‘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

How do you see which SSPs are working with which publishers? You can take full control of your buying plan by using an ad intelligence tool that shows you exactly which vendors your target publishers are working with. See if you are already working with a vendor that buys inventory from that site, or if you need to buy direct. Use the data to negotiate better direct deals knowing how the publisher is already selling inventory, and to whom. Identify if your competitor is already buying on the site, and which partner placed them there, in order to strategize your budget accordingly and hit your goals. Take the information into your hands to make the most informed buys possible. Your clients - and your boss - will thank you.

Read the full story on Digiday here.

Image via Digiday.