The Stockholm Programmatic Summit, held in September 2025, brought together key players in the programmatic advertising ecosystem, primarily from the Swedish market. Publishers, media agencies, technology partners, and advertisers gathered to discuss industry developments and the future of programmatic.
One of the main themes was how the ecosystem has evolved over the years from the perspective of buying platforms. This evolution has continuously added new capabilities to DSPs (Demand-Side Platforms), including data integrations, targeting options, brand safety management, inventory selection, performance optimization, creative management, and various verification tools. These advancements have also led to the rise of curated marketplaces, where control increasingly shifts to the buying side. In these marketplaces, media agencies aggregate and manage ad inventory to offer advertisers greater efficiency.
At the event, it was predicted that one of the next major forces shaping programmatic will still revolve around inventory curation, but the future direction points to SSP-led curation, where supply-side platforms and publishers take a more active role.
What are the benefits of SSP -led inventory curation?
Programmatic supply-side platforms typically send a massive amount of inventory as bid requests to DSPs. With SSP-led curation, the supply-side platform can make smarter decisions about which inventory to send before impressions enter the auction. Instead of flooding DSPs with countless bid requests, which most of will never be purchased, SSPs can curate inventory intelligently by leveraging:
- Brand safety and brand suitability
- Contextual relevance
- Publisher first-party data
- Signals based on various performance metrics
This approach reduces waste, lowers technology costs, and brings transparency and efficiency to the entire buying process.
The Role of Publishers: More Than Just Inventory Providers
If curation happens entirely on the buying side, publishers lose the ability to showcase the true value of their inventory. For example, publisher behavioral data, contextual benefits, and brand safety measures often go underutilized in the buying process. This can limit advertisers’ ability to access the highest-quality inventory and weaken collaboration between advertisers and publishers.
SSP-led curation is not just about better targeting, it’s about structural efficiency. Open auctions create duplicate bid requests, unnecessary tech costs, and latency. Inventory curation streamlines this supply chain.
Finnish publishers are already curating inventory effectively through deals.
Alma programmatic deals enable:
- Brand-safe media environments alongside journalistic and marketplace content
- Contextual targeting based on high-quality editorial content and marketplace categories such as housing and automotive, with a total of 86 targeting segments
- Extensive first-party data including interest, purchase intent, and sociodemographic segments
- Video formats within content, high-impact display formats, standard display, and native formats
- New! Alma Attention Score, which combines multiple signals to curate premium ad placements
Contact: programmatic@almamedia.fi
