Navigating the rise of SSPs in CTV: A media buyer's guide

The rapid expansion of supply-side platforms (SSPs) is significantly transforming Connected TV (CTV) advertising, adding layers of complexity for media buyers. Leading platforms like Netflix and Disney+ now collaborate with an average of 30 SSPs—double the number from just a year ago. This surge has introduced new challenges, particularly in managing costs, as resellers often charge higher rates. For instance, the median cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) through resellers has risen to $19.50—39% more than direct platform auctions.

This trend is even more pronounced with platforms like Paramount-owned Pluto TV, which has expanded its SSP partnerships from just four to a staggering 67, according to Jounce Media. While SSPs bring advantages such as increased scale and pricing flexibility, they also present risks. The quality of inventory can be inconsistent, and curated packages may include less desirable content. Additionally, the involvement of multiple SSPs raises concerns about transparency and trust in the purchasing process.

Campaign speaks to industry experts on navigating this complexity, why buyers must test and compare SSPs to secure the best deals and cleaner supply paths, and how they can leverage competition among SSPs to optimise their ad spend as reselling becomes an inherent part of CTV auctions.

Managing the increased costs associated with SSP reselling

While the growth of CTV inventory is fantastic for media buyers as it offers unprecedented access to high-impact formats in users' homes, the increasing number of SSPs partnering with individual platforms is worrying. That is because it does not benefit advertisers and complicates the supply chain. As a result, advertisers may not get what they intended or even buy the same inventory multiple times.

This complexity can be particularly discouraging for brands testing CTV for the first time, potentially harming their perception of CTV as a premium advertising option. Concentrating on working with fewer SSPs can simplify the process, enhance accountability, and ultimately achieve better performance. This approach will likely boost confidence in CTV and lead to increased budgets for these platforms.

Jordan Heathfield, vice president of connections and brand experience for Asia Pacific at Assembly, explains that despite more transparency on inventory and pricing, direct buys remain challenging for brands as they may not scale effectively compared to the CTV open exchange.

“As such, SSPs are tapping into this opportunity through the curation of deals within the CTV landscape, and this curation comes with a price—where CPMs for resold inventory may be significantly higher than direct buys,” says Heathfield.

“Brands can manage and avoid this by leaning on agencies' expertise to audit and diversify inventory sources. This will reduce rising costs and will be made easy as agencies manage direct relationships with supply partners.”

Brands can employ several solutions to help manage costs through resellers. Demand-side platform (DSP) settings can offer a quick fix, with certain DSPs offering options to limit or exclude resellers from targeting. Brands can also use more blunt methods of buying on a CPM basis instead of an algorithm for their CTV buys, which will help minimise CPM spikes in delivery.

For example, DSPs like The Trade Desk and StackAdapt help clients manage CTV advertising costs through direct publisher deals and advanced Supply Path Optimisation (SPO). 

By utilising direct private marketplace (PMP) deals, DSPs ensure access to premium inventory at competitive rates, minimising the impact of reselling. PMP deals with direct CTV publishers and guarantees seamless and cost-effective access to quality inventory, ensuring the advertiser’s budget is managed effectively. 

Ensuring the quality purchase of CTV inventory

Marketers can consider tapping into PMPs with select publishers to continue accessing high-quality CTV inventory. They can also leverage contextual data partners like Iris.TV to ensure their ads show up across contextually relevant and brand-safe content.

Beyond these, measurement remains a crucial component in understanding the quality of content. Hence, marketers should use third-party independent measurement and verification partners like DoubleVerify or The Trade Desk's TV Quality Index as data points to understand content quality.

Larraine Criss, chief operating officer at Preciso, explains that integrating multiple SSPs is not ideal for CTV platforms when it comes to effectiveness and quality as advertisers get redundant impressions from this scenario, which wastes their advertising budgets.

“To maintain quality CTV media buying, advertisers and agencies should check the platform's bidding logic, which dictates the quality of CTV traffic it can bid on,” says Criss.

Marketers should also prioritise transparency in reporting and ask for direct publishers and whitelisted CTV app bundles. 

Implementing show-level targeting and leveraging bespoke content genre deals across a CTV enhances ad relevance. DSPs also offer regular end-of-campaign (EOC) reporting that provides detailed insights, including top 10 shows and impression-level breakdowns. 

Nikunj Arora, senior director of partnerships and business solutions for JAPAC at StackAdapt, explains these insights enable marketers to meet their advertising goals on highly sought-after content. 

“By focusing on SPO, targeting with content genre PMP deals, and whitelisting app bundles, marketers can streamline the supply chain, reduce intermediaries, and serve ads on desirable content,” says Arora.

“These strategies ensure that purchased inventory meets the highest quality standards and aligns with marketing objectives.”

Streamlining processes to maintain transparency and efficiency

Despite the growing complexity of CTV buying, streamlining processes paints only a small part of the bigger picture. This may be quickly resolved through workflow automation to manage scale and complexity efficiency across campaign execution and monitoring. 

Media buyers resolve this by using tools to help their strategists, planners, and buyers focus on the more important things, like navigating transparency.

To maintain transparency within the growing complexity of CTV buying, media buyers must adopt third-party independent measurement and verification partners and work with SSPs by collectively demanding transparency as a default from all inventory providers. 

This presents an opportunity for media buyers and supply partners to collaborate better and steer towards trust and transparency across multiple partnerships.

Tristram MacDonald, senior programmatic director at Jellyfish, notes that although CTV is a growing space, there are still a relatively small number of suppliers compared to the open web and a minimal number with significant scale. 

“I would recommend that media buyers look to focus on a smaller number of deep partnerships with CTV providers that offer the scale and performance you need and understand what the supplier’s preferred SSP path is, as most will have two or three they choose to use, and just set up deals to buy through these,” explains MacDonald.

“This helps build relationships with key providers, makes planning more accessible and predictable, and ensures quality inventory.”

Leveraging competition among SSPs 

Amid the competition among SSPs, a unified push for fundamental standards from both brands and agencies could steer the market towards cleaner pathways, heightened transparency, and optimised pricing dynamics.

While expecting reduced prices might be overly optimistic, especially given the escalating demand for CTV inventory, these coordinated efforts could positively influence the prices within the CTV marketplace.

Brands and agencies can consider two approaches that could lead to immediate improvement: fostering and evaluating multiple SSP partnerships to gain leverage through a diversified approach instead of relying on a single supply provider and negotiating curated deals to unlock exclusive inventory and better pricing.

“It is relatively simple. As advertisers, we need to do two things. First, we must tell all the SSPs the standards we expect from their inventory if we buy it,” explains MacDonald.

“The second is even simpler: for any supplier who can’t match those standards, we have to follow through and not buy that inventory. We must communicate this to the SSPs so they can understand who the winners and losers are and what they need to change to succeed.”

Balancing scale and flexibility 

Balancing the scale and flexibility benefits offered by SSP-curated programmatic auctions with the risks of reselling and potential quality compromises in the CTV ecosystem all comes down to preparations and laying down some foundations for programmatic buys. 

Media buyers must determine which CTV vendors they want to buy from and have an open dialogue on purchasing this inventory that will hit their standards. 

In addition, media buyers must require CTV vendors to send over the deals for their programmatic teams to execute and scale without impacting quality. All that is needed is that upfront time investment.

“Establish and adhere to non-negotiable and clear benchmarks. To ensure inventory hygiene, it is crucial to audit and assess SSPs regularly as part of due diligence,” explains Heathfield. 

“Simple steps include staying current on industry initiatives like TAG (Trustworthy Accountability Group), which collaborates with SSPs to evaluate and certify them for their high levels of transparency and compliance. By partnering with a TAG-certified and compliant SSP, you can ensure that the necessary standards and measures are in place to uphold quality standards across your digital marketing campaigns.”