Publishers Are Skeptical of Adtech's Latest Buzz, Curation

"Curation" has become a buzzword in programmatic advertising over the past year, but publishers question whether the hype is all it's cracked up to be. Curation tech—from either buying and selling platforms like Index Exchange and The Trade Desk or third-party data-focused firms like Audigent and others—creates a package of publishers and data to execute specific buyer goals, like finding highly viewable placements or premium publishers. In a programmatic ecosystem that seems less transparent, (where signal loss makes it harder to find audiences and advertisers inadvertently buy low-quality media), curation promises to limit the internet to just the good stuff. However, five publishing sources told ADWEEK they are skeptical that these tech solutions actually offer value, and could be just another adtech middleman that undermines revenue and direct sales efforts. “The sell from intermediaries to publishers around curation being a point of value creation ... is like the emperor's new clothes, or turds rolled in glitter,” said a source from a publisher-focused ad platform. “It’s so thin a proposition it’s not credible.” Undermining publishers' potential advantage In recent years, advertisers have increasingly looked to SSPs to find data sets to help hone in on inventory, as contextual and publishers’ first-party data have become more important, and third-party cookies more scarce, (previously DSPs were more likely to play the role of a data warehouse). The growing importance of publisher data has the potential to shift more power to publishers in the programmatic landscape. But publishers are worried that curation tech will undermine this advantage. Two publishing sources said curation packages brokered by ad tech firms carry the patina of quality but come with ad rates that underwhelm publishers. “It hasn't materially improved my business this year,” said Justin Wohl, chief revenue officer at Snopes.com and TVTropes.org. Curation tech firms say they’re making programmatic palatable for buyers who question the value of the open web while providing new demand and incremental revenue to publishers. Audigent shared data that its deals drove ad spend that contributed up to 40% in incremental revenue to a group of publishers. “Any dollar that any publisher sees [from us] is always an incremental dollar that they otherwise would not see because it's our demand,” said Drew Stein, founder and CEO of Audigent. Decline in value of publisher inventory A key concern from publishers is that curation deals provide less revenue than directly sold deals, but cannibalize the same group of buyers who want a cleaner route to open web inventory than the open market. A publishing executive, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive industry relations, said while the company transacted more direct deals than open market deals this year, prices of all inventory declined compared with last year. That’s because more direct deals were brokered by curation services, where the publisher was paid lower rates. “Overall inventory eCPM across all transaction methods have declined as a result,” the publishing source said, referring to effective cost per thousand impressions. “We attribute the decline in value of inventory to the rise of curated deals.” Curators market themselves as having cheaper rates. An Audigent case study shared that "across the top 200 inventory sources, there was no meaningful price difference between Audigent PMPs and open exchange inventory." However, an Audigent spokesperson emphasized that the company has no control over the price a publisher charges for its inventory, as that's determined by the publisher and the SSP. “The publisher has full control to go and set their rate,” said Greg Williams, president of Audigent. Publishers also worry that curators make their inventory look less attractive than if the publisher sold the inventory directly themselves, said Paul Bannister, chief strategy officer of publisher network Raptive. Curation tech firms often contract with the SSP but not the publisher itself, making it harder for a publisher to see how a curator is packaging its inventory. “When SSPs [curate], you have a direct relationship even if you haven’t explicitly given them permission,” said Bannister. “With these other companies, you don’t have that relationship, so they do it without your permission.” Stein said that Audigent only works with SSPs which allow publishers to opt into curation. Squeezing the open web Publishers aren’t just worried that curation means less revenue for deals they could sell themselves. They’re also concerned about cannibalizing existing open web demand. “The skeptic in me says [the SSP] is moving buyers from the open market to the curation where they can extract the higher take rate,” Wohl said. Of course, that’s a dim view of the curation future. The potential of it is that publishers, who might not have large enough first-party data stores on their own, can have access to a new group of buyers that want quality but don’t have the time to source deals with individual publishers, three publishing sources said. Time strapped or not, one buyer—who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive industry relations—noted that the three curation products they tested this year were all disappointing. One package was supposed to showcase only premium publishers but included made-for-advertising sites. “[Curation] is what you’re paid for as an agency to do yourself,” the buyer said. “It’s a way for SSPs to keep things rolling where clients are dropping display and open web spend.”

Programmatic

Publishers Are Skeptical of Adtech's Latest Buzzword, Curation

Publishers worry programmatic's hot topic could undermine their ability to generate more revenue

Catherine Perloff

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Catherine Perloff