SSP curation is being touted as the next big solution for publishers and advertisers—but is it just the old ad network model in a shiny new wrapper? As curated deals bundle premium inventory with lower-tier content, publishers risk losing control while advertisers demand more transparency. Here’s what’s at stake.
Supply-side platforms (SSPs) are at a crossroads. Once an essential bridge connecting publishers with advertisers, they now scramble to maintain relevance in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Enter curation, the new darling of the SSPs, promising advertisers streamlined, efficient results and publishers new revenue streams. But underneath its polished exterior, familiar flaws arise. SSP Curation risks rehashing the inefficiencies of the old ad network model—with even more significant consequences for both publishers and advertisers.
What is Curation?
Curation involves packaging publisher inventory and audiences into pre-approved bundles that advertisers can buy directly via Deal IDs. These bundles combine inventory from multiple publishers around shared themes or segment a single publisher’s various program offerings into neat, tailored packages. On paper, bundling promises a win-win-win: advertisers gain targeted options, publishers unlock new ways to monetize, and SSPs differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace.
But curation traps SSPs in an impossible balancing act that pits advertiser demands against publisher needs. Advertisers want high-performing, premium inventory. Publishers wish to fair representation and control. SSPs claim they can satisfy both, but in reality, they’re teetering a razor-thin line of conflicting interests.
Anchors and Outliers: A Hierarchy of Publishers
For curation to succeed, SSPs must rely on two distinct groups of publishers: premium and long tail. Premium publishers—those with high-quality content, recognizable brands, and strong advertiser demand—serve as the anchors of curated deals, providing advertisers’ desirability to justify these packages.
The long-tail publishers drive scale, often prioritizing quantity over quality and sometimes including low-value Made-for-Advertiser (MFA) content. SSPs bundle this inventory alongside premium placements, banking on the halo effect from big-name publishers to distract advertisers from underperforming placements.
But today’s advertisers and buyers are smarter than ever, armed with tools that can instantly sniff out underperforming placements. Before long, these publishers will be relegated to the discount bin.
And the SSPs? They’re left scrambling to re-curate their bundles, slicing out underperformers and attempting to salvage their value proposition. It’s déjà vu of the worst kind—a rehash of the old ad network playbook, now dressed up in programmatic jargon.
The Publisher Problem
Publishers are beginning to recognize curation as a threat to their autonomy. By creating curated packages, SSPs sideline publisher priorities, forcing them to contend with lower CPMs, cannibalized direct deals, and diminished control. Bundling premium inventory with lower-tier content dilutes the premium publisher’s value and weakens their authority over how their ad space is sold.
Publishers count on their SSP partners to act in their best interests; when SSPs prioritize advertiser demands, the relationship begins to fray. Any signs of inefficiencies, pricing inconsistencies, or loss of control could prompt premium publishers to pivot toward more direct strategies.
SSPs would lose their key selling point without premium publishers anchoring their curated deals. As these publishers seek alternative paths, SSPs are left with a long tail of inventory that lacks the appeal needed to sustain their business model.
The Advertiser’s Perspective
Advertisers require transparency, control, and the ability to apply their first-party data seamlessly across channels; SSP curation often works against these priorities. By isolating inventory within individual SSPs, it creates silos that restrict cross-platform efficiency, making it harder for advertisers to execute cohesive, data-driven campaigns.
The lack of visibility into the economic terms behind SSP-curated deals will add to buyer frustration. Advertisers are left in the dark about where their dollars are going, leading to an erosion of trust. Rather than empowering advertisers, curation threatens to box them into rigid, prepackaged solutions that fail to deliver the precision needed to succeed.
The Path Forward
The solution isn’t more aggregation—it’s alignment. Advertisers want to skip the middleman and purchase the winning, premium placements found in curated bundles themselves.
Many publishers are already moving in this direction, too. Disney’s DRAX and Bridge ID initiatives are examples of how premium players bypass SSPs entirely, opting for direct integrations with Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) to maintain control over their inventory while better aligning with advertiser demands.
Curation is nothing more than the SSPs latest quick fix: flashy, convenient and superficially effective. But beneath the surface, the cracks are already forming. By creating a hierarchy of inventory and bundling premium publishers with less desirable options, SSPs risk alienating their most valuable partners while failing to meet advertisers’ needs.