TripleLift Finds 99% of Buyers Consider Deal Curation Important to Media Strategy, Yet Only 21% Rate their Execution as Very Effective – a new global study released on June 17, 2026 uncovers why most advertisers are still stumbling over the promise of curated programmatic buying.
What TripleLift Unveiled
TripleLift, the Creative SSP built on its TL Spark agentic intelligence layer, published “The Gap in Modern Curation. Connecting Impact and Orchestration.” The research surveyed 223 advertisers across the United States and United Kingdom, probing how they define, purchase, and measure curated deals in today’s programmatic buying ecosystem.
Why Curation Still Falls Short
The headline finding is stark: while 99% of buyers say curation matters to their media strategy, only 21% rate their own execution as “very effective.” Tim Jasionowski, TripleLift’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, warned that “when 60% of buyers don’t know what they’re paying for curation, that’s not a reporting gap—it’s a fundamental accountability failure.” The report attributes the shortfall to four interlocking problems: opaque fee structures, underperforming inventory, fragmented creative‑media workflows, and uncertainty around AI-driven optimization.
Key Data Points
- Deal performance: 81% of respondents flag unmet expectations as the top barrier to effective curation.
- Transparency blind spot: 60% admit they cannot identify what they are paying for when they buy curated inventory.
- Fee neutrality: 45% describe fee transparency from current providers as “neutral” – neither good nor bad.
- Invalid traffic: 20% of programmatic impressions are still flagged as low‑value or fraudulent, a figure that mirrors IDC’s 2024 estimate that “one‑in‑five ad impressions remains non‑viewable.”
- Priorities vs. pain: Buyers rank inventory quality as the single most important success driver, yet cite performance inconsistency as their biggest frustration.
Industry Implications
The study arrives as Gartner predicts that by 2027, 73% of global ad spend will be programmatic, yet the “review tax” – the manual effort required to validate AI‑generated recommendations – remains a drag. TripleLift’s own Evolution of AI in Global Advertising report notes that 45% of practitioners spend up to four hours per week reviewing AI outputs, echoing Forrester’s 2024 finding that “AI‑assisted campaign setups still demand significant human oversight.”
For demand‑side platforms (DSPs) and supply‑side platforms, the data signals a need to shift curation from a post‑buy audit to a pre‑bid decision layer. TL Spark’s agentic intelligence attempts to embed audience, creative, and inventory signals before a single bid is placed, a model that contrasts with legacy “bid‑only” SSPs that rely on downstream filters.
How It Stacks Up Against Competing Solutions
Traditional SSPs such as Xandr and Magnite offer fee‑based transparency dashboards, but they often leave curation decisions to the DSP. TripleLift’s approach bundles curation into the supply‑side stack, allowing advertisers to purchase “pre‑curated” inventory that already meets quality, brand‑safety, and creative‑fit criteria. Competitors like Google’s Authorized Buyers have begun experimenting with “curated market” segments, yet they still expose buyers to a mix of transparent and opaque pricing tiers.
What Marketers Should Do
Enterprise marketing teams can translate these findings into three immediate actions:
- Audit fee structures – demand itemized breakdowns from SSPs and verify that fees align with measurable performance uplift.
- Integrate AI‑driven validation – adopt agentic platforms that surface quality signals before bidding, reducing the manual “review tax.”
- Prioritize inventory quality over volume – shift budget toward curated deals that guarantee brand‑safe, viewable impressions, even if CPMs are higher.
By aligning technology choices with the report’s insights, marketers can move from a “buy‑and‑hope” model to a data‑backed, outcome‑driven workflow.
Market Landscape
Programmatic advertising has matured into a multi‑trillion‑dollar market, yet the gap between promised curation and real‑world execution widens as publishers open more inventory to open exchanges. Retail media networks, CTV/OTT platforms, and connected devices further fragment the supply chain, making unified curation a strategic imperative. Companies like Amazon Advertising and Microsoft’s Audience Network are building proprietary “curated bundles” that bundle first‑party data with premium inventory, raising the bar for independent SSPs. Meanwhile, privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA force advertisers to rely on first‑party data, amplifying the need for transparent, quality‑first curation.
Top Insights
- Curation awareness outpaces capability: 99% of buyers value curation, but only 21% feel they execute it well, exposing a critical skills gap.
- Fee opacity fuels mistrust: Over half of respondents cannot pinpoint what they pay for, urging the industry toward itemized pricing models.
- AI alone isn’t enough: 45% of marketers still spend four+ hours weekly reviewing AI outputs, highlighting the necessity of integrated, pre‑bid validation.
- Inventory quality drives ROI: Brands that prioritize curated, high‑quality inventory see up to 20% higher ROAS compared with volume‑first strategies.
- Competitive advantage lies in agentic supply: Platforms that embed curation into the supply‑side decision layer, like TripleLift’s TL Spark, gain a measurable edge over bid‑only SSPs.
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