This week’s Media Briefing seems to be at how The Commerce Desk’s relationship with publishers is shifting, providing new incentives, extra outreach and a softer method to get OpenPath offers signed amid rising competitors from different demand-side platforms.
TTD bends to some publishers to clean OpenPath offers
The detente between the Commerce Desk and publishers is beginning to look much less transactional and extra strategic. After years of rigidity over knowledge entry and margins, the advert tech vendor is now providing a clearer path — and higher monetary incentives — for publishers to straight entry its advertisers’ budgets.
It’s a strategic recalibration for the advert tech vendor. With Amazon and Cognitiv making aggressive performs for writer relationships, The Commerce Desk is making an attempt to safe premium stock exterior the walled gardens. It’s betting on doing so with OpenPath, its direct conduit to publishers that launched in 2022.
Initially, OpenPath sparked pushback. On paper, it was framed as a method for advertisers to get cleaner entry to writer provide by bypassing conventional SSPs. In follow, it’s been some extent of rigidity. Many publishers noticed it much less as innovation and extra as an influence transfer — a DSP flexing its shopping for energy to robust arm them into making advertisements obtainable to it on its phrases.
However during the last yr, the tone has shifted. New incentives, extra outreach and a softer method are starting to reframe the connection.
“They’re positively courting publishers much more, desirous to spend extra time with publishers,” mentioned an government at a serious information group, who agreed to talk on situation of anonymity. “There’s a superb however cautious relationship with them… I’m fascinated with their evolution,” he added.
Others echo the change.
Seven execs informed Digiday that a few yr in the past, OpenPath contracts got here their method with little or no wiggle room. That meant publishers walked away. However earlier this yr, The Commerce Desk returned to the desk, agreeing to the situations the writer execs had set for the OpenPath contracts. These situations ranged from adjusting billing durations (to lower than 90 days) to agreeing to publishers’ personal privateness insurance policies and legal responsibility limits, and never forcing them to signal onto OpenPass — its software for serving to publishers with consumer authentication and knowledge assortment.
“It was actually them coming again to us about 5 months in the past, and saying, ‘Oh, by the way in which, we will do what you wish to do now.’ So we’ve positively seen a change in… simply having the ability to be a bit of bit extra versatile,” mentioned a writer exec throughout Digiday’s newest digital city corridor for publishers.
The timing of this about-face hasn’t gone unnoticed. The Commerce Desk is struggling on a number of fronts, from income development slowdowns to earnings misses to vital inventory value declines to aggressive pressures from the likes of Amazon and Google. Seen in that mild, its newfound flexibility with publishers feels much less like a change of coronary heart and extra like a strategic necessity.
“There’s positively a bit of little bit of inside strain on their facet to lock stuff in and transfer enterprise ahead, whereas earlier than, it’s like, ‘Hey, they’ll come round finally,’” mentioned one other nameless publishing exec on the city corridor.
In advert tech, time has a method of rearranging leverage.
Over the previous a number of years, TTD has dominated the impartial DSP market, largely specializing in advertisers and companies whereas leaving publishers to navigate the SSPs. That dynamic has been shifting as competitors intensifies from different main DSPs, together with Amazon, which has been on a provide development tear, integrating writer stock on to its DSP. The result’s a marked change in tone from a DSP that when dictated phrases to 1 that should accommodate publishers to keep up entry to premium stock.
“Now there’s been possibly a bit of bit extra of a aggressive panorama,” mentioned a publishing exec throughout Digiday’s city corridor. “They’re working a lot nearer with us to accommodate requests, reporting, enhancements, issues of that nature. Whereas I bear in mind at the same time as little as a yr in the past, these kinds of requests wouldn’t be materially thought of by their workforce.”
Initially, these execs mentioned they have been involved that the OpenPath offers would eat into demand coming from supply-side platforms. The offers haven’t included any CPM or income ensures, both, execs mentioned. However thus far, they haven’t seen that cannibalization.
A head of income and operations at a writer — who requested anonymity — mentioned total, spend has elevated and CPMs are up from $1.14 to $1.46. The Commerce Desk is their largest demand accomplice, they mentioned. “The unfold and quantity they’re spending is continuous,” they mentioned. “We get about 28% extra on common CPM. That’s a big quantity of quantity for what we do.”
The Commerce Desk’s pitch to publishers has been that their OpenPath pipes are a extra direct path to a writer’s stock in comparison with an SSP. The execs interviewed for this story mentioned that does appear to be the case. The top of income mentioned the 2 issues they wished from an OpenPath deal have been incremental income and better CPMs, and that’s panned out thus far.
“In June, we did about $1 million via SSPs, and 202,000 straight. It’s lots lower than what we’re getting via SSPs. We’re to see if that will increase or decreases over time,” the pinnacle of income mentioned.
Langdon Miller, director of programmatic and income operations at Brainly, mentioned he was dreading an arduous dealmaking course of with The Commerce Desk, however discovered it was fairly easy – particularly in comparison with its LiveRamp deal, which was “tremendous lengthy.” The CPMs are about double Google’s CPMs for video advertisements, although Google continues to be larger fill and income, MIller added.
“We’re seeing them [TTD] occupying extra in the direction of the highest of the stack in relation to ,” Miller mentioned. “They’re extra in gross sales mode – extra outbound than inbound.”
A head of programmatic at a writer who requested to talk anonymously mentioned they’d signed an OpenPath settlement at their earlier firm two years in the past, and it was a prolonged course of. However this yr at their present firm, they have been “shocked” to search out the method way more streamlined, they mentioned. Which means not having to participate of their beta testing, and different checkpoints earlier than they might get the deal accomplished. Now, about 60% of The Commerce Desk’s demand comes from OpenPath, and the remainder comes from SSPs, they added. A lot of the writer’s demand comes from SSPs, they famous.
Miller mentioned the deal with publishers’ first-party knowledge makes working extra carefully with DSPs an apparent path ahead, versus getting extra concerned with SSPs.
“The concept SSPs have gotten an increasing number of out of date and DSPs are getting nearer and nearer to writer provide just isn’t a brand new thought… [but] I understood the worth there, greater than I understood the worth of, like, SSP curation,” Miller mentioned.
When reached for remark, a TTD spokesperson pointed to CEO Jeff Inexperienced’s feedback from the corporate’s second quarter earnings, wherein he mentioned publishers seeing elevated programmatic show income and fill charges from OpenPath, and that The Commerce Desk wasn’t making an attempt to get into the provision facet of digital promoting however OpenPath was an effort to enhance provide chain high quality.
What we’ve heard
“The proportion of site visitors that has originated from natural search… [for] some manufacturers [that’s] already lower than 20% of their viewers…. Some are over 50%. So the manufacturers which might be over 50% clearly are extra in danger than the others, so it simply actually is dependent upon the model.”
– Alysia Borsa, Folks Inc’s chief enterprise officer and president of life-style, well being and finance, on how a few of its websites are extra insulated from declining search referral site visitors than others.
Reddit has rolled out new instruments for publishers to trace shares, import content material and spot the most effective subreddits to put up their articles. These instruments will probably be obtainable in beta in a brand new “Hyperlinks” tab.
These are welcome instruments for publishers seeking to develop their viewers on Reddit, mentioned Donna Ogier, Attain’s director of US viewers. Beforehand, numerous this work was accomplished manually.
“Publishers beforehand would have had a really laborious time actually getting that lay of the land,” Gabriel Sands, Reddit’s head of stories and life-style partnerships, informed Digiday. “For a really decentralized platform like Reddit — with over 100,000 totally different communities — having the ability to take a lateral slice throughout the complete platform and see the place your content material is showing is de facto helpful, and one thing that we haven’t been in a position to actually provide earlier than on this sturdy of a method.”
Publishers can have new metrics of their Reddit Professional dashboards, the place they’ll observe the place tales are being shared and monitor metrics like views, upvotes and clicks, and see the overall variety of hyperlinks they’ve circulating on Reddit and the overall variety of posts and subreddits the place they seem.
They will additionally sync their RSS feeds to robotically import articles to their accounts to queue as much as put up, serving to to streamline the method of sharing them throughout Reddit. (They received’t be capable of robotically put up these articles, although, to discourage “hyperlink spam,” Sands mentioned.)
Reddit has examined these instruments with publishers like The Atlantic, The Hill, NBC Information, and The Related Press. It’s going to roll out to extra publishers in beta, and is aiming to make them obtainable to all Reddit Professional accounts by subsequent yr.
Reddit’s position in publishers’ viewers growth and distribution methods has solely grown this yr. It’s The Hill’s high social referral site visitors supply, for instance.
“Reddit is huge. Publishers rely closely on a smaller variety of subreddits the place they beforehand discovered success. It dangers making these subreddits overburdened by writer content material,” Ogier mentioned. “By giving us extra range in potential locations for our content material, it permits us to not solely develop our attain however to additionally to be higher residents on the Reddit platform.”
Reddit customers also can now entry articles straight in its app reasonably than being taken to a different browser, Sands mentioned. He famous that 75% of Reddit customers are studying information content material on the location two to a few instances per week.
Numbers to know
9.4%: The decline within the variety of human guests to web sites between Q1 and Q2 2025, in keeping with a latest Tollbit report. In the meantime, the ratio of web site visits coming from AI bots in comparison with human guests was 1 in 50, up from 1 in 200 in Q1 2025.
336%: The rise in websites blocking or redirecting AI bots over the previous yr, in keeping with the Tollbit report. The proportion of AI bots that bypassed robots.txt in Q2 2025 was 13.26%, up from 3.3% in This fall 2024.
$1.5 billion: The quantity AI startup Anthropic pays to settle a e-book piracy lawsuit.
€2.95 billion: The quantity the European Fee is fining Google for breaching EU antitrust guidelines in advert tech.
$1: The quantity it prices to provide an AI-hosted podcast episode by firm Inception Level AI.
What we’ve coated
What to anticipate on the Digiday Publishing Summit, September 2025 version
- AI would be the main theme on the Digiday Publishing Summit subsequent week, Sept. 15-17, in South Seashore, Fla.
- Prime media execs from Bloomberg, The New York Occasions, Folks Inc, The Washington Publish and lots of extra will take the stage to debate how publishers are deploying AI brokers for advert gross sales, growing AI-powered paywalls and updating their site visitors and content material methods for the zero-click future.
Learn extra about what to anticipate at DPS right here.
Betches launches new type vacation spot for millennials and Gen Z
- Betches Media just lately debuted Betches Type, supposed to supply type steerage to its largely Gen Z and millennial girls viewers, with a heavy emphasis on TikTok and Instagram video content material and sequence.
- Outdated Navy is Betches Type’s launch accomplice, and can promote on the vertical via the tip of the yr.
Learn extra right here.
How The New York Occasions is betting on a brand new household plan to develop its digital subscriber base and income
- The New York Occasions will start providing a household subscription on Monday, permitting as much as 4 individuals (they are often buddies, too) to hitch one plan to get entry to information and non-news merchandise.
- The brand new tier is targeted on the Occasions’ core subscription technique: reaching new subscribers, bettering retention, and rising subscription income by getting extra individuals to enroll in its subscription bundles, Ben Cotton, NYT’s head of subscriber development, informed Digiday.
Learn extra right here.
Transparency is fueling a surge in creators’ sponsorship charges
- Sponsorship charges are on the rise in 2025, and creators say a newfound tradition of pay transparency helps gasoline the soar.
- Creators’ sponsorship charges have climbed, and creators informed Digiday that this has been pushed partly by a brand new wave of transparency, with creators brazenly evaluating sponsorship offers.
Learn extra right here.
LGBTQ+ sports activities web site Outsports grows income and viewers by over 50% below new possession
- Many LGBTQ+ publishers noticed a slowdown in advert spend this yr, however one writer is rising as an outlier – because of new possession, extra gross sales assets and its deal with sports activities protection.
- Vox Media offered Outsports, which covers LGBTQ+ athletes, to Q.Digital final March. Since then, Outsports has grown income by about 50% yr over yr, and distinctive guests are up over 60%.
Learn extra right here.
What we’re studying
French publishers give AI income on to journalists
French publishers like Le Monde have begun redistributing a share (as a lot as a 25% minimize) of their AI licensing income on to unionized journalists, Nieman Lab reported. However adoption of an analogous mannequin is unlikely right here within the U.S.
Lachlan Murdoch successful management of the Fox and Information Corp media empire might imply extra dealmaking
Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son Lachlan secured management of the Fox and Information Corp media empire, and with the succession battle within the rearview, analysts say this might spell a brand new period of M&A for the media empire, in keeping with The Hollywood Reporter.
Conde Nast nonetheless on the hook for on-line monitoring lawsuit
A California federal decide denied Conde Nast’s try and throw out a category motion claiming that the corporate installs third-party on-line trackers to gather consumer knowledge like browser exercise to focus on advertisements, Law360 reported.
The New York Occasions is shutting down its audio app
The New York Occasions will shut down its standalone audio app in early October and can combine audio and video content material straight into its major information app, Adweek reported. It’s a part of an effort to streamline the consumer expertise and consolidate its choices inside one flagship platform.
Attain lays off 300 individuals
The proprietor of the Day by day Mirror and Day by day Categorical will minimize over 300 jobs because it pivots to video and plans to share extra content material throughout its titles, as half of a big reorganization, in keeping with the BBC.
