SpotX, the video inventory management platform for premium publishers and broadcasters, has launched Curated Marketplaces, a variation of private marketplaces specifically built to cater to advertiser needs such as viewability rates, audiences, devices or categories, and help publishers scale private deals.

Curated Marketplaces are created with video inventory from multiple publishers, by packaging inventory into groups based on common audience or content categories, demographic profiles or performance-based goals such as viewability. The marketplace is presented to the buyer under a single Deal ID, to increase efficiencies for publishers and advertisers.

Alex Merwin, VP, global programmatic demand at SpotX, said this new type of marketplace combines the supplier transparency and safety of private marketplaces with the scale of the open market. “Since launching Curated Marketplaces six weeks ago, we’ve seen adoption spike from nothing to over 15 per cent of total gross media traded outside of SpotXs public marketplace globally,” said Merwin. “When you talk to the people at the agencies who set up and buy into private marketplaces, there is a lot of pain in scaling Deal ID-based media executions. By grouping inventory by a buyer’s KPIs into a single curated market, we effectively neutralise the risks of publisher-specific challenges creating friction in scaling private market buys.”

According to SpotX, Curated Marketplaces also provide more clarity for publishers regarding the needs of programmatic media buyers. The Deal IDs representing Curated Marketplaces are ‘always on’, so when a publisher’s inventory qualifies, they can approach the buyer for inclusion and activate an incremental source of programmatic demand.

Mia Mulch, head of inventory & data, UK, at Omnicom Media Group’s programmatic agency Accuen, believes Curated Marketplaces will be a valuable offering for ad buyers. She said: “Curated Marketplaces are a good way for buyers to access multiple publishers, making it easier to scale than traditional Deal IDs, all while still maintaining the same domain-level transparency levels we expect for a one-to-one private marketplace.”