PubMatic’s revenue chief: pitting sell side against buy side is a ‘distraction’

A supposed rift between the buy and sell sides in the ad tech industry may be greatly exaggerated.

PubMatic and The Trade Desk recently announced a new partnership in which the former would be the first sell-side platform to go live with The Trade Desk’s Price Discovery and Provisioning (PDP) API to better scale commitment deals.

“The ‘buy-side versus sell-side’ framing is becoming increasingly archaic and a distraction from solving real problems,” PubMatic Chief Revenue Officer Kyle Dozeman told The Current.

“Publishers need revenue predictability. Buyers need operational efficiency and inventory confidence. The question isn’t which side of the transaction you’re on, but what value are you really bringing? What innovation makes you indispensable to the success of the digital advertising industry?”

‘Degrading the auction’

The narrative came to a head last month when The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green called out some supply-side platforms (SSPs) in an op-ed for The Current: “For years, many SSPs have been degrading the auction and unnecessarily expanding the number of hops in the supply chain.”

In a follow-up piece, Green announced a new product, OpenAds, a wrapper built on the Prebid foundation to improve transparency.

Some interpreted Green’s comments as pitting buyers against sellers.

“It is [about] quality publishers who are taking home less than they should be, and publishers that are taking home more than they should be,” Green clarified at the Prebid Summit last month. “Let’s make certain that we’ve created an environment where great buyers and sellers can connect in a way that has integrity and honesty.”

The benefits of the PDP API

The PubMatic-The Trade Desk partnership is designed to address shortcomings in traditional programmatic guaranteed deals.

Commitment deals, powered by the PDP API and built on IAB Tech Lab standards, aim to preserve yield optimization while also guaranteeing spend for publishers and can be adopted broadly. These deals can be activated via The Trade Desk’s Deal Desk.

“Publishers get revenue predictability without sacrificing yield, while buyers get budget confidence while maintaining decisioning capabilities,” Dozeman said.

Bottom line: Both sides can finally agree on how to clean up the advertising supply chain.

“For buyers focused on SPO, [the PDP API] means choosing supply paths based on actual operational efficiency,” Dozeman said. “You can validate that inventory matches specifications, get detailed diagnostics on deal performance and waste less time on troubleshooting.”

Dozeman hopes the industry recognizes that partnerships focused on delivering tangible value can drive real progress.

“This partnership demonstrates what’s possible when companies focus on collaboration instead of competition over infrastructure,” he said.

“Will there always be natural market tension between buyers who want lower prices and sellers who want higher prices? Of course. That’s a healthy market, not an existential crisis.”

The Current is owned and operated by The Trade Desk Inc. This information is provided solely for background and is not a representation or guarantee of any future performance.