The Guardian bets on unified programmatic ad selling as curation gains ground

The change doesn’t involve any layoffs or restructuring, but is a strategic move aligned with its wider goals to grow globally, according to a Guardian spokesperson, who said the global programmatic team consists of around 22 people.

By unifying its programmatic teams and operations across the three markets, The Guardian aims to simplify the buying process for advertisers by offering a more centralized point of access to its global inventory. For buyers, that means fewer hoops to jump through — less fragmentation, fewer duplicative contacts, and more consistent campaign execution across markets, according to The Guardian’s vp of revenue operations and strategy Dave Strauss. 

“Advertisers don’t want three different meetings with three different people being told three different products at different prices, different ways to execute it. We’d turn anyone off with that,” Strauss told Digiday. “We’re giving them three doors right now, and that’s probably making life too difficult for them. We have over 9 million daily users globally, but how do we unlock that scale for buyers? We think if there’s one door, one access point, it’ll make their lives easier,” he added. 

Across all three markets, The Guardian has approximately 63 million monthly users, with 36.7 million U.S. visitors in April, 20.3 million from the U.K., and 5.6 million monthly visitors from Australia during the same month, according to Comscore. 

Strauss said the publisher has had a “very bullish” last three months, with CPMs growing at “extremely high rates,” though he wouldn’t reveal specifics. He attributed part of that growth to the publisher’s selling of private marketplaces (PMPs.) “We’re leaning into SSPs selling PMPs, which is essentially curation. It’s increasing demand through SSP-sourced PMPs.” 

The Guardian has been increasingly leaning into PMPs, recognizing them as a key strategy to mitigate the volatility of open auction environments and to secure higher-quality, more predictable revenue streams. Strauss said that operationally, the capability to run a single PMP across all three markets existed, but that it wasn’t always executed well due to being fragmented across separate teams.

“PMPs have become the cornerstone of premium publishers’ strategies to remain relevant in online advertising,” said Jamie MacEwan, senior analyst at media analyst firm Enders. “Yields are much higher than on open marketplaces, and there is a level of client service and customization around aspects like takeovers and visibility that cannot be offered on open programmatic,” he added. 

The Guardian’s push to make it easier for buyers to access its inventory is rooted in a familiar publisher ambition — streamlining access to premium audiences — but while many publishers have long aspired to simplify the buy-side experience, execution has often been hindered by internal silos, tech stack fragmentation, and inconsistent global strategies.

The Guardian’s programmatic ad strategy should help it compete more effectively in an increasingly automated and AI-driven ad landscape, according to MacEwan. “It [unifying operations] builds in recognition and trust in the brand, it allows for more innovation and for cut-through with clients at a time when AI buying tools risk smoothing publishers out of existence for some ad buyers.” He also said the move is a way for the Guardian to “scale up its defence” against that outcome, removing any friction that could be a competitive disadvantage in this “new operating environment.” 

Curation’s ‘rising tide lifts all boats’

Having a more unified message on strategy around curation deals, so its SSP partners can be briefed more clearly, is another goal, according to Strauss. “I’m pro-curation compared to a lot of my peers. It serves a purpose. It’s SSPs making content more targetable, and that helps marketers. If I were a marketer, I’d rather be able to target better, which is what curation does, rather than spend on the open web and have perhaps worse targeting. And for us, it means more [quality] demand in the system. A rising tide lifts all boats,” he added. 

Programmatic ad curation has sparked division among publishers, with many viewing it as just the latest iteration of ad tech vendors repackaging old methods to capture a larger share of the programmatic ad revenue, potentially diminishing the earnings that should go to publishers while further complicating their ability to control ad quality and audience experience.

Strauss believes that ad tech vendor transparency around take rates for curation is going in the right direction when it comes to curation. “I think as an industry, we can get better in terms of transparency, making sure we’re not just moving money from one pocket to the other and taking an added fee. I think there’s still work to be done with that, and a lot of SSPs are transparent and becoming more transparent, and we have to partner with the SSPs to make sure that they maintain that level of professionalism. But by and large, I think most of them are,” he said. 

James Harris, vp of planning and strategy for WPP, believes the Guardian’s move toward a more unified programmatic sell is critical to capitalize on the rise of curation and satisfy increasing advertiser demand for simplified global audience buys. “It can only be a positive as it brings simplicity and scale for them,” he added.