Magnite’s (MGNI) earnings report is still hot off the stove and while it’s a solid quarter financially what’s most exciting is the discussion about audience curation. Advertising is about results and attribution, but you can’t do programmatic buys effectively without knowing exactly whom you are reaching. The Trade Desk (TTD) can sell audience packages all it wants for its clients, but the control over that audience data is shifting from third party cookies to first party data. And guess where that party’s at? With the publishers and glass OEMs who have viewer information, which means clear signals. They partner with a dynamic SSP like Magnite which has the capability to curate their audience data to match the demand from a buy side DSP, like Trade Desk, or frankly any other DSP in the world. Magnite will serve as the clearinghouse for ad inventory and make those slots have the highest yield for their publisher clients. CEO Michael Barrett predicted this shift to publisher data awhile back and it seems to be currently happening.
What is the most compelling argument for curation of publisher audiences? An SSP like Magnite can federate all of their publisher partners to do nuanced demographic packages worldwide, at scale. Now you can see why Netflix (NFLX) chose Magnite earlier this year and why they have expanded their partnership with Disney (DIS). What kind of value would it be to Toyota for their minivan ads to target households with young children? We are talking about bespoke ad buys to a very specific curated audience across CTV and DV+ platforms. This is a truly incredible moment and something that was only possible before with a walled garden platform like Meta.
The future is now and Magnite is in the driver’s seat.
“In the short run, the market is a voting machine. In the long run, it is a weighing machine.” –Benjamin Graham