Max Willens

Max Willens is a senior reporter at Digiday, where he has established himself as one of the trade press's most authoritative voices on the business of digital publishing and programmatic advertising. His reporting cuts through industry complexity to explain how publishers are navigating revenue pressures, platform dependencies, and the ongoing transformation of the open web's ad ecosystem. He is particularly known for his nuanced coverage of publisher strategies around audience data, header bidding, and the deprecation of third-party cookies. Over the course of his career, Willens has covered the intersection of media business models and advertising technology with a focus on how publishers — from legacy media companies to digital-native outlets — are adapting to structural shifts in the industry. His work frequently examines consolidation trends, the rise and fall of ad tech intermediaries, and the evolving relationship between publishers and demand-side platforms. He has reported on major industry developments including the growth of the Trade Desk, the struggles of independent ad tech vendors, and the slow-moving transition to privacy-preserving identity solutions. Before deepening his focus on AdTech and publishing technology, Willens built a background in media journalism, contributing to outlets covering entertainment and digital media. At Digiday, he has become a go-to source for industry insiders seeking clear-eyed analysis of programmatic market dynamics, and his byline is regularly cited in broader media and business coverage of the digital advertising industry.

• Established as one of Digiday's primary reporters covering the programmatic advertising ecosystem and publisher ad tech strategies
• Produced extensive coverage of the open web's identity crisis following Google's cookie deprecation announcements, widely read by industry practitioners

• Digiday
• Billboard