SAN JUAN, PR – In an effort to streamline media buying and enhance transparency, IPG Mediabrands is refining its approach to supply path optimization (SPO), or the process of finding the shortest and most effective way to serve an ad to a consumer. Jean Fitzpatrick, executive vice president of commercial strategy at IPG Mediabrands, outlined the company’s dual strategy, which encompasses both traditional and innovative methods to optimize programmatic advertising, in this interview at the Beet Retreat San Juan.
Mediabrands has developed a traditional SPO strategy that spans the entire programmatic ecosystem, covering all formats and supply-side platforms (SSPs).
“We have a traditional supply path optimization strategy where we’re really looking across the entire programmatic ecosystem,” Fitzpatrick said. “So all formats that we’re buying and we look at all of the SSPs that we work with, the demand sources from those SSPs, we work with third-party resources to understand what the quality is there and then what the connectivity is to the DSPs.”
The company has implemented a dedicated marketplace that features premium inventory, along with strict brand suitability and safety measures for open exchange purchases.
“There’s a very robust strategy and practice in place to make sure that we have the most straightforward and direct integrations to our publisher inventory,” she said.
Innovating for a post-SPO ecosystem in CTV
Mediabrands is also advancing beyond traditional SPO, particularly in the connected television (CTV) space, by testing new technologies to drive efficiency.
“I would think the other way that we’re doing it, which is a bit newer and what we’ve been talking about as a post supply path optimization ecosystem as it relates to CTV, is looking at ways to deliver more efficiencies to our clients by testing new technologies in this space,” Fitzpatrick said.
CTV presents unique opportunities for cost-saving and improved targeting.
“Sometimes in CTV, when you’re buying from really premium publishers and you know exactly what you want to buy and you want to use their audiences, you don’t always need to be paying such a high technology cost for that,” she said. “So oftentimes we’re looking at ways to truncate the supply chain so that we can deliver more efficiencies, better audiences, more fidelity, and audience matching to our clients.”
Mediabrands has conducted tests with platforms such as ClearLine and Magnite, yielding promising results for both advertisers and publishers.
“We’ve tested with ClearLine, with Magnite, and on the publisher side, they’ve been really happy with the results. They know exactly who’s buying and what we’re buying, and that really helps them manage their supply,” she said. “And then on the activation side for our clients, we’ve seen that we’ve been able to drive efficiencies that we hadn’t in more of a traditional programmatic experience.”
Bridging advertisers and publishers in CTV
As CTV consumption continues to grow, Mediabrands is focusing on leveraging audiences more effectively.
“We’ve seen obviously a massive increase in users on CTV platforms. That’s where so many of our consumers are, and it’s growing year over year. So we’re looking for ways to bring our audiences and our goals from an advertising campaign closer to that inventory,” Fitzpatrick said.
One key strategy involves balancing control between advertisers and publishers through platforms like ClearLine and Magnite.
“There’s really this kind of meet in the middle that these platforms are able to deliver for us, where publishers have a certain level of control and expectation and understanding, and advertisers also have a certain level of control and expectation and understanding,” she said. “And then we figure out what are the data signals that we need on both sides to deliver something that’s really specific to that advertiser.”
Mediabrands is also pushing boundaries by utilizing publisher data in new ways to refine audience targeting.
“So the first is just using the publisher’s data. In a lot of ways, we’re asking the publishers to let us know what matches with whatever strategy we have for an advertiser,” Fitzpatrick said. “And then in another way, we’re looking at the data together, doing first-party data uploads from our advertisers and figuring out what the overlay is and where the appropriate audiences are.”
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