‘We go straight to the publisher’: Buyers beware of SSPs arbitraging inventory


The notorious - and unfortunate - dilemma in media buying: go direct and spend more while ensuring your target audience, or buy programmatically and save money while reaping in more impressions…that may not all be favorable. With the fear of fraud and arbitrage looming over every ad buy, it is not always clear to buyers working with ad tech partners the quality of inventory they are actually buying. This disconnect is fueled by low-quality partners, re-selling poor inventory, that sometimes even doesn’t exist. Digiday recently explored the digital advertising ecosystem problem of SSPs arbitraging inventory, the impact on brands and pubs, and possible solutions moving forward.
"Data from ad tracking firm Pathmatics shows that, on average, the top 50 publishers (in terms of ad impressions) work directly with five inventory partners (e.g., SSP, ad networks and exchanges) and indirectly with an additional three partners who represent at least 1 percent of their transactions. When the 1 percent threshold is eliminated, the number of indirect partners jumps from three to 40." -Digiday
Image via Digiday.

An out-of-the-box thinker with a love for disruptive ideas, Jordan's background spans PR and events for the wedding & hospitality industry in Los Angeles and Scottsdale and also launching one of America's most unique food trucks. She jumped from the food start-up scene to the tech start-up scene in 2013 to join one of the most unique companies in ad tech. Jordan is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication.
Leave a Comment