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I Followed the Money. It Led Back to the Agency
Not the glamorous, “Wolf of Wall Street” kind of laundering. No strippers, no yachts, no bad decisions in Monaco.
Just the quiet kind.
The kind of laundering that happens between a line item in a media plan and a conveniently “curated” supply path that looks clean on paper—until you flip the paper over and realize it’s the same five companies playing musical chairs with your ad spend.
Let’s back up a bit here…
🏢 Agency Holding Companies Are No Longer Just Middlemen
We’re not talking about your scrappy, scruffy indie agency. We’re talking about the Big 4: WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, Interpublic—the alphabet soup of ad land. The holding companies who don’t just own agencies anymore. They own entire advertising ecosystems.
That means:
They own the agency that "strategically" buys the media
They own (or are deeply invested in) the SSPs that “package” that media
They own the data onboarding and analytics firms
And sometimes, they even own the media sources themselves, hidden behind layers of shell entities and LLCs in places that rhyme with “shady island.”
Which brings me to the golden word everyone’s throwing around lately: curation. Something that was very 2024. I loved it then, not as much now.
Why you ask?
🧼 Is “Curation” Is Just a Fancy Word for “We Pick the Inventory We Profit From?”
I’ve been in the rooms.
The lights are dimmed, the glass walls shimmer, and a client gets handed a 74-slide PowerPoint presentation filled with terms like “precision media”, “clean rooms”, and my personal favorite: “high-intent user pathways.”
It’s like being sold a time-share in Mykonos by someone who swears this spreadsheet is your ticket to ROI heaven.
And then comes the pitch:
“We can simplify this for you. One partner. One invoice. Premium supply only.”
Translation?
“We’re going to take your budget, run it through our own SSP, prioritize the publishers we secretly own or get rebates from, and then call it ‘efficient.’”
They’ll tell you it’s curated.
They won’t tell you it’s curated for them, not for you.
🕵️♂️ Anecdote Time: The Media Buyer Who Blinked Twice
A media buyer at a holding co once told me—off the record, obviously—that their team was “strongly encouraged” to route all spend through a preferred SSP. When they asked why, the answer was basically: “Because that’s how we do it now.”
No disclosure of ownership.
No transparency on fees.
No explanation on why performance dropped but margins stayed suspiciously high.
“We just had to,” they said.
“There was no option B.”
Sound familiar?
It’s like asking your Uber driver why you’re taking the scenic route through three toll roads, and he shrugs and says, “That’s just the way the app wants it.” You’re not being optimized. You’re being upsold.
🍽️ The Vegas Buffet Analogy You Didn’t Ask For (But Need)
Let me make it painfully simple:
It’s like a Vegas buffet where the chef owns all the food vendors.
You think you’re getting choice, quality, transparency.
But the chef decides what’s stocked, what’s showcased, and what gets scooped out of the warming tray onto your plate.
And guess what?
You just paid $200 for crab legs from Costco.
And it isn’t even real crab. It’s those roll thingies.
That's the kind of "premium curation" we’re seeing across the industry right now.
🧾 Where the Money Goes (Hint: Not Where You Think)
Let’s talk mechanics.
Here's how the ad dollar gets laundered:
Brand hands budget to holding company agency
Agency “strategically” selects inventory… from a list built by their own SSP
SSP prioritizes inventory from publishers offering the highest rebate, or worse, publishers owned by shell entities linked to the holding company
SSP takes a cut, agency takes a cut, maybe even the DSP takes a cut—before a single impression is even served
Reporting comes back with vague metrics like “viewable reach uplift” and no audit trail
And then the client asks why the cost-per-action looks like a Rolex but converts like a Happy Meal.
⚠️ Why This Matters—Really Matters
Because this isn’t just a technical issue.
This is about:
Massive conflicts of interest
Budgets routed for kickbacks, not outcomes
Data that never sees the light of day
Creative that lands in front of the wrong audience, but still gets billed like a Picasso
And it’s happening under your nose.
The phrase “preferred partner” should make every brand CMO reach for the nearest blood pressure monitor.
📬 The Receipts Are Real. And I’ve Got Them.
They’re betting you won’t look.
They’re betting you won’t ask.
They’re betting no one reads the receipts.
Lucky for us, I saved them.
And this was just the appetizer.
The next course?
Stay tuned.
And maybe don’t trust that buffet next time.
I wouldn’t say it was ever framed as “hiding” rebates from clients. That’s not how these things are positioned internally. It’s more like—there’s a parallel conversation happening that the client’s not part of.
We’d be working on a plan for a major campaign, and someone from partnerships or investment would remind us which SSPs we were “prioritizing” that quarter. Not because they were the best performers, necessarily, but because there were commitments already made. You start to understand that hitting volume with those partners impacts things higher up the chain.
The rebates themselves never showed up on client invoices. Sometimes they came in as “platform credits” or “value-add impressions.”
Sometimes they just reduced internal cost structures that helped us hit margin targets. It’s all technically defensible, but no, the client didn’t know.
Why are Agency Holding Companies Favoring SSPs Over DSPs? Because That’s Where the Quiet Margin Hides
SSPs are the dimly lit VIP lounge of the ad tech world: less visible, less regulated, and a whole lot more profitable—for those who know how to play the game.
While DSPs face bright-light audits, procurement claws, and clients demanding logins and line items, SSPs sit comfortably on the supply side. That makes them ripe for "optimization."
Here’s why SSP-side control is so appealing:
Bidstream data access (yes, still a thing)
Preferred inventory deals with built-in volume perks
Take rates that are rarely disclosed, often padded
Curated marketplaces that conveniently route spend through friendly pipes
In other words: SSPs are where margin becomes “efficiency,” and clients stay none the wiser.
💬 Real Talk from the Industry
“The big push from agencies at the moment is fee transparency. Overall, buyers are looking to understand SSPs’ take rates by publisher. They want to ensure they’re working with partners who are being transparent—not taking more from some publishers than others.”
“These challenges have led us to prioritize directness, transparency, and quality from SSPs to ensure the effective investment of media budgets.”
“We’ve gone from over 20 SSPs down to a core four. We’re actively pushing more of our spend to those four partners.”
“As agencies grow more focused on quality, rather than purely on quantity, that has shifted their focus. This has made SSPs more attractive as partners.”
🕳️ Why Agencies Don’t Just Admit It
Because if a client CMO discovered that:
Their agency chose the SSPs,
Executed the media buy,
And quietly benefitted from the flow of spend...
That’s a conflict of interest with a cherry on top. So instead of disclosure, you get:
“Preferred partner” language,
Whispered rebate agreements,
And custom marketplaces that sound bespoke but serve the same short list of beneficiaries.
❓What Brands Should Be Asking
If your agency claims to deliver premium inventory and brand-safe pipes, ask:
Do you receive rebates, discounts, or incentives from SSPs?
Can we see the list of SSPs and how they were selected?
Are any of them financially affiliated with your holding company?
What are the exact take rates being applied before media hits the page?
If you get PowerPoints, hedged responses, or someone new on the thread named “Head of Marketplace Strategy,” you’re probably over the target.
In programmatic, transparency starts with language and definitions. “Curation” has become a catch-all—often used by SSPs with inferior data infrastructure or solutions to mask manual aggregation.
At OpenX, we draw a clear line: curation is the strategic packaging of inventory—via site lists, basic contextual, or deal structures—to meet buyer needs.
When data drives the decisioning, we call it supply-side targeting. This distinction gives buyers clarity into what they’re buying, how to assess its value, understand associated fees, and make apples-to-apples comparisons. Both approaches have their place—but transparency is non-negotiable. Today, 60% of our deals are data-driven or supply-side targeted—delivering unique value to both publishers and advertisers.
No spin. No fluff. No backroom deals with the usual suspects.
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