How curation is causing a paradigm shift across programmatic advertising

With more than 66% of all open exchange advertising, representing $100 billion in annual spend, being transacted through private marketplace deals, curation is a key part of how data and identity are addressed and actioned in programmatic media.

Industry leaders like Index Exchange CEO Andrew Casale believe curation is the next great programmatic marketplace shake-up, as reported by Digiday. “Curation will be bigger than header bidding and as big as programmatic or RTB — that’s our bet,” he said.
So, why has curation become such a critical component of brands’ and media agencies’ digital advertising strategies? Put simply, the math. Multiple case studies have shown that curation performs well for both the buy side and the sell side.

For example, curation introduced efficiency into homeopathic brand Boiron’s media buys by reducing the brand’s data costs by 30% — enabling the brand to reinvest the same budget in brand awareness goals. Curation also exceeded the CPA for display advertising by 82% and for video by 41%.

Curation boosts addressability by solving signal loss problems

Whether by browser, device or platform, both buy-side and sell-side platforms require strong identity signals to reach their intended audiences. However, as legacy identity signals are changing, this is becoming harder than ever for them to achieve.

Curation, with its real-time data connection and enrichment capabilities, solves signal loss challenges by directly connecting to the supply path and using a broader spectrum of identity solutions to boost addressability.

Curation also allows platforms to target first-party, third-party, contextual, indexed and modeled audiences — alleviating dependence on any single identifier and boosting relevant bidding opportunities for brands and media agencies to target audiences.

For media agencies and brands, curation provides four primary benefits:

• Curated PMP inventory offers significant cost efficiencies compared to data purchased from the buy side.
• Data-enriched, curated PMP inventory can be optimized through the supply path, leading to a strong performance, unlike inventory from a data management platform segment.
• When data is curated through the supply path, it does not need to rely on legacy identifiers, such as cookies. Instead, there is an opportunity for comprehensive next-generation addressability that future-proofs media buying opportunities.
• Curation comes with granular log-level data that can be used for value-added data science, including analytics, insights, reporting and attribution, all critical as addressability and identity resolution become more challenging.

Not all curation companies are created equally

Ad tech companies have long been known to capitalize on the latest industry trends and innovations. Curation is no different, with numerous providers claiming to be curators. However, as the industry grapples with what curation is and isn’t, a clear definition has emerged.

Curation is the intelligent packaging and optimization of data curated against the inventory supply path. Three leading elements define any curation product:

• Unique audience data: Curation must include first-party, third-party, contextual, indexed and/or modeled data.
• Thorough supply-side platform integrations: A curator must have strong industry partnerships and ad tech integrations that enable the combination of real-time data and ad inventory into a single package.
• Optimization: Data curated against the supply path must provide rigorous real-time optimization that improves performance.

If a curation solution ticks all three boxes, brands and agencies should test curation and gauge its results firsthand.

Curation done right drives results for brands, agencies and publishers

When done well, curation improves media buying efficiency and performance for brands and agencies.

Advertisers had an average data segment savings of 36%-81% when using PMPs over the open exchange, according to recent case studies. They also saw 10%-70% lower cost per click, 1.5-3.0 times higher click-through rate and a 10%-30% higher video completion rate when using data-enriched PMPs over the open exchange.

“Our Conditions Marketplace strategies have driven a 48% improvement in eCPM and a 26% improvement in CPA across our pharma client portfolio as of May 2024,” said Amanda DeVito, CMO at Butler/Till. “For one client, we saw ROAS improve by 58% compared to their overall omnichannel performance while maintaining quality. These results aren’t outliers — they’re proof that curation is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have for marketers who want performance, precision and scale working in lockstep.”

Curation also improves publishers’ revenue results, according to recent data. Publishers who included their ad inventory in curated PMPs saw an average 70% revenue increase on mobile in the United States and a 13% uplift for connected TV.

Tapping into end-to-end solutions that enable marketers to understand and reach their desired customers across channels through curation is a win-win for all parties.

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