Confused by Curation?
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Why Definitions Matter in Ad Tech
Ad tech has a language of its own and it evolves fast.
While innovation moves quickly, shared understanding doesn’t always keep up. The result? Marketers, agencies, platforms, and publishers often use the same words to mean entirely different things.
Definitions
Let’s clear up two critical (and often conflated) concepts—
Curation and Supply-Side Targeting.
Curation
Curation is the practice of organizing digital ad inventory into curated packages, either ready built or custom, to meet a brand’s needs. Curation simplifies programmatic buying by creating deal IDs aligned to brand preferences—delivering predictability, transparency, and safety at scale.
Supply-Side Targeting (SST)
Supply-Side Targeting is the next evolution of curation. It layers advanced audience and performance data directly into curated packages using: First-, second-, or third-party audience segments, AI/ML models for attention, conversion, or engagement, identity data and predictive signals. This data is integrated within the supply path, eliminating extra hops, minimizing data loss, and maximizing relevance.
A deeper look at the differences and when to use each
When to use it
Curation
When you want consistent quality, safety, and format control.
Supply-Side Targeting
When performance, audience accuracy, and scale are critical.
Who
Curation
Brands looking for brand-safe, fraud-free, high-quality content with wide reach across formats.
Supply-Side Targeting
Brands looking for specific, high-value audiences within brand-safe, high-quality content across formats.
Curation
Supply-Side Targeting
When to use it
When you want consistent quality, safety, and format control.
When performance, audience accuracy, and scale are critical.
Who
Brands looking for brand-safe, fraud-free, high-quality content with wide reach across formats.
Brands looking for specific, high-value audiences within brand-safe, high-quality content across formats.
Ready to Activate?
Curation and Supply-Side Targeting aren’t either/or—they work better together. Use curated packages to control quality, then layer on SST to drive performance and reach.
Get in touch to learn about our self-serve curation and supply-side targeting capabilities.