The supply-path optimization (SPO) trend has DSPs going direct to publishers, cutting out SSPs in the process. Meanwhile, SSPs are going direct to buyers, cutting out DSPs.
But who gets cut out when an ad agency implements its own SPO policy? As it turns out, SSPs are still generally seen as expendable hops in the programmatic supply chain. Although agencies still have some close SSP partners they prefer to work with for reaching specific publishers or testing emerging agentic AI sales tools.
Independent ad agency Goodway Group has been on its SPO journey since 2019. For some context, The Trade Desk launched its OpenPath direct-to-publisher connection in 2022, and SSPs PubMatic and Magnite launched their direct-to-buyer connections the following year. In addition to testing these SPO solutions and others, Goodway also worked with supply chain quality measurement provider Jounce Media to create its own SPO initiative, called Goodpath.
The philosophy behind Goodpath was to test whether Goodway Group could still achieve scale for its campaigns by focusing on just a few SSP partners and layering in integrations with The Trade Desk’s OpenPath and Yahoo DSP’s Backstage direct-to-publisher solutions, said Andrea Kwiatek, Goodway’s director of strategic partnerships.
