Advertising marketplace Infolinks Media has announced a strategic partnership with Scope3, designed to optimise campaign performance while minimising environmental impact. Advertisers can now make more sustainable buying decisions by leveraging Scope3’s data and measurement capabilities alongside Infolinks’ direct-to-publisher relationships and SPO strategies.
New Digital Age spoke to Bob Regular, CEO of Infolinks, to find out more…
How does the new partnership with Scope3 allow advertisers and media buyers to make more sustainable choices?
Our partnership with Scope3 isn’t just a press release – it’s a reflection of what we’ve been building for years. At Infolinks, we’ve always prioritised direct relationships with publishers, creating a clean and efficient ad marketplace. Scope3 gave us a language, a methodology, and a framework to quantify and communicate that sustainability effort to advertisers. Now, we can show them exactly how our approach reduces carbon emissions and increases efficiency. Sustainability and supply chain transparency are directly linked – the fewer intermediaries, the lower the environmental impact.
You describe sustainability as not simply a moral choice but as a strategic advantage – what do you mean by that?
The digital advertising industry has long suffered from inefficiencies – too many intermediaries, too many hidden fees, and a lack of transparency. Sustainability efforts like those championed by Scope3 don’t just make us feel good, they streamline supply paths, reduce costs, and create better outcomes for both advertisers and publishers. If you care about efficiency, you care about sustainability. The industry is finally catching up to that reality, and the brands that lean into it will see a real competitive advantage.
Has the momentum behind ‘sustainability’ slowed in digital media over the past 12 months or is it simply entering the mainstream of marketing thinking?
You’re right that sustainability isn’t dominating industry conversations the way it was a year ago, but that’s because it’s moved from being a hot topic to becoming an operational reality. Brands aren’t just talking about it, they’re implementing it. That said, the industry is constantly dealing with crises, whether it’s cookie deprecation, compliance changes, or economic pressures. When you’re in a crisis mode, long-term initiatives like sustainability sometimes take a back seat. But the smart players – the ones planning for the future – are still pushing forward on this.
Does the stampede towards AI in digital marketing threaten to undo the good work done to date on sustainability and reducing carbon emissions?
AI went from being a buzzword to an obsession, and now we’re in the phase where people are realising it’s not magic – it’s hard work to implement properly. The energy consumption of AI is a real concern, but the bigger issue is that AI has sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Everyone was talking about sustainability, then AI became the conversation, and sustainability got pushed aside. That’s the nature of the industry – we chase the next big thing. But innovation happens quietly. AI and sustainability are not mutually exclusive, and I believe we’ll see them come together in ways that optimise both efficiency and environmental impact.
What are the main business priorities for Infolinks for the rest of this year?
Our focus is on building out our curation capabilities in a way that is fundamentally different from what’s out there. Most curation happens on top of existing SSPs – it’s an overlay on someone else’s platform. We’re taking a different approach. We control our publisher inventory directly, which allows us to create curated, high-performing audience segments in a way that’s truly unique. It’s more sustainable, more defensible, and gives us complete control over quality. That’s our focus: building something that isn’t just another version of what’s already out there.
Infolinks CEO Bob Regular will moderate a panel session called ‘Less Noise, More Green: Why Curation Drives Sustainability’ at Possible 2025. Industry leaders will discuss how sustainable supply path curation enhances both performance and environmental responsibility. Panellists will feature Brian O’Kelley, CEO of Scope3, alongside industry experts Elizabeth Donovan, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Retail & Commerce Media Networks at Acxiom/Kinesso, and Greg Joseph, VP of Inventory Development at StackAdapt.
