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As we look ahead to 2026, the ad tech landscape continues to shift at speed, driven by AI, changing buying models, and growing pressure on publisher revenues. This month, we take a closer look at Amazon’s move into the Prebid auction and what it means for publishers in practice, unpack the key takeaways from IAB Europe’s Attitudes to Digital Advertising 2026 report, and explore what’s next for open infrastructure through Prebid’s 2026 vision. Together, these perspectives highlight a common theme: publishers need more control, clearer visibility, and simpler operations to navigate an increasingly complex ecosystem.
Amazon Enters the Prebid Auction: What’s in It for Publishers?
Amazon Publisher Services’ Prebid adapter has moved into open beta and is now available in the latest Prebid release (10.22). This marks a significant shift from Amazon’s previous integration model, in which TAM and UAM auctions operated in separate, more closed environments.
In practical terms, the goal of the adapter is to simplify implementation, streamline technical architecture, and potentially reduce latency by bringing Amazon demand directly into existing Prebid auctions. At the same time, it may reduce the need for parallel and separate auction paths. This means fewer standalone integrations and potentially more demand competing within a single, open auction environment.
For publishers, this is fundamentally a positive direction. Amazon's demand can compete more directly with other SSPs on equal terms, and the overall setup can become lighter. But as with most changes of this kind, the question is not only about the technical integration. Just as important is how easily new demand sources can be introduced, tested, and compared, and how their impact can be monitored in everyday operations.
How Relevant Yield Supports Changes Like This
Technical integration is only the first step. The real work begins afterwards: introducing a new demand source in a controlled way, benchmarking it against existing ones, and interpreting its real-world impact.
Relevant Yield’s HB Manager is built specifically for this. The platform supports open Prebid environments where different demand sources can run in parallel, be compared on equal footing, and adjusted without development work. This becomes especially important with beta-stage integrations, where outcomes are still uncertain and structured testing is essential.
For many Relevant Yield customers, using Amazon demand is not entirely new, but until now, it has run alongside Prebid as a separate setup. The performance of these configurations has been visible in HB Analytics. The new adapter simplifies this overall structure: the need for separate integrations decreases, and Amazon demand can be brought directly into the same auction environment as other bidders.
Amazon’s move into the Prebid auction will likely increase competition, but also the need to understand where results actually come from. For many publishers, the biggest challenge is not the integration itself, but tracking its impact.
HB Analytics plays a central role here. It provides real-time visibility across all Prebid environments, including client-side, server-side, mobile, and AMP, and enables direct comparison between Amazon, GAM, and other demand sources in a single view. Real-time data, alerts, and AI-assisted insights ensure that changes are not only deployed but also understood.
In situations like this, where the rules of the game are still partially open, the ability to test, monitor, and interpret changes without rebuilding the entire setup becomes critical.
Why This Is Worth Watching
Amazon’s Prebid adapter is a step toward a more open auction model. But because it is still in beta, many practical details remain unresolved. Amazon has not yet widely communicated how this new model differs from its previous solutions or how a potential transition would work in practice. The real impact will only become clear as early pilots and real-world use cases move forward.
- Petri Kokkonen - CEO & Partner, Member of the IAB Finland Board
Attitudes for digital advertising 2026: What are the most important takeaways for publishers?
IAB Europe’s latest Attitudes to Digital Advertising Report 2026 paints a dual picture of the European digital advertising market. Investment is growing, but structural challenges continue to slow down progress. More than two-thirds of respondents expect growth over the next 12 months, yet publishers are noticeably more cautious than agencies and ad tech players. This suggests that the predictability of advertising revenues has weakened. Growth can no longer be assumed. It must be actively built.
According to the report, the biggest barriers to digital advertising are media quality and operational complexity. For publishers, these are not just technical issues but problems that directly affect the business. Identifying and responding to quality issues requires visibility into one’s own inventory. When tools and data are fragmented, problems are often detected slowly, only after they have already impacted revenue.
Measurement remains fragmented as well. CTV focuses on brand metrics, display is still clearly a performance-driven channel, and video sits somewhere in between. Audio is the least measured. This makes it difficult to form a holistic view, especially for publishers who constantly need to compare, prioritise, and allocate inventory. Reports alone are no longer enough. What is needed is a deeper understanding of what is truly sustainable and profitable from a business perspective.
Looking ahead, the strongest growth expectations are directed towards Connected TV, AI, and Retail and Commerce Media. At the same time, technical and operational pressure is increasing. New channels and buying models may add complexity, requiring clearer processes and less manual work to support growth now.
These are the same challenges we encounter every day when working with publishers at Relevant Digital. The need to see the full picture, respond quickly, and understand what truly drives revenue is becoming increasingly important.
The report confirms what we also see in practice at Relevant Digital:
- Operational simplicity is a competitive advantage
- Fast decisions are impossible without a clear overall view
- Quality matters more than volume
- Growth requires continuous testing, not assumptions
- Suvi Leino - Head of Marketing
Prebid 2026: Infrastructure, publisher control, and what comes next
Prebid recently hosted a webinar where President Mike Racic and Chairman Garrett McGrath shared a recap of 2025 and outlined the organisation’s vision for 2026. 2025 marked Prebid’s biggest product year to date, driven largely by community contribution and real-world publisher needs rather than theoretical roadmaps.
Looking ahead, Prebid’s 2026 priorities focus on strengthening core infrastructure, scaling through community-led development, and supporting publisher monetisation. New task forces around Retail, LLM monetisation, and agentic workflows highlight where the next growth areas are emerging, while reinforcing that sustainability matters more than short-term wins. For publishers, this signals a continued shift toward open, neutral infrastructure that supports flexibility, testing, and long-term control.
At Relevant Digital, we see this reflected in daily operations. Prebid has become a foundation that enables publishers to experiment, adapt, and compete on their own terms. As the ecosystem grows more complex, the ability to manage change, compare demand sources, and understand performance in real time becomes just as important as the technology itself.
Relevant Digital is an active member of the Prebid community and contributes directly to several taskforces/PMCs, like Prebid Server, Prebid Mobile, Agentic, LLM, etc. Through this work, we help shape ongoing development, ensuring publisher needs remain at the centre as the ecosystem evolves.
- Thuy Ho - Senior Sales Manager, Part-time Marketing Coordinator for Prebid