AdTechGod Pod Ep. 82 Quality Over Chaos: Heather Carver on Building a Smarter AdTech Future
Jun 10, 2025
Heather Carver, Chief Revenue Officer at Freestar, brings a wealth of experience from Amazon and Rubicon to the conversation. She discusses the fascinating evolution of publisher monetization and the important role of AI in reshaping the ad tech landscape. Emphasizing curation, Heather argues it enhances inventory quality and safety for publishers. She also expresses optimism about the future, highlighting how AI can foster new job opportunities and innovation while encouraging independence from dominant players like Google.
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Heather's AdTech Career Journey
- Heather Carver's career began in a small startup and evolved through various ad tech roles, including Rubicon and Amazon Ads.
- She built deep expertise by working with publishers, evolving from remnant inventory to leading programmatic and ad tech innovations.
Evolution of Publisher Monetization
- Publisher monetization drastically evolved from remnant inventory to sophisticated programmatic approaches, especially post-header bidding.
- Automation and real-time bidding now dominate, with programmatic as a crucial revenue pillar for publishers.
Manual Ad Revenue Tracking Story
- At Snagajob, manual revenue tracking took five hours daily to compile stats from multiple ad networks.
- These tedious tasks paved the way for today's automation, which frees people to innovate.