From buzzword to better advertising: why supply-side curation is the smart approach in 2025

In the programmatic advertising world, curation continues to be a red hot topic. Yet, with the huge market changes we’re all experiencing, it has developed so fast that there are different flavours and perspectives. Depending on who you speak to, you’ll likely hear varying reports on all aspects from its definition, to how effective it is in delivering high-performing audiences. 

As AdTech God recently summed up, “The definition of curation differs. Curation bundles audiences and supply chain data to create better ad packages, going beyond targeting by analysing the bidstream”. Chris Kane, Jounce Media also adds “In their best form, curators make run-time evaluations of audience, content, and supply chain signals in novel ways that DSPs do not currently support.” 

There have been some great recent explainers from the industry on the benefits of sell-side curation and how to work with trusted partners. Curation has also now reached a critical mass with media agencies, DSPs and brands who are reaping the rewards. However, more needs to be done to clarify simply how curation technology works across data signals on the sell-side as an enabler for buyers and publishers. Let’s take a quick look at how this smart technology makes the curation process work better for the further benefit of all parties. 

Driving success with curation technology

At its core, curation gives buyers direct access to supply-side inventory for optimum use of data signals to curate and target the impressions that matter at scale. 

There are two approaches: ‘horizontal curation’ via leading managed curation services who work with multiple exchanges with a curation layer; and ‘vertical curation’ provided by exchanges who offer direct access to their curation platforms layered on top of their global exchange infrastructure and publishers. 

Taking this one step further, smart curation technology helps deliver better, faster outcomes, with laser-targeted ad placement-level optimisation to maximise campaign effectiveness and reach. AI and ML algorithms sift out low-quality ad placement wastage at source, and dynamically traffic shape high media quality and attention impressions for campaign KPIs across the premium open web. 

The more advanced curation tools also integrate trusted measurement and audience data providers, to further enrich delivery of media quality, attention and access to consented audiences at scale. 

Given these advanced capabilities, it’s easy to see why smart curation achieves so much more than manual site curation and other tactics traditionally employed by ad networks. It compensates for the loss of demand-side signals, reduces programmatic advertising waste and increases efficiency and performance, while addressing ever-important privacy, consent and data concerns.

KPIs that work and controls for each campaign

Aside from audience targeting, another benefit of smart curation is its ability to cater for every KPI and provide more granular control of optimisation on the inventory source. The focus here is on advancing performance for the buy-side - never packaging inventory based on assumptions. 

Optimisation levers focus on both media quality and media attention. In this way, curators have the power to simply control parameters and create entirely bespoke campaign KPIs. 

This means that whether you’re after a lower eCPM and broader scale, or the opposite, sell-side smart curation has been developed to meet every buyer’s need.

Curation for the sell side and the demand side

Smart curation’s ability to traffic shape impressions for the open web unlocks its true value for brands, buyers and publishers alike. It addresses problematic ad placements wherever these may exist, accounts for the changing composition of ad formats, and unlocks further diversity and value wherever this can be found. This approach turbo-charges the effectiveness of display and online video inventory.

Semantic data is another smart curation solution that benefits buyers and publishers in new ways and is future-proofed for the cookieless world. Semantic technology uses ML to understand the meaning of each page of publisher content, to ensure greater relevance for advertisers for whatever content topics they require. Using this data helps buyers run highly contextual advertising across the premium open internet. It also helps publishers increase content monetisation, including content overlooked by traditional contextual advertising campaigns. 

Lastly, DSPs can only listen to and buy a fraction of available impressions in the bidstream. Therefore, without supply-side curation, they are limited to only buying more of what they already know at a general rather than individual seat level. Curation enables far better user matching, delivering greater scale and addressability for data buys. This all helps strengthen DSP economics, improving performance and ROI while reducing operational inefficiency. 

So there we have it. When implemented properly, there’s nothing to fear and everything to gain from a solid smart curation strategy, and in 2025, awareness and adoption of smart curation will only continue to grow as it rehabilitates the open web as one of digital advertising’s most efficient advertising channels.