During the 2025 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Matt Sattel, Chief Revenue Officer at OpenX joined Nicole Pruess from Marketecture Media and guest host of The Advertising Forum. Together, they explored how OpenX is addressing the evolving needs of advertisers and publishers by investing in its data and identity solutions, driving much-needed transparency in CTV, and more.
Watch their conversation above or via this link, and read on to understand how we’re solving for our partners’ biggest pain points in 2025 and beyond.
1. Data-driven curation goes beyond site-lists and brand safety
Curation may have been the biggest buzzword of 2024, but it didn’t come out of nowhere. “Curation has been happening for a very long time,” said Sattel. “In fact, what we have been building toward over the last couple of years is placing a big emphasis on how we can drive value back to buyers, which creates a natural flywheel that provides benefits to both publishers and DSPs too.”
“I think 2025 is where we start seeing more consolidation and simplification, which is why our focus has been on developing an intuitive platform for buyers to embrace data-driven curation, or what is essentially curation 2.0.”
—Matt Sattel, Chief Revenue Officer at OpenX
As Sattel explained, OpenX can identify and package top-performing media placements tailored to specific advertiser goals. Combined with our robust identity graph and expanded access to direct supply — now encompassing over 80 direct data partners — we are redefining what curation means and, as a result, what we can deliver to buyers.
In 2025, the majority of brands and agencies will evolve beyond inventory-focused curation approaches like brand safety or site lists into data-driven curation, where audience and performance data take center stage. “What’s exciting this year is how we’re evolving our curation platform,” said Sattel. “A tool historically used by our data partners and internal teams is being revamped to meet the unique needs of agencies and brands.”
Ready to take your curation strategy to the next level? Download our curation checklist to ensure your partners are delivering real value for your campaigns.
2. Privacy as a key differentiator: Our commitment to effective targeting solutions
As 2025 shapes up to be a pivotal year for privacy in the digital advertising industry, OpenX is continuing to invest in its commitment to making privacy the cornerstone of trust and innovation. “At OpenX, we don’t see privacy as a challenge,” said Sattel. “Instead, it’s a key differentiator for us, built on our strong focus on data and identity since 2017.”
Regardless of the environment — whether it is CTV, mobile, or web — in today’s privacy-focused world, true leadership in data and identity is inseparable from a commitment to privacy. We support this obligation with dedicated leadership, with Chief Privacy Officer Julie Rooney focused on navigating evolving global regulations, including critical areas like child-directed content under new laws in places such as Australia and Maryland.
“At OpenX, we don’t see privacy as a challenge. Instead, it’s a key differentiator for us, built on our strong focus on data and identity since 2017.”
—Sattel
In today’s ecosystem, any conversation about data, identity, or addressability that doesn’t prioritize privacy is incomplete; true expertise lies in integrating privacy as a fundamental component of targeting and curation strategies. For advertisers and publishers, this means they can trust OpenX to provide targeting solutions that align with both ethical standards and business goals, setting a new benchmark for privacy-driven performance in the digital advertising ecosystem.
3. Prediction: 2025 will be the year of transparency
When asked what kind of brand-new emoji OpenX would be, Sattel didn’t hesitate: “For us, it would probably be an open book.” That’s because transparency isn’t just a buzzword at OpenX — it’s a core value and one of the guiding principles behind everything we do.
“For example, I think there need to be some tough conversations about what true SPO really means,” said Sattel. “For us, it’s about delivering that level of granularity and providing the data buyers need to make informed decisions.”
Another aspect of transparency is prioritizing engaging with our customers to understand their needs and challenges rather than launching solutions to keep up with market trends. “We’re committed to ensuring that what we bring to market genuinely matters,” explained Sattel. “For me, the best version of OpenX being an open book means avoiding fluff and focusing on innovations that are both new and meaningful for the ecosystem.”
4. TV by OpenX continues to redefine CTV through innovative initiatives
Listening to feedback from partners and internal teams led to the creation of TV by OpenX, an ongoing initiative rooted in transparency that is redefining how buyers and sellers approach CTV.
While we weren’t the first to enter CTV, we’re doing it better. The results speak for themselves: we’ve doubled CTV spend running through our platform; achieved coverage of 87% of the CTV universe per Jounce’s Trusted Seller Index; and secured partnerships with leaders like A&E, DISH Sling, TiVo, Vevo, and more.
One of the most recent innovations of TV by OpenX is its normalization of content object signals. OpenX recently streamlined millions of genre variations from our supply partners into nine categories and 132 distinct subcategories for this reason. This provides buyers more scalable, consistent content targeting across deals, simplifying both bidding and reporting. This advancement is a reflection of our commitment to innovation in the rapidly evolving biddable CTV space, empowering advertisers to optimize budgets, react more swiftly to cultural moments (such as live sports or awards season), and unlock the full potential of CTV as a powerful channel for incremental reach.
Interested? Contact us now or browse our curated packages to get started.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
About OpenX
OpenX is an independent omni-channel supply-side platform (SSP) and a global leader in supply-side curation, transparency, and sustainability. Through its 100% cloud-based tech stack, OpenX powers advertising across CTV, app, mobile web, and desktop, enabling publishers to deliver marketers with improved performance and dynamic future-proofed solutions. With a 17-year track record of programmatic innovation, OpenX is a direct and trusted partner of the world’s largest publishers, working with more than 130,000 premium publisher domains and over 100,000 advertisers. As the market leader in sustainability, OpenX was the first adtech company to be certified as CarbonNeutral™ and third-party verified for achieving its SBTi Net-Zero targets. Learn more at www.openx.com.