Let’s be honest: curation isn’t really new.
Publishers have been packaging inventory around audiences, content themes, viewability, brand safety, and buyer needs for years. It’s how they create value and stand out in a crowded marketplace. In fact, curated packaging has existed in some form for decades, from early ad networks to premium publisher alliances. What’s new is that it’s become a scaled, buyer-controlled programmatic strategy.
So no, curation didn’t start with the buy side. But lately, it’s started to feel like it belongs to them.
The Shift: Same Practice, Different Power Dynamic
As the programmatic ecosystem has matured, curation has evolved from a sales tactic into a scalable, data-driven distribution strategy, one increasingly controlled by SSPs, intermediaries, and buyers.
Deals are spun up between SSPs, data providers, and curators, budgets are routed through private pipes, and too often publishers are “included” without visibility into what’s actually happening.
Today, curated deals make up a meaningful (and growing) share of programmatic spend. In some cases, 20–40% of a publisher’s revenue flows through these opaque, selectively packaged channels. But unlike open auction or direct deals, curation is hard to monitor. There’s no consistent naming. No shared taxonomy. No clear attribution. And no standard way for publishers to benchmark performance.
We talk to publishers across markets, and the same themes keep coming up:
- “We can’t tell if these deals are helping or hurting.”
- “Our teams don’t have the insights to talk confidently with buyers.”
- “We don’t know which SSPs or curators actually perform best.”
- “It’s a nightmare to identify curated deals, let alone compare anything.”
When this is your starting point, how can you build a strategy?
And the result is more than just frustration:
- Missed opportunities with buyers already spending on curation
- Inclusion in low-value packages that undercut direct or open rates
- Inability to forecast or plan based on curated performance
We believe that publishers deserve better.
Curation Isn’t the Problem. The Black Box Is.
To be clear: I don’t think curation is bad for publishers. In fact, I believe it can be a huge opportunity when it’s done transparently, with the right tools. The issue is that most publishers are being asked to participate without the visibility, tools, or context to manage it. They’re left reacting to revenue shifts rather than shaping how deals get made.
Right now, too many publishers are operating in the dark. When you can’t see how your inventory is being packaged or priced, you can’t optimize it, let alone grow it.
Giving Publishers Back Their Leverage
At Adomik, we’ve spent years helping publishers navigate the messy, multi-platform reality of programmatic. Curation is the latest challenge, one we’re uniquely positioned to solve as an agnostic provider able to fully unify data across platforms and partners.
We wanted to give publishers a clear view into:
- The revenue impact of curated deals
- Who’s buying and through which channels
- How those deals are performing
- And most importantly, what to do about it
We developed what is now Adomik Curation Control to help publishers monitor, measure, and act on curated deal performance across platforms, partners, and packaging styles. All powered by AI, with automated opportunity detection, market benchmarking, and smart field mapping to handle the messy data behind the scenes.
Final Thought: Curation Shouldn’t Be One-Sided
Curation isn’t going away. But publisher blind spots can and should.
If curation is going to work for publishers, not just around them, they need the visibility to influence how their inventory is being used, priced, and sold.
With the right data, publishers can:
- Advocate for better inclusion
- Push SSPs for greater transparency, especially into SSP-sourced demand
- Catch misalignment before it becomes lost revenue
- Upsell curated spend into direct investments
Let’s make that possible.
