysis, and behavioral trends to craft dynamic CTV campaigns that convert. With direct integrations into commerce-driven publishers and partnerships with ecommerce platforms, video-based retail apps, and in-flight media environments, we deliver full-funnel outcomes, especially valuable for brands targeting younger demographics that spend significant time on streaming platforms.
As Costco’s AVP of Retail Media put it, “If we’re not reaching them on YouTube, we’re not reaching them at all.” The same holds true across MarkApp’s CTV footprint, where we see the highest engagement lift from younger, mobile-first audiences migrating to living room screens.
The Rise of Generative AI in Campaign Execution
No modern advertising conversation is complete without addressing artificial intelligence. Google’s announcement of generative AI features in DV360—from campaign setup via natural language prompts to real-time reporting and inventory recommendations—is focused on removing friction, cutting costs, and enhancing efficiency.
At MarkApp, we’ve embedded AI into the DNA of our platform. From auto-generated contextual segments and creative rotation engines, to our AI chatbot for client support and our automated billing/reporting systems, every layer of our stack is built for agility and precision.
We’ve even launched our own Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) engine, designed to serve personalized CTV and mobile app ads in real time, adapting messaging based on audience mood, content category, and screen type.
MarkApp: Built for the Cross-Device, Context-First, Commerce-Integrated Era
While Google is evolving DV360 to meet the demands of omnichannel advertising, MarkApp has already operationalized this model across global markets.
Here’s how we lead:
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Cross-Screen Delivery: Mobile, CTV, and web inventory unified under a single contextual logic.
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AI-Powered Optimization: From creative to placement, driven by machine learning and real-time data.
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Retail & Commerce Integration: Activating retail media within programmatic channels using behavioral and transactional insights.
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Live Content Access: Biddable access to premium CTV and AVOD content through curated direct partnerships.
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Global Reach: MarkApp works with demand and supply partners in North America, Europe, MENA, and LATAM, delivering scale and local performance.
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Innovation at Core: Our reporting dashboard, client AI assistant, and contextual targeting engine set a new standard in managed and self-serve advertising.
As the lines between content, commerce, and context continue to blur, MarkApp is not only aligned with the future of advertising—we’re actively building it.
