| Hi! Welcome to the Advertising and Media Insider newsletter. If you got this email forwarded, sign up for your own here. Send tips or feedback to me at lmoses@businessinsider.com. First, a last call to get your nominations in for Business Insider's upcoming lists of the rising stars of Madison Avenue and the hottest adtech companies. Click the links to read the guidelines and make a submission. Walmart's ad push Go over to Walmart.com and you might notice ads from marketers like Starbuck's. Retailers like Walmart and Target are trying to make a bigger play for advertising dollars to compete with Amazon's large and growing ad business. As Lauren Johnson reported, Walmart is set to roll out an API. The plan for the new tool signals that Walmart has big ambitions to grow its advertising business, which has relied on direct relationships with sales reps up until now. "They have aspirations to push themselves to be as sophisticated as Amazon," Kacie McKee, the director of e-commerce at Wavemaker, told Lauren. Advertisers are eager to reduce their reliance on Amazon, but Amazon has a big advantage in size and e-commerce. And as much as industries are blurring their lines, it's hard to enter an entirely new business. As Patrick Coffee reported, a lawsuit WPP filed over its acquisition of media agency Triad reveals Walmart's early struggles to build its ad arm. In the suit, the retailer's ad business was described as being in "a bit of a free fall." Agencies battle in-housing Meanwhile, the holding company model upheaval continues with marketers continuing to bring their advertising in-house. Two developments this past week reported by Patrick reflect the trend: Best Buy, one of the pioneers of the in-housing trend, continued along this path, moving to do all its holiday ads internally, Patrick reported. Holding company behemoth WPP consolidated more of its agencies and, bowing to the in-housing trend, said it would create another division to serve marketers trying to set up their own in-house units. History will tell if moves like this are genius attempts by agencies to hold on to as much of their business they can, or just furthering their own demise. Adtech troubles Elsewhere, adtech companies have struggled as many of them look the same and advertisers have cut the number of firms they work with. Even the most established firms aren't immune to the pressures. Case in point is IgnitionOne, which Lauren reported has been downsizing and shedding employees. It's also facing mounting allegations of unpaid bills from an investment bank and other adtech firms. Adtech company IgnitionOne further cuts head count as 2 more clients report unpaid bills Here are other great stories from media, marketing, and advertising. (You can read most of the articles here by subscribing to BI Prime; use promo code AD2PRIME2018 for a free month.) The top 18 talent agents for YouTube creators who are changing the influencer business and landing deals for their clients Sports betting is poised to explode in the US. 3 investors break down the biggest opportunities to cash in. TV has peaked just like the magazine industry did, and TV ad executives refuse to accept it Newsletter publisher Morning Brew more than quadrupled its revenue this year to $13 million, profitably. Now it's aiming for another year of growth and plans to branch out beyond advertising. Laid-off Juul employees are following Uber's lead and using a Google spreadsheet to help affected coworkers land new jobs | 