Curation and supply-side targeting (SST) are two of the ways buyers put supply-side intelligence to work. Curation gives buyers a way to navigate programmatic supply by organizing inventory into ready-built or custom packages aligned with a brand’s needs. SST uses audience data and other signals to identify impressions that fit a buyer’s strategy.
Although the terms curation and supply-side targeting are sometimes used interchangeably, in reality they represent two distinct sets of capabilities and tactics. Curation organizes the inventory, while SST applies audience and performance insights before the auction.
What Is Curation?
In the earliest days of programmatic, curation was often a matter of building a site list and packaging it into a deal ID. The mechanics have become more sophisticated as buyers navigate fragmented media consumption, brand risk, opaque supply paths, and more complex format requirements. A curated package can now apply clear standards across publishers, channels, formats, content types, and inventory attributes before a buyer begins bidding.
That makes curation useful for brands seeking broad reach across brand-suitable, fraud-free, high-quality content, giving buyers a consistent way to define where ads can run and apply those standards across DSPs. Those same standards connect publishers’ eligible inventory with more buyers, while packaging valuable audiences and content into deals can support higher prices.
How A Curated Deal Works
A buyer or SSP selects inventory based on criteria such as quality, brand suitability, context, and format. That inventory is packaged into a deal ID, which the buyer can activate in any major DSP without rebuilding the same standards platform by platform.
The deal may be ready-built around a recurring need or custom-built for a specific campaign. For example, buyers can use a Live Sports inventory package to reach viewers across quality live sports content. For publishers, inclusion in a relevant curated deal connects quality inventory with more demand and gives buyers a clearer, more direct path to purchase.
What Is Supply-Side Targeting (SST)?
Supply-side targeting goes beyond curation. It integrates audience and performance intelligence directly into curated packages within the supply path, helping minimize extra hops and data loss while maximizing relevance. Brands looking for specific, high-value audiences or increased efficiency within brand-suitable, high-quality content across formats should layer SST onto curated inventory.
Layering SST onto curated inventory matters because a basic inventory package and data-enriched, pre-auction targeting enhanced by an identity graph do different jobs. Curation establishes the inventory and quality parameters, while SST builds on that foundation with signals available closer to the impression to determine which opportunities qualify for a buyer’s strategy.
Where those signals are evaluated matters as much as which ones are used. Applying identity, context, quality, pricing, and other supply-side signals closer to their source preserves their fidelity before they pass through additional platforms where they may be stripped, modeled, or degraded. It also lets buyers define value earlier, reducing the need to send a broad set of impressions downstream and correct for waste later. The result is not simply another deal ID but a way to apply audience and performance intelligence where the media and its signals originate.
What Gets Layered In Before The Auction
SST can layer in first-, second-, or third-party audience segments; AI and machine learning (ML) models for attention, conversion, or engagement; and identity data and predictive signals. These inputs are applied within the supply path, before the bid request reaches the DSP.
The value of working closer to supply is visible in identity-based campaigns. In a controlled healthcare professional (HCP) campaign using the same audience, budget, and publisher inventory, OpenXSelect increased unique HCP reach by 32% and lowered cost per unique HCP by 22% compared with the default DSP-direct method. The difference came from resolving multiple identity signals against each bid request in real time.
Beyond identity resolution, buyers can combine data sources to define which impressions qualify for their campaign. The OpenXSelect Data Marketplace puts that flexibility into practice, allowing buyers to intersect, combine, or exclude first-party, OpenX, and third-party audience segments before activation.
Curation vs. Supply-Side Targeting, Side By Side
Curation establishes where a brand should appear. SST builds on that foundation to determine which opportunities are most relevant to an audience or outcome before the auction.
| Consideration | Curation | Supply-Side Targeting (SST) |
|---|---|---|
| What it controls | Where the ad runs: quality, brand suitability, context, format | Who the impression reaches: audience and likelihood to perform |
| Built from | Site and app lists, contextual categories, format and device controls, MFA exclusion | Curated supply plus first-, second-, and third-party segments, AI and ML modeling, identity data, and predictive signals |
| Where it happens | Inventory is selected and packaged in the SSP before activation | Data and decisioning are applied within the supply path before the bid request |
| How buyers activate it | Deal ID in any major DSP | Data-enriched deal ID in any major DSP |
| Best suited for | Brand-suitable, fraud-free, high-quality content with wide reach across formats | Specific, high-value audiences or measurable outcomes across quality media |
| Stands alone? | Yes | No, it’s layered onto curation |
| Typical KPIs | Viewability, brand suitability, reach, completion rate | CPA, conversion rate, unique audience reach, match rate |
| OpenX example | Reality TV | Fitness Buffs |
When Should Buyers Use Curation, And When Should They Layer On Supply-Side Targeting?
Brands looking for brand-suitable, fraud-free, high-quality content with wide reach across formats should use curation. It is the right starting point when the primary need is to control where ads appear, simplify activation, or apply consistent inventory standards across DSPs.
Brands looking for specific, high-value audiences within that brand-suitable, high-quality content should layer SST onto curated inventory. It is especially useful when the strategy depends on first-party data, identity resolution, contextual or audience precision, or optimization toward attention, engagement, conversion, or another performance goal.
In many campaigns, curation establishes the eligible supply, while SST adds audience, contextual, and more granular quality signals to determine which impressions qualify. A leading telecom brand used this approach by combining run-of-network and audience-curated deal IDs across quality, brand-suitable content. The campaign delivered a display CPA 48% below the client’s benchmark and reduced video CPA to half the benchmark. Curation defined where the ads could run, while audience data focused investment on shoppers in market for a new mobile plan. Together, these layers gave the brand a clear supply foundation without treating reach and precision as competing choices.
How OpenXSelect Supports Both
OpenXSelect™ is our curation and supply-side targeting platform that lets buyers control inventory quality, activate audience data, and apply pre-auction intelligence across channels through existing DSP workflows.
Buyers can create ready-built or custom inventory packages, layer in first-, second-, and third-party data, and apply predictive models to focus on the impressions that matter to their goals. This is all possible thanks to OpenX’s identity graph, one of the largest on the supply side, spanning 245+ million U.S. users and 370+ million CTV devices, while more than 80 directly integrated data partners support measurement strategies across screens. As a result, OpenXSelect has delivered up to 2x greater reach against qualified cross-channel audiences and 11x lower cost per action using AI-powered optimization tools.
Together, these capabilities let buyers move from a single deal ID to a more complete strategy: define quality first, apply audience and performance intelligence closer to supply, and activate the result in the DSP of their choice.
Whether a campaign needs broader access to quality inventory or more precise audience and performance targeting, curation and SST can work together to create a more efficient path to outcomes. To find the right approach for your next campaign, contact us.
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between curation and supply-side targeting?
Curation organizes quality ad inventory into a package that buyers activate through a deal ID, using inventory-based controls like inventory lists and viewability targeting. Supply-side targeting layers audience and performance data into that curated package before the auction. SST can be additive to curation: curation controls where a brand can appear, while SST helps determine which impressions and audiences within that supply are most relevant to the campaign, and can enable granular control for parameters like inventory quality and attention.
Is supply-side targeting the same as a private marketplace deal?
No. A private marketplace (PMP) generally gives invited buyers access to inventory from one publisher or a small group of publishers through a deal ID. Curated and SST deals use the same deal-ID mechanism, but can include inventory from multiple publishers. Curation applies common inventory standards across that supply, while SST adds audience or performance data before the auction. A PMP describes the transaction and access structure; SST describes where targeting intelligence is applied.
How do agencies build curated deals using first-party data?
Agencies can onboard a first-party audience through a data partner or supported identifier, match it against OpenX supply before the auction, and package eligible opportunities into a deal ID that any major DSP can activate. One global pharmaceutical campaign onboarded first-party audiences, extended them to CTV, and beat its viewability target by more than 27%. OpenXSelect can reduce setup time by up to 50%, although timing and data charges vary by onboarding method, provider, and segment, with pricing visible before activation where supported.
Does curation add fees to the supply path?
Not always. About half of curated deal IDs carried no curation fee beyond the standard SSP rate, per a Jounce Media analysis of 1.5 billion bid requests. Where partner fees apply, buyers using OpenXSelect can receive automated discounts from 80+ integrated curation and technology partners, incremental to existing SPO agreements.
What is data-driven curation?
Data-driven curation and supply-side targeting are two terms that describe the same approach: applying audience and performance intelligence to curated inventory before the auction. That intelligence can include first-, second-, or third-party audience segments; AI and ML models for attention, conversion, or engagement; and identity data and predictive signals.
