Recently, Stacy Bohrer, VP of Buyer Development at OpenX joined the AdTechGod Podcast to talk about the omnichannel SSP’s major contributions to curation, its ongoing focus of bringing transparency to buyers, and much more.

Listen to their chat here, and read on for the three biggest takeaways from the conversation.

1. Supply-side curation is the future of programmatic

Driven by buyers’ growing demand for more control over their campaigns, supply-side curation has evolved to bring better value and optimization. Curated deals offer unparalleled transparency, detailing the exact path of every purchased impression. “Our deals are so carefully curated, the data is all transparent, you see exactly the path from which every impression was purchased,” said Bohrer. This direct approach provides significant advantages, ensuring higher quality and more reliable media options.

Where OpenX differentiates itself is an extensive marketplace of data partnerships that provides a unique value proposition to its buyer partners. OpenX created the largest independent sell-side graph in 2018, which enhances buyers’ ability to drive revenue by leveraging data-driven insights to optimize ad placements, target the right audiences more effectively, and increase engagement through personalized advertising strategies. This proprietary technology is based on interoperability, meaning that it seamlessly integrates various data sources — including first-party data or any pre-built audience segments — to provide comprehensive and actionable insights for advertisers. As a result, behavioral targeting is applied before impressions reach the DSP, ensuring that every bid is relevant.

This level of precision and relevance demonstrates the numerous benefits of curation in modern advertising.

2. Buyers want greater control and quality

In today’s programmatic landscape, buyers are increasingly demanding greater control and quality from their media purchases. This shift is driven by the need for more precise targeting and a growing desire to ensure that ad spend is used effectively.

As mentioned above, one key approach to meeting these demands is through enhanced curation and quality control. In its pioneering connected TV (CTV) solution, OpenX has done both. TV by OpenX began by eliminating all indirect traffic from the platform, then by emphasizing its identity graph, which delivers data-driven, contextual, attention, and sustainability offerings to CTV. Taken together, these offerings are powering the direct activation of curated audiences at scale. 

In its first full quarter since launch, TV by OpenX has resulted in a 22% increase in monetized impressions for our publishers. This shift toward direct-sourced inventory underscores the market’s demand for curated, high-quality content from premium publishers.

OpenX further exemplifies the desire for buyer transparency and control by eliminating all made for advertising (MFA) content from its direct deals. By focusing on high-quality, direct content, OpenX ensures that advertisers receive premium inventory that meets their standards for relevance and effectiveness. As a result, buyers benefit from more transparent and reliable media options, enhancing their overall campaign effectiveness and return on investment.

3. Responsible media performs better

Responsible media is increasingly becoming a central theme in advertising conversations. At OpenX, one of our core tenets is based on responsibility, which values and upholds sustainable media practices, DEI initiatives, data privacy, and regulatory compliance. These initiatives are carried out and implemented at multiple levels company-wide and through critical partnerships.

For example, OpenX collaborates with organizations like Givsly, which focuses on cause marketing that has been shown to perform better for buyers than benchmarks. OpenX’s buy-side partners can tap into this unique solution to drive greater results in their own campaigns, while also giving back 5% of ad spend to a charity of their choosing at no cost to the buyer. 

On the sustainability front, in 2018, OpenX began the journey to become a Net-Zero company. To accomplish this initiative, we migrated our entire technology infrastructure to a cloud platform and consolidated office space while championing remote work. In 2022, we achieved our goal (validated by RSK, one of the world’s leading environmental consultancies), which came with the added superlative of being the first SSP to be independently certified as carbon neutral. 

As a result, OpenX is the first and only company in the advertising, technology, and media sectors to receive independent verification that it has met the key requirements of the Net-Zero Standard established by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi).