Publishers are gaining long-missing visibility into the metrics that shape ad demand as The Trade Desk’s OpenSincera opens buyer-quality signals to the sell side.
The Trade Desk’s latest earnings call left investors uneasy, with analysts pressing for clarity on how the open web’s largest independent DSP plans to compete against Amazon and other walled gardens.
And much like publishers, investors also have concerns about AI search limiting growth on the open web.
While the buy side debates DSP strategy, publishers are facing their own reality. Marketers are growing selective about how they spend on the open web as they shift more of their budgets to social platforms and CTV. And making the cut for curated deals, which are now dominating the supply chain, requires a sharper understanding of inventory quality.
But for publishers to understand how the market values their ad supply, they need visibility into metrics that have traditionally been more visible to buyers than to sellers.
OpenSincera, a tool recently launched by The Trade Desk that’s based on the Sincera platform it acquired in January, aims to fill that measurement gap.
Publishers Test OpenSincera
The open-source tool scores publishers on their ad density and page-level user experience. It also measures identity absorption rate or the degree to which audience ID signals are actually transacted on in programmatic deals.
Tools like OpenSincera are a welcome addition for helping publishers truly understand media quality, said Patrick McCarthy, SVP of programmatic monetization at People Inc. (formerly Dotdash Meredith). Plus, because both sides of the supply chain have access to the same measurement signals, it gives buyers confidence that they’re getting high-quality inventory from publishers when they pay for it, he said.
OpenSincera also includes an open API that allows publisher monetization teams to create custom measurement and optimization tools suited to their needs.
Patrick McCann, SVP of Research at publisher monetization network Raptive, told AdMonsters his team utilizes OpenSincera’s API to delve into specific site-level data points ranging from prebid module adoption to the number of supply paths and reseller lines included in a publisher’s ads.txt file.
That data, McCann explained, can highlight potential quality concerns and optimization opportunities.
“It’s beneficial to know what the buyer is looking at,” he said. “But it’s even more helpful to be able to take action on it.”
With the API, Raptive can benchmark against competitors and track metrics like ads-to-content ratio or total page weight, aka the amount of data that needs to be downloaded before a page loads.
Raptive also uses the tool to run controlled experiments across its network. For example, McCann’s team might adjust ad layout for a subset of sites and monitor how it changes certain OpenSincera metrics. “It allows us to understand the trade-offs” of making changes to page layouts, he said.
McCann did flag some challenges with using the tool. The cadence of OpenSincera’s data refresh, which he believes is currently around 90 days, can make experimentation slow. And he said he would like to see more granular device-level reporting, given that mobile and desktop ad experiences differ significantly.
Concerns aside, McCann added that the tool’s open API has been essential. “It really gives you a blank slate and allows you to build anything you can envision,” he said, “instead of being locked into how they want to present the data.”
SSPs Are Integrating It, Too
It’s not just publishers building their own tools. Sovrn, an SSP, is incorporating OpenSincera metrics into its Signal Vitals dashboard, alongside existing attention and performance benchmarks.
Peter Cunha, Managing Director at Sovrn, told AdMonsters that the integration will focus on two KPIs sourced from Sincera: identity absorption rate and ads-to-content ratio. The goal, he explained, is to make that data available where publishers are already analyzing performance, without forcing them into separate workflows.
We previously spoke to The Daily Mail in May about how Sovrn’s Signal Vitals dashboard provided a much-needed inventory checkup. Jeremy Gan, EVP of advertising at The Daily Mail, said it helped the publisher establish a new performance baseline and gain a better understanding of the metrics that matter to buyers.
Adding OpenSincera’s metrics to the Signal Vitals dashboard could give publishers greater insight into how their inventory stacks up, according to Cunha. He added that the integration is part of an initiative by the SSP to consolidate multiple ecosystem data sources in one place.
As programmatic evolves, sellers are no longer content to rely solely on buyer-defined standards or unreliable performance feedback. Tools like OpenSincera, whether integrated into SSP dashboards or used directly via API, are part of a broader shift toward publishers building their own visibility into the metrics that shape demand decisions.