DMEXCO 2024 has been a truly spectacular event! Now that the two days of expo & conference are over, the AdPlayer.Pro team shares their key observations and takeaways from it. 

Undoubtedly, the annual DMEXCO in Cologne, Germany remains one of the top events in the online advertising industry in EMEA, and in 2024 it proved its dominant importance for the entire digital ad ecosystem.

For the two days in September 2024, its organizers have brought together tens of thousands market pioneers, industry leaders, tech visioneers, reputable experts and analysts, as well as marketing specialists and enthusiasts in Koelnmesse to exchange their outlooks of the future of media & advertising, find new collaboration opportunities and expand their business partnerships. 

Quite predictably, this year AdPlayer.Pro was exhibiting its flagship products at DMEXCO, too, and now that we’re back, it’s time to share our key observations from it.

AI for Everyone, Long Live AI 

If there’s one notion, which dominated this year’s DMEXCO, from keynote speeches and panel discussions on the four conference scenes, to the numerous niche-specific tech & marketing solutions across the three expo halls, it’s artificial intelligence.

Namely, in the digital advertising context, most analysts admit that the power of AI is what is already speeding up the automation & optimization of multiple operational processes. However, many businesses are still working out their ways to implement AI in order to upgrade media planning activities, improve ad measurement efficiency and increase the overall revenue results.

From the publishers’ perspective, in particular, while the use of AI proves helpful to automate A/B tests and enhance the quality of content personalization, hence relevance for each and every viewer/reader, the importance of adopting clear & strict guidelines for the use of AI in a whole, and content moderation in particular, is indisputable to maintain brands’ trust, hence sufficient online ad revenue streams.

Retail Media Growth Continues

In spite of the notable slow-down over the past months, the overall state of the retail media advertising industry demonstrates continuous growth worldwide. In the EU, in particular, the IAB experts predict that the retail media market value will reach the impressive 31,000,000,000 EUR by 2028, with the UK still keeping its dominant position, and Germany coming a strong second in the region.

In this respect, as expected, the immediate focus areas for most industry players in 2025 will include standardization of key processes (i.e. measurement, attribution), diversification of revenue channels and the expansion of external partnerships, aimed at driving scale. 


The AdPlayer.Pro team would like to say a Huge Thank You to everyone we’ve met at this year’s DMEXCO – it’s been a blast! See all at DMEXCO 2025!