Curation programmatic: Best deal in 2025?

Before we explain programmatic curation, let's address the problem it solves.

In an age where every click counts and user attention is a fleeting commodity, curation programmatic offers unparalleled efficiency, precision, and relevance in a sea of online content.

To provide a clear definition: Programmatic curation refers to the process of selecting and organizing digital advertising inventory using automated technology, ensuring that ads are delivered to the most relevant audiences in real time.

Curation empowers advertisers to cut through the noise, delivering personalized and engaging ad experiences to the target audience. This guide demystifies the complexities of programmatic advertising curation and illuminates its pivotal role in modern advertising.

Whether you're a marketer, a business owner, or simply curious about the future of digital ads, this is for you.

What is programmatic curation?

Think of programmatic curation like organizing a bookshelf in a library.

The same way a librarian selects and arranges books based on topics or genres to make it easier for readers to find what they need, programmatic curation organizes ads to simplify discovery.

The goal is to ensure the ads (ad inventory) match advertisers' needs. For example, if an advertiser wants to show ads for sports equipment, curation ensures these ads appear on sports-related websites or sections.

The curator (the person or system doing the curation) selects and groups ads in a way that will be more meaningful and appealing to the people seeing them.

Maybe a music analogy is more fitting if you're not the library type. Think of it like creating a themed playlist of songs, where each song is chosen to fit a particular mood or occasion.

Curation goes beyond mere selection; it involves shaping the relevant inventory to maximize its appeal and effectiveness for advertisers. It can take many forms, from traditional ad network packages to private marketplaces and today's curated marketplaces, each representing a different structure for organizing inventory.

It's important to note that programmatic curation is not just one thing—it encompasses a variety of approaches and roles within the AdTech ecosystem.

Programmatic curation examples

Let’s see some examples to understand real-life applications in programmatic advertising.

Contextualization: Agency A wants to run a localized campaign for a brand looking to reach a sports audience. The brand wants to prioritize running on local sites. Enter the Curator. The Curator offered the agency a tailored list of local sports sites that match the advertiser's criteria, such as +95% viewability.

Standardization: Agency B is working with distributed trading teams and wants to manage their supply strategy at scale efficiently. By working with a Curator, they created a marketplace of "company-approved" media packages that their trading team can use, removing the room for user error and effectively managing compliance.

These examples highlight some of the ways programmatic curation can be used in digital advertising to improve efficiency, sustainability, and monetization for both publishers and buyers.

How does inventory shaping work?

Curation goes beyond mere selection; it involves shaping quality inventory to maximize its appeal and effectiveness for advertisers. Curators expertly shape the inventory by categorizing and bundling it based on parameters like:

• audiences, with a focus on targeting and segmenting user groups through audience demographics
• content relevance
• behavioral patterns

This process ensures a more cohesive and targeted advertising approach. The advantages of a well-curated, quality inventory are manifold. Advertisers benefit from higher engagement rates, better campaign performance, and a more efficient advertising budget allocation.

Key players in programmatic curation

Certain key players play a pivotal role in shaping the landscape in the realm of programmatic curation.

Curators in the programmatic arena are entities that specialize in aggregating and organizing ad inventory. They possess the expertise to evaluate and categorize inventory, ensuring it aligns with the nuanced needs of advertisers.

Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) – The supply side is instrumental in the curation process. They offer specialized curation services, bundling inventory from their publishers and driving media sales to enhance platform utilization.

However, the true game-changers are those who curate inventory across multiple platforms. Entities like Eskimi, Seedtag, Captify, and Multilocal are notable examples. These entities often operate within a broader network, facilitating collaboration and inventory access between publishers and advertisers. Additionally, some large holding companies have developed their curation strategies, enabling them to manage their global supply-side strategy at scale and reducing reliance on local trading teams.

These entities will offer pre-packaged bundles according to audience segments, doing the hard work for the advertiser. For example, the sports enthusiast media package would include football lovers, health and fitness apps, sports betting/gambling, and more.

Standard curation process

Here's how curation works when working with Eskimi.

Client brief: Gather the necessary information: DSP, buyer seat ID, brand, ad format, sizes, dates, and country.

Pricing: The curator will check available inventory and come up with a proposed CPM for the deal, including margin.

Deal creation: Once all parties agree, the curator will set up the deals with the chosen buyer and share the deal ID. Curated deals ensure that high-quality, brand-safe inventory is delivered to advertisers, providing transparency and control.

Launch: The client can find the deal ID in their selected DSP seat and set up a campaign, targeting the deal.

Benefits of programmatic curation

One of the primary benefits of programmatic curation is its ability to provide a more relevant and targeted advertising inventory. But there's more.

Cross-publisher inventory bundling: Traditional methods often scatter inventory, making it challenging to achieve consistency and relevance. Programmatic curation combats this by bundling cross-publisher inventory. This approach streamlines the process and ensures that advertisers have access to a more coherent and relevant selection of ad spaces.

For publishers, this bundling enhances monetization opportunities by increasing the quality and value of their inventory, enabling more targeted and premium ad placements. Additionally, effective curation helps reduce the risk associated with low-quality inventory and brand safety issues, protecting campaign KPIs and long-term revenue growth.

Predictability similar to PMPs: Private Marketplaces (PMPs) are known for their predictability and quality assurance. Programmatic curation offers similar predictability but with an added advantage. Unlike PMPs, which require dealing with multiple publishers, curation simplifies this by aggregating inventory, making the process more efficient and user-friendly.

Leveraging first-party data

The utilization of first-party data in curated advertising presents a significant advantage. Here's how:

Targeted inventory access: Advertisers can tap into highly targeted inventory using first-party data from publishers. This specificity allows for more tailored and effective ad placements, ensuring that the right audience sees the suitable ads. First-party data also helps address identity challenges in programmatic advertising, as it provides more reliable audience signals despite the decline of third-party cookies.

Data privacy and control: With the growing concerns over data privacy, programmatic curation offers a safer way to use sensitive first-party data. Advertisers can leverage this data without sharing it extensively with Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs), maintaining better control and confidentiality.

Benefits to buyers

There are three main benefits of buying inventory through Eskimi.

Supply management: Manage supply at scale. The curator provides tailored packages that increase your operational efficiency. Large publishers, including retailers, are increasingly adopting curation strategies to enhance audience reach and improve inventory quality.

Data curation: Access premium data partners to reach the right audience without wasting your advertising budget.

Commercial incentive:  Depending on the volume of spend, you will be eligible for commercial incentives that will help drive profitability.

Standardization and efficiency

Standardization in programmatic curation brings about numerous efficiencies in the trading process:

Streamlined strategy on the supply level: By setting strategies directly at the supply level, advertisers can centralize control over the inventory their campaigns purchase. This standardization simplifies decision-making and reduces the complexity of managing various ad inventories.

Efficient trading team operations: With the standardization of curated deals, trading teams are relieved from the burden of targeting a myriad of uncoordinated deals. They can focus on approved, curated deals that align with the advertiser's strategy, leading to more efficient and effective campaign management.

Centralized inventory control: Advertisers gain the advantage of centrally controlling the inventory. This centralization means that changes to campaign strategies can be implemented more swiftly and cohesively across various platforms and publishers.

Both advertisers and publishers are already seeing the benefits of standardization in programmatic curation, driving greater efficiency and measurable improvements across the industry

Low barrier to entry

There is no commitment at the beginning. You test it and adjust accordingly.

Programmatic curation classification

Now that we've identified programmatic curation, let's dig a bit deeper into how we can categorize curators.

Creative services

Creative services vendors elevate buyer experiences through innovative and often visually compelling media solutions, such as rich media or interactive ads. They partner with publishers capable of supporting and enhancing these creative efforts. This collaboration aims to cultivate a selection of inventory that buyers can utilize to deploy these imaginative creatives effectively.

Audience targeting

Vendors in audience targeting assist buyers by enriching publisher inventory with valuable audience data. Depending on the situation, these vendors may either possess the data themselves or act as intermediaries, making it accessible to buyers. Their primary goal is to achieve sufficient scale, enabling buyers to connect with their desired audience effectively.

Buyer services

Buyer services vendors focus on delivering a range of value-added offerings to advertisers, including strategic planning, process optimization, and expert guidance. These vendors often seek partnerships with publishers whose capabilities complement their own, enhancing the overall value delivered to buyers.

As a result, buyers can scale successful programmatic curation strategies across future campaigns, increasing the reach and effectiveness of their digital advertising efforts.

Best practices for programmatic curation

To unlock the full potential of curation, follow these tips that ensure both efficiency and long-term success. Here's how to achieve the highest quality outcomes in your programmatic advertising efforts:

1. Prioritize quality inventory. Start by working closely with trusted partners and supply-side platforms to ensure that premium, brand-safe inventory is included in your curated deals. High-quality inventory not only enhances campaign performance but also protects your brand reputation.

2. Foster collaboration across the ecosystem. Success in programmatic curation depends on strong collaboration between buyers, curators, publishers, and data partners. Open communication and shared goals help align expectations, streamline the programmatic buying process, and deliver better results for all parties involved.

3. Embrace transparency at every stage. Transparency is key to building trust and optimizing outcomes. Visibility into how inventory is selected, how audience segments are defined, and how data is used throughout the funnel helps you make informed decisions and adapt strategies as needed.

4. Leverage first-party publisher data. With the shift away from third-party cookies and legacy identifiers, tapping into first-party publisher data is more important than ever. This approach allows you to reach the right audience segments while respecting data privacy and enhancing targeting accuracy.

5. Continuously monitor and optimize. Programmatic curation is not a set-and-forget solution. Regularly review performance metrics, audience connections, and deal structures to identify opportunities for improvement. Adjust your approach to maximize value and stay ahead in the evolving programmatic advertising landscape.

By following these best practices, businesses can achieve greater efficiency, unlock additional value, and ensure the ongoing success of their programmatic curation strategies.

Where does programmatic curation go from here?

In the near future, programmatic curation could very well become synonymous with advertising intelligence. It’s evolving into an ecosystem that understands consumer behavior and anticipates it, crafting ad experiences that are not just seen, but felt.

After all, there's a reason the programmatic curation market has grown significantly, expanding from a $1 billion industry over the past five years and could grow to $5 billion in the next two to three years.

As machine learning and AI technologies continue to advance, the precision of programmatic curation will reach unprecedented levels, making the concept of 'advertising noise' obsolete.

Supply-side curation is becoming increasingly important as well, as SSPs extend the benefits and scalability of programmatic advertising by providing broader, more efficient access to inventory and unlocking additional value across the supply chain.

Each ad placement will be more relevant and engaging, inviting the consumer to a dialogue rather than a monologue. This development will redefine the advertiser-consumer relationship, forging connections rooted in value, respect, and mutual benefit.

As privacy concerns and regulations reshape data usage, programmatic curation will be at the forefront of responsible and ethical advertising. It will leverage first-party data and contextual targeting to deliver impactful advertising without overstepping the bounds of privacy.