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Some buyers, particularly in areas like CTV where quality supply is more limited, are wary of open marketplaces and the associated risks around lack of transparency and quality. But Francesca Warne, senior advertising manager EMEA at PubMatic, says targeted private marketplaces, or tPMPs, can solve the quality-scale trade off by sitting as a new layer between open and private marketplaces.
Over the past few years, brands have become increasingly wary of programmatic ad buying via open exchanges due to the lack of visibility into the supply path. Deep concerns over the number of hops in the supply chain and fraud (especially domain spoofing), have resulted in industry initiatives such as ads.txt and sellers.json which have helped, but not solved, the issue. To avoid uncertainty, many digital media buyers have turned to private marketplaces (PMPs) for transparency and control of pricing and ad placement, albeit sometimes sacrificing scale and simplicity.
PubMatic’s new targeted private marketplaces (tPMPs) offer a remedy for the quality vs. quantity conundrum, with no loss of control or transparency.
Benefits for publishers and advertisers
For media buyers and publishers, tPMPs are an additional layer between open marketplaces (OMPs) and PMPs – not a replacement – bringing a change to how digital ad budgets are optimised. tPMPs allow buyers to strategically curate multiple audiences with inventory from many publishers in one deal ID. In PubMatic’s Media Buyer Console (MBC) users are able to apply granular filters beyond what a publisher may be able to offer, such as additional video and mobile metrics, e.g. VPAID video inventory only or mobile operating system selections. By doing this we enable buyers to curate inventory without compromising on either quality or scale.
Furthermore, buyers benefit from improved individual workflows and team productivity as they create the deals themselves in PubMatic’s Media Buyer Console (MBC). By eliminating the need to switch between multiple tools and negotiate with multiple partners in the supply chain tPMPs drive efficiency as well as total visibility into ad inventory being bought. tPMPs also offer high levels of brand safety as buyers have the ability to choose only direct publishers and leverage pre- and post-bid fraud prevention.
By transferring the deal building process to buyers, publishers are able to focus on more strategic work such as generating audience insights and bespoke solutions for brands.
Data distribution
Often when buyers apply data to a PMP in a DSP we see a decrease in deal scale – sometimes to the point that delivery completely stops. To prevent this, PubMatic has developed MBC to enable buyers to integrate first, second, and third party data. Furthermore, we have created pipes for publishers and brands to safely share data and easily apply it across PubMatic inventory.
PubMatic has partnered with data providers such as Zeotap, Fifty.io, semasio, Digital Audience, The ADEX and many others. These new audiences can be layered on premium, cross-channel inventory, including OTT, CTV, video, mobile, display, and contextual rich media.
Publishers also benefit from more in-depth analysis as the reporting available through a tPMP provides insights into which buyers are purchasing their inventory, i.e. their open marketplace buying habits. Meanwhile, buyers get better insights into who they are buying from. Greater insights facilitate increased collaboration and deeper relationships between publishers and advertisers leading to increased innovation and optimisation driving better performance for buyers and higher yields for publishers.
What’s the deal?
Let’s look at two examples, each with different campaign goals and examine how a tPMP delivers on the promise of ‘scale and quality’.
- A brand wants to target only high-viewability video inventory directly from multiple publishers across broad audience.
Using PMPs requires the buyer to negotiate with multiple sellers which is time consuming and complex as each publisher would need to set up a deal. Opting for an open marketplace would save time in the short term, as there would be no negotiation and no duplication of setup, however buyers would be worried about brand safety, the numbers of hops in the supply chain, and lose the benefits of buying directly from publishers.
Using a tPMP removes both these barriers by enabling the buyer to curate inventory from multiple publishers via a single deal ID, and then transact on it in an open auction environment. Targeting parameters only need to be set once, and pricing is in line with the open marketplace. Additionally, the priority for tPMP deals is equal to open auctions unless the publisher wants a higher priority – further showcasing the flexibility of the tPMP.
2. A brand wants to target only Android B2B app inventory that is measurable.
Rather than evaluating multiple providers’ ability to reach target contexts and audiences and set up PMPs with separate apps, the buyer goes direct to the MBC platform, sets up an app tPMP deal with a single deal ID that works seamlessly with their existing DSP. Still within MBC, the buyer then applies the relevant audience data, Android targeting, and open measurement SDK filters and the campaign is ready to go. Again, the tPMP has delivered on targeting, efficiency, viewability measurement, pricing, and scale.
In both these cases, the tPMP provides end to end self-service tools to simplify deal transactions and deliver two-way transparency in private marketplace auctions between buyers and publishers freeing up digital media buyers’ time and budget to invest in strategic activities.
Driving more ad spend into programmatic
tPMPs are an ideal way to address advertisers’ concerns over lack of transparency, poor quality inventory, and brand safety risks on the open exchange. The added transparency not only increases levels of trust but also allows advertisers to target audiences in a more meaningful way within contextually relevant environments. Ultimately, tPMPs drive progressive improvements in trust and cooperation across the industry, which should result in a better digital advertising experience for everyone – brands, publishers, and consumers.
