Curation is shaping a paradigm shift across the industry

Curation — the intelligent packaging of data and inventory actionable in a private marketplace deal — can no longer be considered a trend or buzzword. With over 66% of all open exchange – representing $100 billion in annual spend – being transacted through private marketplace deals (PMPs), curation is a key part of how data and identity are addressed and actioned in programmatic media.

Programmatic advertising is certainly known for big shifts, but as shared by Index Exchange CEO Andrew Casale, “Curation will be bigger than header bidding and as big as programmatic or real-time bidding (RTB) – that’s our bet.” And we agree. But why has curation become a critical component of brands and media agencies’ digital advertising strategies?

Put simply, the math. Case study after case study empirically shows curation performs well for both the buy and sell-sides.

For media agencies and brands, curation consistently shows four main benefits:

Significant cost efficiencies

Buying curated PMPs shows significant cost efficiencies when compared to buying data from the buy-side alone.

Strong performance

Data-enriched, curated PMPs can be optimized through the supply path, unlike a data management platform (DMP) segment, which leads to strong performance.

Futureproofs media buying

When data is curated through the supply path, it does not need to rely on legacy identifiers (like cookies), and the door is open to robust, next-gen addressability which better futureproofs media buying opportunities.

Value-added insights

Curation comes with robust log-level data that can be used for value-added data science including analytics, insights, reporting, and attribution – all critical in a world where addressability and identity resolution are becoming even more challenging.

Curation introduced efficiency into homeopathic brand Boiron’s media buys, reducing the brand’s data costs by 30%, which enabled the brand to reinvest the same budget in brand awareness goals. Curation not only met but also exceeded the CPA for display by 82% and for video by 41%.

“Audigent has been a top 5 performer in terms of CPA during our testing, helping our teams deliver 44% more efficient spend for brands across CTV campaigns.”

Sam Bloom, Head of Partnerships at agency PMG

A big boost for addressability

Legacy identity signals are changing. Whether it’s by browser, device, or platform, both buy-side and sell-side platforms need strong identity signals to reach their intended audiences, and this has become harder than ever before.

Curation, with its real-time data connection and enrichment capabilities, solves signal loss challenges by directly connecting to the supply path and using a broader spectrum of identity solutions to boost addressability. Curation allows platforms to target first-party, third-party, contextual, indexed and modeled audiences. This alleviates the dependence on any one identifier and boosts the relevant bidding opportunities for brands and media agencies to target audiences.

Not all curation is created equally

As with any hot innovation, AdTech is notorious for companies jumping on the bandwagon of the largest trends.Curation is no different, with seemingly everyone now claiming to be a “curator.” As the industry works to define what is and isn’t “curation,” we are uniquely positioned to define this as Audigent has pioneered curation for seven years and is the industry leader.

The definition of curation is the intelligent packaging and optimization of data curated against the inventory supply path. There are three definitional elements to any curation product:

Unique audience data

Curation must include first-party, third-party, contextual, indexed and/or modeled data.

Robust SSP integration

To apply data in real-time to the inventory supply path, a curator must have deep partnerships and integrations that enable the combination of data and inventory into a single package.

Optimization

The whole point of curating data against the supply path is that it opens the door for robust real-time optimization to drive performance.

If the solution ticks all three boxes, then brands and agencies should test curation and gauge its results firsthand.

Curation done right drives results for brands, agencies, and publishers

When done well, curation improves media buying efficiency and performance for brands and agencies. Importantly, it also drives results for publishers and content creators.

• Advertisers realize average data segment savings of 36-81% when using PMPs over the open exchange (Internal data)
• Advertisers see 10-70% lower CPC, 1.5x-3.0x higher CTR, and 10-30% higher video completion rate when using data-enriched PMPs over the open exchange (Internal data)
• When including their inventory in curated PMPs, publishers see an average 70% revenue uplift for mobile and 13% for connected TV (CTV)

Beyond voting with budgets, media agencies and brands are also weighing in on the curation conversation:

“Our Conditions Marketplace strategies have driven a 48% improvement in eCPM and a 26% improvement in CPA across our pharma client portfolio as of May 2024. For one client, we saw ROAS improve by 58% compared to their overall omnichannel performance while maintaining quality. These results aren’t outliers—they’re proof that curation is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have for marketers who want performance, precision, and scale working in lockstep.”

Amanda DeVito, Butler/Till

Industry-leading curation with Experian

Tapping into an end-to-end solution that enables marketers to understand and reach their desired customers across channels through curation is a win-win for all parties.

In the past three years, Experian and curation company Audigent have delivered a range of industry-leading innovations together, including the integration of Experian data into Audigent’s PMPs. As one company now, Experian’s unique identity and data capabilities amplify how curation activates on the buy-side at scale, setting a new standard for audience targeting with added benefits like audience customization and flexible activation through Audigent’s PMPs or demand-side platforms.

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