According to moderate estimates, every third dollar earned from mobile apps comes from monetization through ads—globally, the in-app advertising market is expected to surpass $220 billion this year. As for website advertising, by the end of 2029, 85% of all revenue is envisioned to be generated by programmatic advertising alone. Despite such impressive figures, publishers of all types and sizes are dissatisfied—monetization profits are too low, and the level of control over the advertising process is insufficient.
Why is the case? Because the market is flooded with dozens of monetization offers that differ in names and promises but not in results. Obviously, advertising inventory owners want to earn more. This desire has led to increased interest in traffic curation—a business tool for selling ad inventory, in which the supply side earns more by enriching the inventory with signals, avoiding intermediaries, and highly controlling the process.
The main obstacle is the lack of industry standards for curated deals, which has led to confusion and stigmatization, often referred to as “just a rebranded PMP” or the so-called “PMP 2.0.” In reality, traffic curation represents a reborn approach to advertising inventory trading, reshaping the post-cookie supply chain.
It is now called sell-side curation, which moves the publisher and SSP up the food chain. At TeqBlaze, we develop Curated Deals based on the mentioned principles to give publishers the power back while also benefiting advertisers. As part of the IAB Tech Lab Curation Framework Working Group, we are prepared to adjust our approach to traffic curation following an industry-accepted roadmap. However, it’s now apparent that curated deals must represent a sell-side-first attitude, accompanied by higher ad conversions for advertisers. In that sense, we build in the proper direction.
Purpose-driven traffic curation: what’s changing
Curated deals are an evolutionary advancement in the supply of traffic to the market, adding new value to inventory and creating efficiency-focused supply paths.
That sounds like the early days of programmatic when ad exchanges were taking shape, and all trading was built on direct connections between supply and demand platforms. However, curated deals offer more than a direct connection: they involve enriching the supply with targeting signals—think of it as creating additional value without changing inventory.
Let’s consider the distinctive features of sell-side traffic curation as an independent programmatic trading tool:
- The supply value stems from more data, including content, context, audience, and specific first-party data. This involves the engagement of publishers, supply-side platforms, and data providers (DMPs, curation platforms) in the process of enriching the inventory. The entire process of signal enrichment takes place exclusively on the sell side.
- The inventory buyers are matched based on relevance, not their ability to reach a larger audience. Since SSPs establish direct connections with selected DSPs, they can target the most suitable buyers for a specific type of traffic. For example, a website with articles about sports can show ads from Coca-Cola or McDonald’s. Still, it is much better to offer these placements to sports goods sellers for more relevant advertising.
- This is a comprehensive trading tool that enables monetizing both regular and premium placements for all types of traffic, including web, mobile apps, CTV, and others. To maintain sustainable profits and ensure that the advertising experience for users is of high quality, the inventory is not advertised on the open market in the event of a non-sale.
These are general properties that will likely be retained in the future industry definition of traffic curation. At TeqBlaze, we take it a step further, applying the principles of supply-path optimization, building a performance prediction engine based on historical data, and testing other features for curated deals.
Why this is especially relevant for SSPs and their publishers
It’s about cultivating a relationship between the publisher and the platform: SSP is shifting from a “monetization partner” to a “strategic collaborator that invests in growing supply value by enriching ad inventory with signals.”
- The supply side—both SSPs and publishers—earns more when they run curated deals.
- A high level of control over the supply pipeline, including the use of advanced scanners, ensures that buyers have zero fraud and robotic traffic.
- Website visitors, app users, and connected TV viewers receive a superior ad experience compared to ads coming from the open market.
- Strong trading results further enhance the value of the supply in the market, ensuring an almost complete purchase of the inventory through curated deals.
- Predicted profit, where the price is based on CPM or calculated as a fixed price per impression, enables planning for long-term performance. A smart buyer matching process and historical trading data play an essential role here.
All of the above advantages are equally beneficial for buyers. It’s about a fair shift in roles: the sell side takes the lead in supply enhancement and buyer selection, while the demand side, comprising advertisers and their DSPs, makes only the final bid decisions. It is highly cost-effective, as it eliminates the need to use the services of additional data providers. By choosing high-quality inventory with instant, real-time statistics, buyers pay a slightly higher rate in exchange for increased conversion. This is a win-win for all parties.
Curated deals as a shared business tool, not a sales tactic
Curated deals are lucrative for both the supply and demand sides. It presents an opportunity for parties to achieve their advertising goals, resulting in higher profits for publishers and improved conversion rates for advertisers. It also means transparency and reliability for them.
Let’s emphasize the benefits of curated deals for both parties in detail.
| Sell-side | Buy-side | |
| Signal-enriched inventory | SSPs and publishers enrich ad requests with audience, contextual, and first-party data to increase value. | Access to higher-quality inventory with meaningful signals improves targeting accuracy. |
| No intermediary markups | Direct deals eliminate additional fees from middlemen, increasing net revenue. | Buyers gain more transparent supply paths, often resulting in a reduced cost per acquisition. |
| Relevance-based buyer-matching | Publishers work with SSPs to identify the most relevant buyers for their content categories. | Advertisers reach more engaged audiences with higher conversion intent. |
| High-level control over inventory | SSPs can segment and package inventory precisely, including unsold and premium placements. | More consistent campaign performance with stable, quality inventory pools. |
| Advanced traffic filtering and fraud prevention | Curated deals include multi-stage scanning for fraud to ensure the quality of the supply. | Reduced risk of ad fraud and invalid traffic improves return on ad spend (ROAS) and brand safety. |
| Performance predictability | Curated deals allow fixed CPM or predictive pricing based on historical data. | Easier campaign planning and budget optimization based on expected performance. |
| Cross-format monetization | Supports display, in-app, CTV, and DOOH formats, increasing fill opportunities. | Buyers can diversify spending across formats while maintaining high relevance. |
| Enhanced user experience | Fewer irrelevant or low-quality ads improve user retention and trust. | Better consumer engagement leads to higher click-through and conversion rates. |
| Strategic publisher-platform relationship | SSPs act as collaborative strategists, not just monetization enablers. | Builds trust and long-term alignment with high-quality, signal-rich supply. |
| Privacy-ready and post-cookie-friendly | Built to work with contextual, first-party, and identity-based signals. | Cookie-independent targeting built for now and the post-cookie future with scalable alternative strategies. |
The benefits depend primarily on the specific implementation of curated deals. Still, these advantages should be inherent in the process of traffic curation on any platform that keeps up with the turbulent times for programmatic.
The time to act is now
For publishers and SSPs, the pressure is mounting from all sides. Cookie-based targeting continues to erode, AI-powered search engines are transforming user behavior, and platform dominance by a few key players adds further uncertainty. In this landscape, waiting for a perfect industry standard or one-size-fits-all framework is not only impractical but also counterproductive.
Curated deals provide an immediate and practical path forward. They don’t require permission from the ecosystem’s gatekeepers. Instead, they allow the supply side to proactively build smarter, more valuable trading environments by enriching inventory, reducing reliance on intermediaries, and choosing relevance over reach.
The solutions that matter most today emerge from platforms that are willing to lead, test, and adapt in real time.
The next wave of programmatic advertising effectiveness will be shaped by one principle: relevance equals efficiency. The extra effort to curate, enrich, and refine the supply is what defines a competitive edge. Curated deals are already proving to be one of the clearest ways to deliver this value. We encourage publishers and their platform partners to think critically, act independently, and stop waiting for consensus to move. The future will reward those who curate, not those who copy.
Join the waitlist—become part of a smarter, sell-side-first, and efficiency-centered future.
**’The opinions expressed in the article are solely the author’s and don’t reflect the opinions or beliefs of the portal’**
