A Pirate Looks at 40 (OK, Maybe Not 40)

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A Pirate Looks at 40… OK, Maybe Not 40 (May 26, 2026)

BY ROB BEELER

Mother, mother ocean, after all the years I’ve found,

My occupational hazard being my occupation’s just not around – Jimmy Buffett

Well, I just had my birthday, and I’m not exactly sure why I’m going to be cagey and won’t share my actual age.

Actually, I do know why: some of you think I’m much younger than I am, and I don’t mind that. 

Birthdays in the Beeler family have odd traditions. My mom calls every year, but never actually on my birthday. One of my sisters already got the date wrong. I’m working as if it’s just a normal day. If you think about it, Earth did most of the work of getting me around the sun. Thanks, Earth! I’m thankful you’re addicted to gravity.

While age is but a number–and I certainly don’t act my age (nor do I ever intend to)—it does carry weight when companies look at employees and try to decide who can help take them into the future. This is where we are going to see wise leadership at companies stand out from the rest. 

AI without experience is just disruption. AI with experience is enablement. AI untethered is chaos. AI with strong fundamentals is opportunity. 

Publishing right now has to find the right balance. 

In one sense, the world of publishing that most of us have built our careers around is gone. But the world as a whole needs publishing to hold fast. Human-created, fact-based content is more valuable than the market currently understands. It’s not enough to hope people recognize that fact. It’s not time to head uptown and get wasted at the bar. It’s time to help us all sail in the right direction.

One final note: One of the greatest ad ops “pirates,” Sean Dillon, has passed after a long battle with cancer. Early on at Beeler.Tech, I had to decide whether to include Europe in our efforts. Just knowing that I would get to hear what Sean was up to was enough to convince me. Sean, you’ll be missed.

Can you believe it? Navigator London is NEXT WEEK. So, if you’ve been waiting to raise your hand to join us, this is your time to make your move. 

Navigator London is a single-day working session for the people closest to the pressure on the business side of publishing. And it’s more important than ever for us to come together to work through the biggest questions we’re facing in our industry.

That’s exactly what the Navigator London agenda is built for:

  • How can publishers recover revenue from ID-less traffic? Max Moody and Mikhael Shvartsman will address how publishers can improve monetization across harder-to-address inventory within a privacy-compliant framework.

  • How do you plan for the future while still hitting this quarter’s target? Anthony Hitchings will address what it takes to build a clearer revenue plan for the next two to three years without losing sight of near-term performance.

  • How can publishers lift revenue without compromising trust? Thomas Andrew Porteus and Olly Aulakh will address the stack decisions, technical optimisations, and longer-term strategies behind Navigate Health’s results.

  • How can AI improve the direct-sold RFP workflow? Jason Tollestrup will address how publishers can use AI in RFP response processes while preparing for what comes next.

  • How is our relationship with data changing? Rob Beeler will address what MCP, CLI, APIs, and better access to decision-making data mean for ad ops teams and their partners.

  • How can publishers turn legacy stack constraints into operational agility? Steve Irenski will address how Trusted Media Brands replaced a rigid legacy setup with infrastructure designed to move faster across its portfolio.

Plus, Rory Latham (Senior Director, Global Investment, WPP Media) and Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE (author of She’s in CTRL) will be joining us as keynote speakers.

👉 Your time is almost up! Review the full Navigator London agenda and raise your hand to attend Navigator London today.

Here’s the latest:

  • Why slow ads are a revenue problem, a conversation with Catch Metrics
    For publishers, page speed is no longer just a technical concern. As advertising stacks become more complex and pages rely on dozens of third-party technologies, even small delays can affect viewability, user engagement, and ultimately revenue. Yet understanding what is causing those delays remains one of the industry’s biggest challenges. With Tom Allum and Martin Alderson of Catch Metrics.

  • Why the agency reset matters for publishers with Joe Root of Permutive
    From Rob: “I always enjoy talking with Joe Root, co-founder of Permutive, because the conversation tends to go two places at once: all the way up to the big, philosophical questions about where publishing and advertising are headed, and all the way down to the tactical realities publishers are dealing with right now. That combination is important for us to focus on, especially in a moment when AI, privacy, signal loss, and agency transformation are all colliding at the same time.”

Want to get caught up on everything we’ve published? Start here.

The Stack subscription is built for people on the business side of publishing who need more than recycled industry headlines. You get a clearer read on the pressures shaping publisher decisions right now that don’t always show up in public conversations.

Here’s what you’ve missed:

Here’s what you need to know this week… 

  • Rise today announced the launch of Agentic Bid Enrichment, an AI-powered intelligence layer that generates real-time intent signals on bid requests, including traffic with no user identifiers. Early results show CPM lifts of up to 3x on previously unclassified and generic inventory.

A full list of our 2026 events we’re involved in, all in one nice little package:

We hear last week’s Chicago Rooftop Happy Hour was great (alas I am not in Chicago). A shout out to Seedtag for sponsoring!

Cannes 2026 Calendar

Each year The Digital Voice creates a robust Cannes calendar. For those attending, worth a review. Get the Cannes calendar here!

Join the Community!

Thousands of professionals, of all ages, worldwide turn to Beeler.Tech as their meeting place for all things publisher revenue operations. Join the Beeler.Tech Community here! Your teams and colleagues are welcome, too. 

Join the Women’s Space

Our Women’s Space continues to grow, and we’re developing a Code of Conduct for all Beeler.Tech events: something every attendee will agree to, and something we hope the wider industry adopts. The goal is simple: raise the bar on respect and professionalism for everyone. We have a Slack channel and a WhatsApp group. The WhatsApp chat is more active, but you’re welcome in either (or both) if you want to be part of the conversation.

Please reach out to Melissa if you would like to join one or both.

Looking for your next opportunity? Know someone else that is?

Check out our job board. Also – sign up for our Jobs Newsletter (delivered every Thursday). Subscribe here.

Team.Beeler Out

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