“It’s the Data, Stupid” Is One Answer to Outcomes Era Differentiation
Two years into the Outcomes Era, the central messaging challenge in adtech is no longer convincing the market that outcomes matter. Everyone agrees they do.
Every DSP, SSP, retail media network, and measurement company now claims to drive measurable outcomes. Every deck references AI, and every website promises performance. The problem is that once everyone adopts the same language, the language itself stops differentiating anyone.
So the question has shifted from, “Can you drive outcomes?” to “Why are you uniquely positioned to drive them better than everyone else?” And increasingly, the answer is simple: As Marketecture’s Ari Paparo put it in a different context, “It's the data, stupid.”
The thesis behind Publicis-LiveRamp
The Publicis–LiveRamp deal makes this especially clear.
On the surface, some people mocked Publicis’ claim that the acquisition positions the holdco to win the agentic future. Fair enough. Every major holdco and DSP will eventually have agents. Agentic workflows alone are not a durable differentiator.
But that critique misses the deeper point. What makes agents valuable is the same thing that has always made advertising technology valuable: the data the system works off of.
LiveRamp is not valuable because it “has data.” It’s valuable because it sits at the center of an enormous web of advertiser, retailer, and platform data — and makes that data actionable across channels. That’s what allows a company like Publicis to both drive measurable outcomes and credibly claim credit for them.
The acquisition is a reminder that in the Outcomes Era, the companies with the strongest data stories will have the most believable claims.
In 2026, mobile is underrated
This is also why I think mobile may be underrated in adtech right now.
The industry understandably spends enormous amounts of time talking about CTV and commerce data, for example. Those are important, but mobile is the foundation of modern consumer technology.
Mobile data potentially stitches together location, commerce, media consumption, app behavior, and intent. Consumers carry their phones everywhere. It is the most persistent and highest-intent signal layer in advertising.
This is part of why AppLovin’s offering became so powerful. It’s also why T-Mobile’s combination of carrier data and Blis’ DSP technology is strategically compelling (Blis is a Sharp Pen client). Mobile could be positioned as the connective tissue underlying modern advertising itself.
AI + data = compelling Outcomes Era storytelling
This is the next stage of adtech messaging: a story about why your inputs produce superior outputs, and one that ties your assets to the future of advertising itself.
That’s what the strongest companies are doing. They are moving away from generic outcomes messaging and toward much more specific narratives about the unique data, signals, or environments that make their outcomes believable.
In the AI era, intelligence itself will increasingly be commoditized. The value will ultimately accrue to whoever has the best underlying data. Which means that is where the best narratives will be built, too.
