Over the last 18 months, the expansion of sell-side curation has marked a paradigm shift for programmatic advertising, dramatically increasing scale for Deal ID data targeting and enabling faster decisioning at the impression level. The IAB Tech Lab defines curation as “the selection and organization of inventory using technology and data, to create effective packages for advertisers through prepackaged or real-time operations.” When deal curation moves to the sell-side, this approach helps buyers achieve stronger outcomes, while DSPs can leverage it to perform more efficiently without being bottlenecked by signal loss and QPS constraints. But what exactly makes today’s sell-side curation such a leap forward from the traditional private Deal ID model?

And how is the former’s new combination of technology and data redefining how deals work? In programmatic, prepackaging still plays an important role, be it for standard targeting based on publisher preferences, audience segments, or content categories, or for more tailored campaigns. But traditional prepackaging is limited when its foundations are static. Deal IDs built on fixed lists can’t immediately adapt to live changing conditions, which means campaigns must wait for performance data before re-optimizing.

The advertising technology ecosystem continues evolving to address privacy, measurement, and automation challenges facing the industry.

Today, global exchanges with advanced curation platforms are changing that. By bringing real-time operations, contextual signals, and adaptive infrastructure into the mix, they turn prepackaged deals into something smarter, faster, and far more responsive.

For too long, many SSPs acted as “dumb pipes,” simply passing publisher inventory to the buy side. Combined with the proliferation of bidstream data, this led to a “burn and learn” approach: DSPs hit QPS limits, static domain lists quickly fell out of sync with real media quality, and valuable impressions were lost. Next-gen exchanges with vertically integrated curation platforms solve this. Their infrastructure processes billions of auctions daily and analyzes hyper granular metadata, powering AI to score impressions in real time based on buyer-aligned logic.

Key points

This requires there to be a reduction in the overhead needed to set up, and troubleshoot that manual process.
This evolution is also dependent on Deal IDs being accurate, as they are the basis for curated transactions.
But what exactly makes today’s sell-side curation such a leap forward from the traditional private Deal ID model?
For too long, many SSPs acted as “dumb pipes,” simply passing publisher inventory to the buy side.
And how is the former’s new combination of technology and data redefining how deals work?

Why it matters: Impacts measurement, privacy, or monetization workflows.

Source: IAB Tech Lab

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