The most consequential ad tech decisions at DMEXCO this year will be about who controls the advertising business: its inventory, its data, its advertiser relationships, and its ability to launch something new.

That is AdButler’s perspective as we head to Cologne, Germany on September 23–24.

Under the theme “Scaling Intelligence,” DMEXCO’s 2026 program spans AI, commerce, retail media, and CTV. For publishers, retailers, and broadcasters, the value of those developments depends on the infrastructure underneath them.

At a glance: AdButler’s priorities for DMEXCO 2026

• Independent ad infrastructure: Publishers need control over inventory, pricing, and integrations so they can launch advertising products without unnecessary delays or dependencies.
• Retail media beyond the largest retailers: Smaller programs need manageable operating costs, clear advertiser value, and evidence that buyers will renew.
• Broadcast and retail data: Connecting shopper audiences with broadcast advertising requires reliable integrations across targeting, campaign delivery, and measurement.

Independent infrastructure gives businesses room to make commercial decisions.

Control becomes tangible when a publisher wants to launch a sponsorship, change its pricing, or connect campaign reporting to its own systems. Every dependency adds time and cost to that decision.

Our view is that infrastructure should give media owners authority over how they package inventory, manage advertiser relationships, and use their data.

That can involve external technology and sales partners. The important distinction is whether those partnerships preserve the business’s ability to choose and adapt.

Bringing sales in-house and taking greater control of the technology stack are separate decisions. A publisher can retain a sales partner while gaining more visibility into campaign delivery. It can also run its own sales operation on technology that leaves it dependent on a vendor for routine changes.

At DMEXCO, the strongest infrastructure demonstrations will show how an actual commercial change gets made. Ask a provider to walk through a new placement, a custom buying workflow, or a reporting integration.

Look at what your team can configure, what requires development, and what depends on the provider’s roadmap.

That is where independence has measurable value: the time and cost required to turn a business decision into a working advertising product.

Retail media’s broader opportunity depends on making smaller programs viable.

Advertisers are spreading their activity across more retail media networks. In IAB Europe’s 2025 survey, the share of brands working with four to six networks increased from 10% to 24%. The same research identified fragmentation and a lack of standardization as major barriers to growth.

Our reading is that buyers are open to additional partners, but each new network needs to justify the effort required to work with it.

For a specialist or regional retailer, a focused audience, relevant shopping context, and established supplier relationships can form the basis of an advertising offer. Its viability still depends on advertiser demand, available inventory, and the cost of running the program.

A manageable starting point might be sponsored placements in one category, sold to existing suppliers with clearly defined delivery and reporting. Expansion should follow evidence that advertisers renew and the program produces a worthwhile margin.

The infrastructure needs to support that progression. Campaign setup, creative approval, pacing, and reporting must be practical for the team operating them. A program that generates revenue but absorbs it in manual work has limited room to grow.

On the show floor, pay attention to solutions that make buying and operating a focused retail media program simpler. That will matter to businesses without the staffing and budgets of the largest networks.

Broadcast and retail data are becoming part of the same advertising offer.

This connection is already visible in specific products. In April 2025, ITV announced expanded Retail Match capabilities, including automated Tesco audiences in its Planet V buying platform through InfoSum, alongside new measurement products using ITV and Tesco first-party data.

The significance is commercial: retail audiences and sales information can help shape how television advertising is bought and evaluated.

For broadcasters, that creates opportunities to develop offers around advertiser objectives and shopper audiences. For retailers, it creates opportunities to participate in campaigns beyond their own properties.

It also makes integration a business requirement. Audience data must be usable within campaign workflows. Delivery reports and measurement outputs need compatible definitions.

Teams need to understand which audiences can be reached, which outcomes can be observed, and where measurement remains incomplete.

An ad-serving layer is one part of that system. Identity, data collaboration, and measurement capabilities also need to work together. A sales match alone does not establish that advertising caused a purchase.

At DMEXCO, look for evidence that these connections work in practice: how audiences become available to buyers, how campaigns are activated, and how results are explained. Those details determine whether a partnership becomes a repeatable advertising product.

Meet AdButler at DMEXCO.

For us, these themes point toward a clear priority: advertising infrastructure should give businesses the flexibility to develop their own commercial model and the visibility to judge whether it works.

AdButler is an enterprise ad tech platform, and our team will be at DMEXCO to discuss what that means for your business.

Join Rajiv Khaneja, Founder, Bogdan Oros, Director of Operations, and Rob Janes, Chief of Product, at Booth B-057 in Cologne on September 23–24, 2026.

Bring the decision you’re working through—a change to your ad stack, a retail media launch, or a new way to package inventory—and let’s talk through what it takes to make it work.