Shoutout to that legendary coworker group that only happens once in a lifetime. When it’s done, you never get it back. You’re all the same age, on the same page, at the same stage in life, and you hang out in your time off. If you’re in it right now, give those people a hug. It’s
Is OpenPath actually cheaper, or is it just a discount on worse inventory? I've been checking that against real data instead of taking either side's word for it, and depending which number you look at, you get two completely different answers.
On price, OpenPath is doing a genuinely good job. Across 90 days of data, OpenPath impressions ran about 43% cheaper than the same inventory bought through named SSPs, and when I checked the actual attention environment those impressions land in, ad refresh rate, ad density, viewability, competing ads in view, it came back basically identical to what I'm paying a real premium for elsewhere. That reads less like a junk-inventory discount and more like the market correcting a price that named-SSP supply may have been charging without the environment to back it up.
Then the platform numbers tell a different story. CPA ran about 31% higher on OpenPath and ROAS came in about 28% lower, and it holds up even above the fold and on desktop, the exact segments where OpenPath should look most like named-SSP supply if this were just a placement mix issue.
So is the price win real and the performance gap the actual cost of getting it, or is something else entirely eating the difference?
I'd rather stay careful than confident here. These are last touch, post view attributed conversions, which means the model credits whichever impression happened to sit closest to the conversion and doesn't prove that impression caused anything, so if OpenPath impressions tend to land earlier in someone's path, or the attribution model is just structurally less generous to that supply route, a real chunk of that CPA gap could be measurement rather than performance. I don't think that's the whole story though, the gap survives across two separate 90-day windows and holds even in segments where placement shouldn't matter, but I'm not calling it solved until somebody actually runs an incrementality test on it.
So here's what I'd actually do with this. Don't exclude OpenPath publishers on the assumption they're low quality, the attention data doesn't support that at all, and you're probably cutting a fairly priced route for a reason that isn't true. Do stop trusting a blended CPA or ROAS number if a meaningful share of your spend runs through OpenPath, break it out before you conclude anything from it.
Full breakdown is in the first issue of Programmatic 101 on behiiv (link in my profile bio and on the thumbnail), the fold and device cuts that rule out placement mix, all four attention metrics and what they actually showed, and the attribution caveat in more detail than I could fit here.
Can Transaction ID become the missing piece for cleaner CTV supply paths? Ad Tech Explained explores how it helps DSPs identify duplicate inventory, improve supply path optimization, and why challenges like metadata enrichment and inventory sharing are slowing broader adoption.
TTD OpenPath vs non-OpenPath. What actually performs better?
The Programmatic 101 newsletter is back (programmatic101.beehiiv.com/subscribe), and the first issue just went out. I wanted an actual answer so I finally sat down and looked properly...👇
The thing is that AI slop can have pretty strong metrics (viewability, ad density, etc.), which makes it harder to detect. Legacy verification tools are also not very good at identifying it.
NEWS: AI slop is fooling the ad verification tools built to catch it. AI sites are beating real publishers on the metrics advertisers trust and now make up to 2.4% of open web programmatic spend, with TAG's CEO saying billions of dollars could be at stake. adweek.it/4pFOomc
definitely a good move in the right direction, but it still doesn’t give you much control over other properties. The algorithm still decides what percentage of the budget is allocated between Search, YouTube, Gmail, and so on
really curious how all these new features will improve the platform’s immediate conversions (I’m assuming not much, since people aren’t massively using ChatGPT to buy stuff?). so far, all marketers I’ve spoken with say that conversion performance is extremely low, and it’s more of a consideration channel with a longer purchase window
Incredible read from BCG on what is necessary to enable agentic marketing.
"Most organizations’ measurement capabilities focus on campaign metrics, while a few have progressed to incrementality testing. Eventually, the best will adopt agentic measurement. The progression yields better tools and more data, but it also entails a fundamental shift in the questions that measurement seeks to answer."
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