Where the advertiser’s dollar goes
Follow one dollar of programmatic spend from a brand to a publisher, and see who takes a cut along the way.
Where the advertiser’s dollar goes
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A brand spends a dollar
A brand sets aside $1.00 for programmatic display. It hopes that dollar buys attention from real people on quality sites.
- A brand spends a dollar: A brand sets aside $1.00 for programmatic display. It hopes that dollar buys attention from real people on quality sites.
- Agency and platform fees: The agency and the DSP each take a share for planning, buying and running the technology. The DSP’s cut is its take rate.
- Data and verification: Audience data, Ad verification and brand-safety tools charge per thousand impressions. These can be small individually and add up together.
- The sell side takes its cut: The SSP or exchange keeps a fee before paying the publisher. Resellers in the chain can add more hops.
- The mystery slice: In the ISBA/PwC 2020 study, about 15% of spend could not be traced to any party: the unknown delta. Later studies found better matching data shrinks it a lot.
- What reaches the publisher: In that study, publishers received about half of the advertiser’s spend. The rest is the ad tech tax: the price of automation, data and intermediaries.
- And was it even a person?: Even the part that reaches a site only works if a human sees the ad. MFA sites and invalid traffic can soak up spend without reaching anyone real.
Step by step
- A brand spends a dollarA brand sets aside $1.00 for programmatic display. It hopes that dollar buys attention from real people on quality sites.
- Agency and platform feesThe agency and the DSP each take a share for planning, buying and running the technology. The DSP’s cut is its take rate.
- Data and verificationAudience data, ad verification and brand-safety tools charge per thousand impressions. These can be small individually and add up together.
- The sell side takes its cutThe SSP or exchange keeps a fee before paying the publisher. Resellers in the chain can add more hops.
- The mystery sliceIn the ISBA/PwC 2020 study, about 15% of spend could not be traced to any party: the unknown delta. Later studies found better matching data shrinks it a lot.
- What reaches the publisherIn that study, publishers received about half of the advertiser’s spend. The rest is the ad tech tax: the price of automation, data and intermediaries.
- And was it even a person?Even the part that reaches a site only works if a human sees the ad. MFA sites and invalid traffic can soak up spend without reaching anyone real.