Recently we wrote an article on Programmatic Curation as an explainer as it’s becoming a very hot topic in our industry.
As a follow-up to this explainer, we asked a few of our IAB Australia Executive Technology Council some related questions, please find their responses below:
Mitchell Greenway, APAC Managing Director – OpenX
How critical a role does access to quality audience data play in programmatic curation?
Standard curation typically focuses on activating specific site-lists or contextual environments, whereas supply-side targeting enhances this approach by enriching inventory with audience data at the source, before the bid.
Access to high-quality audience data through supply-side targeting is critical to effective programmatic curation, as it ensures campaigns deliver performance, relevance, and scale while minimizing waste. Without audience data, curation can still filter by format, domain, or context, but it lacks precision and relies on guesswork for relevance. Ultimately, this type of baseline curation targets impressions rather than people, limiting its overall effectiveness.
Leveraging optimized and privacy-compliant data however, enables stronger outcomes. Advertisers benefit from higher match rates, fewer wasted impressions, and improved attribution. And when paired with tools like OpenX’s proprietary identity graph, our partners see incremental reach and performance overall improve. Additionally, as signal loss increases with consumer opt-outs and restriction of MAIDs in certain markets, supply-side targeting’s ability to onboard and activate interoperable IDs reduces complexity, simplifies campaign activation, and cuts down on “adtech tax”, which leads to superior results.
How important is transparency through the supply chain for programmatic curation?
Transparency is foundational to programmatic curation. Without it, curation risks becoming just another black box wrapped in better packaging. True transparency allows buyers to validate inventory quality, clearly outlining domains, apps, auction mechanics, and fee structures within their curated deals. This heightened visibility enables smarter, more strategic decisions when building and refining campaigns, while also minimizing intermediaries, reducing adtech taxes, and maximizing working media.
Additionally, transparency lets buyers apply fee caps to prevent overspending on data and delivery, a practice OpenX has made standard by proactively capping data fees. Tools such as OpenX’s Bidding Intelligence Data Set (BIDS) provide log-level reporting, empowering buyers to directly connect campaign outcomes to inventory sources—clearly identifying what’s effective, what’s not, and how to best optimize future campaigns. Ultimately, transparency cultivates trust by providing buyers complete visibility and control over how and where their media investments perform.
Ronak Shah, Global Product Marketing Manager – InMobi
How does programmatic curation differ in practice from more traditional programmatic advertising?
Traditional programmatic advertising focuses primarily on efficiently connecting supply with demand at scale using automation and algorithmic buying.
Programmatic curation builds upon this foundation by incorporating strategic human oversight, enriched contextual intelligence, and advanced audience targeting. SSPs, given their direct relationships with publishers and intimate knowledge of supply-side signals—such as content context, audience behaviour, and placement quality—uniquely enhance this process, resulting in carefully tailored inventory segments that align more closely with specific advertiser objectives.
How does programmatic curation differ to private marketplaces (PMPs)?
Both programmatic curation and PMPs offer controlled, selective access to premium inventory. However, curation takes this further by combining detailed publisher insights and sophisticated supply-side signals provided by SSPs to proactively package inventory aligned precisely to advertisers’ strategic goals. PMPs typically control access through invite-only or private deals without necessarily embedding advanced audience and contextual insights upfront, whereas curation explicitly integrates these signals, thereby delivering a refined buying experience.
Are there any potential challenges or limitations with programmatic curation?
Programmatic curation presents challenges related to operational complexity, standardization, and scalability. Precise curation requires ongoing resource investment, detailed audience and context analysis, and robust technological integration. Variations in methodology and inventory packaging across the ecosystem may also lead to inconsistencies. Industry-wide standards, combined with the transparent, robust publisher data and audience signals provided by SSPs, can mitigate these challenges, making curation more efficient, scalable, and consistently valuable.
How useful a role could programmatic curation play moving forwards in meeting the predicted requirements of the forthcoming changes to privacy regulations here in Australia?
Programmatic curation naturally aligns with evolving privacy regulations, particularly through context-driven and privacy-centric approaches. SSPs enhance this capability by leveraging publisher-level data, context-based signals, and aggregated audience insights without reliance on individual identifiers. As regulatory frameworks evolve, curation, powered by SSPs’ deep supply-side intelligence, will provide brands with compliant, high-quality, and effective advertising opportunities, supporting a robust, privacy-first digital advertising ecosystem.
Daniel O’Connor, ANZ Director of Sales – StackAdapt
Why does curation boost confidence in brand safety and contextual relevance?
Because curation is proactive by design. In StackAdapt, curated deals are built with intentional controls—leveraging contextual categories, exclusion lists, and direct relationships with vetted publishers. These upfront parameters ensure both brand safety and contextual alignment, giving marketers greater confidence in where their ads appear.
How important is transparency in the supply chain for curation?
It’s absolutely critical. With increased scrutiny on media supply paths and growing concerns around value leakage, curated deals in StackAdapt are designed for transparency. They clearly show who’s involved, how value is added, and where dollars are going.
Transparency isn’t a nice-to-have anymore—it’s a business necessity. And curation enables this clarity.
What are the challenges or limitations of curation?
Curation introduces complexity. There are more moving parts, the potential for audience duplication, and scale limitations if not managed properly. Measurement can also be a challenge if curated deals aren’t seamlessly integrated into broader campaigns. Another consideration is pricing inconsistency — different curated packages often come with varying rates, and it’s essential that the premium reflects clear, measurable outcomes for the client. Without this, justifying the higher investment can be difficult.
Success requires thoughtful setup and active management—but the payoff is a more controlled and outcome-oriented media strategy.
How important is curation for future privacy requirements?
In a word: vital. As global privacy regulations continue to tighten, StackAdapt’s curated deals offer a powerful solution. By leveraging contextual targeting, publisher first-party data, and privacy-safe integrations, curation becomes a privacy-forward way to deliver precision targeting without relying on third-party cookies.
It’s not just an adaptation- it’s a competitive advantage.