Fragmented audiences. Fractured identity signal. A minefield of low-quality inventory. The digital advertising landscape can be treacherous. But programmatic curation emerges as a strategic superpower to help marketers conquer the industry’s biggest pain points.
Programmatic curation empowers marketers to:
- Reach unique and valuable audiences at scale without reliance on fragile 3rd-party cookies or legacy identifiers.
- Increase transparency and improve control of inventory included in ad buys by consolidating suppliers, to separate premium, brand-safe placements from the junk.
- Measure and optimize campaigns using “upstream” supply-side signals to drive effeciencies and improve campaign performance.
- Seamlessly manage and scale coveted Private Marketplace deals across multiple publishers and targeting tactics.
Programmatic curation redefines how ad campaigns are built, bought, and optimized – representing a true paradigm shift. This guide delves into the intricacies of programmatic curation, exploring its definition, significance, benefits, and how marketers can leverage it to enhance their advertising outcomes.
Understanding Programmatic Curation
Programmatic curation refers to the strategic aggregation, selection, and management of digital advertising inventory through programmatic channels, combined with enhanced audience targeting, and advanced optimization. It involves creating tailored Private Marketplaces (PMPs) that bundle specific inventory and data to meet precise advertiser needs, and deliver to the demand-side platform (DSP) as an easy-to-activate Deal ID.
How Has Curation Evolved from Ad Networks to Curated Marketplaces?
From Simple Packages to Real-Time Data
Curation began its journey with ad networks creating bundled offerings based on both content and target audiences. This straightforward approach laid the foundation for tailored advertising. However, the advent of programmatic buying transformed the landscape by integrating data-driven strategies. This innovation allowed marketers to connect with audiences and content instantaneously, leading to more effective and efficient ad placements.
The Shift to Private Marketplaces
As the industry evolved, direct sales transitioned into private marketplaces. This move was driven by the need for stronger, more personal connections between buyers and sellers. Such marketplaces offered an environment where negotiations could be more finely tuned, fostering enhanced collaboration and trust.
Challenges and Solutions in Programmatic Scaling
With programmatic buying reaching unprecedented scales, media buyers were inundated with a deluge of bid requests. This surge was largely a result of the adoption of header bidding, which established a more competitive and fair process than the traditional waterfall model. This change pressured DSPs to address efficiency and cost management, presenting new challenges.
The Rise of Curated Marketplaces
To navigate these complexities, there was an increasing demand for a more nuanced curation of deals. Buyers sought specificity—not just any inventory, but the right mix that could effectively achieve campaign goals at scale. This need led to the development of curated marketplaces, which have successfully filled this niche by offering finely tuned inventory options that align with advertisers’ strategic objectives.
In essence, the journey from basic ad networks to highly specialized curated marketplaces showcases the industry’s drive toward precise targeting and efficient, impactful advertising campaigns.
Why Programmatic Curation Matters
The digital advertising landscape has its challenges: the impending demise of third-party cookies, a complex and opaque programmatic supply chain, and the delicate balance of user privacy and experience. Programmatic curation addresses these issues head-on by offering a transparent and efficient way to navigate the programmatic ecosystem.
1. Addressing the Complexity of the Supply Chain
The programmatic supply chain is notoriously complex, making it difficult for advertisers and publishers to ensure transparency and efficiency in ad transactions. The perception of efficient reach with free market pricing has attracted buyers to open auction programmatic, but hidden beneath the surface is a glut of low-quality, high-risk supply designed to “game” campaign KPIs, without true impact to a brand’s business. Programmatic curation streamlines programmatic ad auctions, offering a clear and consolidated path from advertiser to inventory, to ensuring that ads are reaching their desired audiences in relevant, effective contexts.
2. Privacy and the Shift Away from Cookies
As the industry moves away from reliance on third-party cookies, marketers need new methods for targeting and measurement. Curated deals are built using universal IDs and first-party data from publishers which are packaged into PMPs and matched to audiences outside of the open marketplace, emitting a more precise and privacy-friendly Deal ID signal to DSPs. This makes programmatic curation a smart choice for advertisers looking for reduced reliance on third-party cookies and allowing them to utilize first-party data across multiple publishers for data-driven contextual targeting.
The Benefits of Using Programmatic Curation
Programmatic curation offers numerous advantages for all parties involved in the digital advertising ecosystem, unlocking tremendous value for both supply-side and demand-side players:
- Better Transparency and Control: Programmatic curation cuts through the complexity of the digital ad supply chain, offering advertisers and publishers a clear view of media vendors in their supply chain (data providers, publishers). This transparency lets buyers know exactly where their ads will appear and helps publishers understand who is buying their inventory, fostering trust and control over the process.
- Improved Targeting and Relevance: Leveraging first-party publisher data and cookieless signals to map website visitors with target audience segments on the supply-side results in 30-40% higher match rates – and increased addressability – compared with cookie-based matching within DSPs. Higher segment resolution combined with sophisticated contextual and audience suppression levers available in curation platforms enables advertisers to target their campaigns precisely and effectively, leading to higher engagement rates, as ads may be more relevant to the audience, and better business outcomes.
- Enhanced Performance: By fine-tuning ad placements informed by rich contextual and audience data, and ingesting real-time performance signals to execute optimizations from the supply-side (inventory, audience data and bid price), programmatic curation not only increases the relevance of ads for consumers but significantly boosts campaign KPIs. Precision targeting paired with rapid supply-side optimization of PMPs drives deeper message resonance with intended audiences, leading to higher click-through rates, higher conversion rates, and ultimately, superior campaign ROI. This level of performance optimization is a key advantage, offering a competitive edge to marketers leveraging curation.
- Operational Efficiency and Cost Savings: Curation streamlines the ad buying process by reducing the number of intermediaries, simplifying the selection of quality inventory packaged with data, and introducing flexible, dynamic pricing of multi-publisher PMPs. Curated Deal IDs are seamlessly delivered to buyer DSPs to be activated programmatically. Optimizing workflow and pricing models results in decreases resources strains and operational burdens to maximize returns on media investment and human capital, making marketing budgets more effective.
- Direct Access to Quality Inventory: Allows advertisers to access customized packaged audience data combined with inventory from multiple supply-side platforms (SSPs), bypassing multiple intermediaries. This direct access ensures higher quality inventory, data and delivers more favorable match rates, and pricing enhancing the value of each ad dollar invested.
- Data Monetization and Enhanced Publisher Revenue: For publishers, programmatic curation opens new avenues for monetizing their first-party data. By curating their inventory and associated data, publishers can offer more attractive and targeted opportunities to advertisers, potentially increasing their revenue.
- Restored Relationships Between Advertisers and Publishers: The direct nature of curated deals helps rebuild the relationship between advertisers and publishers. By removing layers of complexity and intermediaries, both parties can work closely together, tailoring deals to meet specific advertising goals and content environments. This collaboration can lead to more successful campaigns and long-term partnerships.
- Adaptability in a Post-Cookie World: Programmatic curation is well-positioned as a future-proof strategy in the evolving digital advertising ecosystem. It provides an alternative to cookie-based targeting, relying on contextual signals and first-party data to match traffic with highly sought-after audiences, empowering brands to reach consumers effectively, even as the industry moves away from third-party cookies.
In addition to these benefits, the role of SSPs in programmatic curation cannot be overstated. Historically, curation was largely the domain of DSPs, but today we’re seeing this extend to the supply side as well. SSPs, serving media owners, hold a broader view of available supply across the open internet, inherently designed to handle massive volumes of bid requests efficiently. This positions SSPs to overcome the challenge DSPs face in evaluating concurrent auction opportunities, by leveraging their infrastructure to unlock additional value and scale.
By addressing limitations imposed by DSP constraints, SSPs empower DSPs to optimize outcomes sustainably for marketers. This symbiotic relationship ensures that buyers receive quality and relevant inventory tailored to specific campaign objectives, enhancing the overall efficiency and performance of digital ad campaigns. Through this strategic curation, the advertising industry as a whole benefits from more working media and efficient scale, further solidifying the value proposition of supply-side curation.
How to Get Started with Programmatic Curation
Marketers looking to harness the power of programmatic curation can follow these steps to get started and achieve better advertising results:
1. Define Your Objectives:
Start by getting a clear picture of who your audience is, understanding their preferences, behaviors, and online habits. It’s crucial to set precise goals for what you aim to achieve with your advertising campaigns, whether it’s boosting brand awareness, generating leads, or driving direct sales. You can also use Lotame’s audience analytics tools to help define and validate your target audience.
2. Assess Your Data Capabilities
Begin by evaluating your access to and the quality of first and third-party data. Successful curation relies on robust data to inform targeting and personalization strategies. Lotame’s Curated Marketplaces offer 150 data sources across every industry category, first- and third-party data enrichment, plus AI-powered contextual audience solutions.
3. Partner with the Right Platforms
Select technology partners that offer curation capabilities, with a focus on platforms that provide transparency, flexibility, and robust data targeting and inventory options. Seek out data providers or curators who can offer in-depth audience insights and curated ad inventory that aligns with your campaign goals. Lotame offers leading data assets and strategic know-how in delivering optimal campaign performance, making us an ideal partner to help agencies and marketers navigate programmatic curation.
4. Curate Your Ad Inventory
Use the insights from your audience research to pinpoint specific criteria for your ad placements. This involves selecting environments that are not only relevant and engaging to your audience but also safe for your brand. Through programmatic curation, you can pre-select inventory that perfectly matches your targeting criteria, optimizing the relevance and effectiveness of your ads.
5. Launch and Optimize Your Campaigns
Begin with a pilot campaign to gauge the performance of your curated approach. Employ A/B testing to fine-tune your targeting and creative strategies. Utilize reporting from your DSP and real-time signals from SSPs to make adjustments, focusing on metrics that directly correlate with your objectives, such as engagement rates, conversions, and overall return on investment.
6. Measure and Scale
Conduct a thorough analysis of your campaign’s performance, assessing its impact on your business goals beyond just surface-level metrics. Use the insights gained to refine and expand your programmatic curation efforts, applying successful strategies to future campaigns.
By following this streamlined approach, you can effectively harness the power of programmatic curation to enhance the precision, efficiency, and impact of your digital advertising campaigns.
Programmatic Curation Key Terms
1. Defining Programmatic Curation
- Programmatic Curation – A supply-centric approach to digital advertising that streamlines the programmatic buying process by filtering and packaging high-quality, relevant inventory, enabling advertisers to reach precise audiences efficiently while optimizing value across the supply chain.
- Curated Deals – Private programmatic deals where advertisers work directly with publishers, SSPs, or data providers to create customized ad packages.
- Programmatic Curated Deals (PCD) – A subset of curated deals specifically focused on programmatic transactions, where advertisers gain greater control over supply paths.
- Curator An entity (e.g., publisher, SSP, agency, or data provider) that creates and offers curated inventory packages.
- Curated Marketplaces – A controlled inventory selection where advertisers access premium, high-quality ad placements through customized supply curation. Built by agencies, data providers, or tech partners, it enhances brand safety, audience targeting, and transparency while optimizing supply paths.
- Data-Empowered Curated Marketplace – Lotame’s Data Empowered Curated Marketplaces combine bespoke audience creation, AI-driven insights, and cross-SSP inventory access to deliver brand-safe, high-performing campaigns. Unlike static solutions, we continuously optimize using real-time insights, ensuring maximum value and relevance for your bids.
- Supply Path Optimization (SPO) – The practice of reducing intermediaries (middlemen) in the supply chain to improve cost efficiency, transparency, and performance.
2. Curation vs. Traditional Programmatic Buying
- Curated Deals vs. Private Marketplace (PMP) – PMPs are invite-only auctions offering premium inventory from specific publishers. Curated deals, while delivered via a PMP, go a step further by applying additional layers of data, audience segmentation, and inventory filtering to provide a more customized and strategic supply selection for advertisers.
- Curated Deals vs. Open Market Buying – Open Market allows broad access to ad inventory, whereas curated deals provide a more controlled and strategic supply selection.
- Programmatic Guaranteed vs. Curated Deals – Programmatic Guaranteed offers fixed-price, direct publisher transactions and usually comes with an expected or guaranteed amount of spend, while curated deals offer more flexibility in targeting and pricing and have no spend commitment expectations. .
3. Curation & Inventory Management
- Custom Deal IDs (Curated Deal ID) – A unique identifier assigned to a curated deal to help track and measure its performance in a DSP.
- Inclusion List (Allow List) – A curated list of approved publishers, SSPs, or sellers that meet transparency and performance standards.
- Exclusion List (Block List) – A curated list of disallowed publishers, SSPs, or sellers that do not meet quality, performance, or brand safety standards.
- Ad Group-Level Curation – The practice of creating curated deals at the ad group level rather than at the advertiser level to enhance targeting precision.
- Curated Inventory Segmentation – Dividing inventory into segments based on attributes like content category, audience type, or ad format.
- Data Curation and First-Party Data– Data curation enables brands, retailers, publishers, and data providers to merge their first-party data with high-quality inventory from third-party publishers in private marketplaces (PMPs). These curated deals are then packaged into ready-to-activate Deal IDs, making it easier for advertisers to deploy them across demand-side platforms (DSPs) for targeted and scalable programmatic campaigns. Lotame’s curation solutions stand out by combining 100+ LDX data partners, publisher insights, advertiser outcome data, and cross-device targeting (via Panorama ID), enhanced by graph-enabled predictive analytics for higher-fidelity audience and contextual targeting.
- Contextual Curation – Selecting curated deals based on page content rather than behavioral audience data, important for cookie-less strategies.
- High-Quality Inventory Curation – The practice of prioritizing premium, brand-safe, and fraud-free inventory in curated deals.
4. Curation & Performance Measurement
- Curated Deals Performance Analysis – The process of measuring and optimizing curated deal effectiveness based on KPIs such as viewability, engagement, and conversions.
- Brand Safety in Curation – Ensuring curated deals contain only brand-safe, high-quality inventory and avoid MFA (Made-for-Advertising) sites.
- Viewability in Curated Deals – The percentage of curated deal impressions that were actually viewable by users.
- Attribution & Curation – Determining how curated deals contribute to conversion paths within multi-touch attribution models.
Partnering with Lotame for Curation Results
Programmatic curation represents a significant evolution in digital advertising, offering a pathway to efficient and effective ad placements. Lotame’s Curated Marketplaces give advertisers a new curation solution tailored to meet the demands of the current advertising ecosystem, enabling marketers to overcome the challenges of audience fragmentation, inventory quality, and campaign management with unparalleled efficiency and effectiveness.
Benefits include:
- Extending your audience across devices and activating with or without third-party cookies
- Driving true incremental audience reach using our data-informed contextual targeting with intelligent suppression.
- Achieving higher audience match rates vs demand-side targeting.
- Consolidating your supply paths to maximize relevant inventory and minimize wasted impressions.
- Gaining valuable audience insights about your target customer.
- Driving exponential results using our innovative approach to campaign optimizations.
Lotame is your audience expert. We know how to find the right audience to deliver superior campaign performance at scale. Contact us today to learn more about our Curated Marketplaces and how we can help you make smarter, faster, and easier decisions with your data.
This article was written by Lotame’s SVP of Global Addressability, Eli Heath.