In the last month or so alone this pivot has been on full display.

Havas struck a deal with SSP Freewheel to help it buy CTV in smarter, more transparent ways. Then Horizon plugged its identifier solution into OpenX’s SSP platform.

Oh, and there’s also the RFP doing the rounds among SSPs at the moment. It’s from a large media agency network that’s reviewing the marketplace solution it put in place several years ago, said one ad exec with knowledge of the brief. In its place, the agency wants to work with SSPs that can reduce redundant, suboptimal and low-quality supply paths. To do this, the agency is asking for SSPs to help it do several things such as reduce hidden fees, give media buyers greater control over how impressions are curated, and offer more auction transparency.

A few years back a deal like this would’ve essentially been a “preferred partnership” — a contractual arrangement to incentivize advertisers to spend more money with SSP in exchange for lower fees, better transparency on those rates and improved reporting.

These economics are still vital to these deals, of course. But so are things like sustainability, curation and data these days.

For example, the Horizon deal with OpenX is more about how the former can do more data targeting on the supply-side of the marketplace. It is built on the back of a direct integration between both companies, with the SSP able to give media buyers greater control over inventory quality, audience targeting and overall campaign performance against their metrics.

“Agencies like Horizon have invested significantly in developing proprietary audience and identity solutions,” said Brian Chisholm, svp of strategic partnerships at OpenX. “The issue is that these solutions can be siloed which limits the benefit to their brands. By integrating with a supply-side platform Horizon can amplify their existing data and tech investments and reach and report on audiences at scale.”

Deals like this are becoming increasingly important to the survival of SSPs. Without them agencies are more inclined to take their dollars elsewhere. The closures of SSPs from Yahoo and EMX last week as well as a recent round of layoffs at Triplelift make that all too clear.

And yet working with agencies brings with it a whole host of other challenges since the SSPs that do it are now having to juggle the interests of two opposing forces.

On the one hand, SSPs have to mollify publishers, as ever, with better fill rates and higher prices, ultimately driving toward more revenue. At the same time, SSPs have to make it as efficient as possible for media buyers to buy impressions, lest those same marketers optimize them out of plans. If this happens then it …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron