How Adtech’s Outdated Payment Model Is Holding Back Innovation

By Manish Vrishaketu, Chief Customer and Operating Officer, Tipalti

Adtech has transformed how advertising is sold and optimized. AI and automation are improving campaign performance and streamlining media buying, and advertisers now have access to more platforms and data than ever before. It’s no surprise that the sector reached a total market valuation of $986 billion in 2025. Yet behind this increasingly sophisticated ecosystem sits a financial infrastructure that has changed remarkably little.

It’s an irony that the industry doesn’t talk about enough. After years spent optimizing every impression, click, and conversion, less focus has been given to the processes used to onboard, manage, and, most importantly, pay partners. Instead, they remain fragmented and manual.

This mismatch has material consequences. Our recent global payments research found that business leaders in the adtech industry are 60% more likely than leaders in other industries to say they’ve lost contributors to payout-related issues in the past 12 months. As supply chains become longer and more global, finance teams are also being asked to manage an ever-growing number of payment relationships across different markets, currencies, payment methods, and regulatory requirements. 

Because of this, the flow of money through the adtech ecosystem has become a strategic issue, and the question is whether businesses have the financial infrastructure needed to manage these complex partner ecosystems.   

There’s a hidden cost of payment friction

One of adtech’s greatest strengths is its ability to bring together an increasingly diverse ecosystem of partners. Brands now work across publishers, retail media networks, measurement providers, data platforms, creative technologies, and AI vendors, often spanning multiple markets and currencies.

The challenge is that each new partner creates another financial relationship to manage.

For finance teams, that means processing more payments and potentially onboarding thousands of publishers, affiliates, creators, vendors, and technology partners: each with their own bank details, tax documentation, preferred payment methods, and local requirements.

When the processes behind these actions rely on spreadsheets, disconnected systems, and manual checks, complexity thrives. Payee information becomes harder to maintain, reconciliation takes longer, payment status is more difficult to track, and the risk of errors increases.

The impact goes further than finance

Technology has dramatically accelerated the execution of adtech campaigns. Payments, on the other hand, remain one of the slowest parts of the process. And the impact of that extends well beyond delayed cash flow.

When businesses lack a consistent way to onboard and pay partners, it becomes harder to expand into new markets, introduce new services, or work with a broader range of specialist providers. Finance teams can become a bottleneck, not because they are unwilling to support growth, but because their existing processes were never designed to manage a global, high-volume partner ecosystem.

That bottleneck can directly determine which companies get to innovate within the ecosystem, with ripple effects that reach across the entire market.

Agencies may favor established providers that are easier to onboard and manage. Smaller technology companies may find it more difficult to join large partner networks. Publishers and media owners may waste time chasing payment updates or correcting information rather than focusing on growth.

Over time, that friction can reduce the variety of partners available to brands.

AI is adding another layer of complexity

AI is making this challenge more urgent.

Adtech companies are increasingly working with specialist AI vendors to support campaign creation, targeting, optimization, and measurement. That creates new commercial opportunities, but it also adds more partner relationships to an already fragmented ecosystem.

To realize the efficiency gains that AI promises, businesses need streamlined financial workflows behind the scenes. There’s less value in automating campaign execution if finance teams are still manually collecting payment details, checking tax forms, screening payees, and reconciling payments across multiple systems.

This isn’t simply about moving money from one account to another. It’s about managing the data, compliance, and operational processes that allow those payments to happen reliably.

Modernizing the financial infrastructure behind adtech  

The advertising industry now needs to invest the same time and resources into its financial infrastructure as it has into modernizing how campaigns are planned and delivered.  

That means moving beyond fragmented processes toward a more automated and connected approach to partner payments. 

Businesses need a consistent way to onboard payees, collect and validate payment information, manage tax and compliance requirements, offer appropriate payment methods, and maintain visibility over payment status. They also need those processes to connect with the wider finance systems they already use.

Automation is what makes that consistency possible at scale. Once a payment is due, automation keeps it moving by removing the delays caused by missing information, manual processing, disconnected systems, and avoidable errors.

For finance teams, that reduces administrative pressure and improves control. For partners, it creates greater clarity and a more reliable, trustworthy payment experience. For the wider business, it provides infrastructure that can support growth without requiring finance operations to expand at the same rate as its partner network.

Payments are a competitive advantage for adtech

Adtech has never moved faster. New channels, AI capabilities, and specialist technologies continue to reshape the industry at remarkable speed.

But innovation is not driven by technology alone. It also depends on the operational infrastructure that allows businesses to collaborate and scale with ease.

The companies best positioned for the next phase of growth will be able to manage an increasingly complex global partner network without creating additional friction for their finance team or the businesses they rely on.

The industry has spent a decade reinventing how advertising works. Now it needs a financial infrastructure built for the scale and complexity that innovation has created.