Samsung Ads capitalizes on the power of programmatic through the GroupM Premium Marketplace with Magnite

Magnite Team

February 16, 2023 | 5 min read

By: Mike Evans, Senior Vice President, Demand Facilitation

In early 2022, Magnite began powering the GroupM Premium Marketplace (GPM) in North America, leveraging the SpringServe ad server as the front end for the GPM. Since then, the GroupM Premium Marketplace has gained momentum simplifying the media buying and selling process with a number of selected premium CTV publishers including Samsung Ads, who has seen win rates significantly increase.

Challenged by high fees, operational inefficiencies, and questions around media quality and brand safety, marketers need to justify ad spending decisions at every step of the process. To combat those issues, many buyers are looking at supply path optimization (SPO) strategies to intentionally focus their bids on the most cost efficient, most scalable, and transparent supply paths. The GroupM Premium Marketplace was established to address these challenges, while enabling publishers to better monetize their inventory.

Officially launched in February 2022, the GroupM Premium Marketplace is a unified programmatic marketplace that leverages Magnite and SpringServe technology to increase media buying transparency and efficiency. The solution provides GroupM buyer clients with varying levels of direct and advantageous access to high quality inventory, underpinned by streamlined programmatic infrastructure that offers operational and campaign performance improvements with clarity in reporting and measurement.

Streamlined infrastructure for programmatic success

GroupM’s objective with the GroupM Premium Marketplace was to make the buying and selling of media more transparent and efficient, paving the way for their buyers to streamline campaigns into brand safe, high-performance environments. Powered by the SpringServe ad server and the Magnite SSP, GPM enables the consolidation of supply and demand under one set of technologies that gives buyers end-to-end control.

From strategically onboarding the supply into their own ad server, to setting up their own private marketplace and programmatic guaranteed deals, buyers have control and autonomy they’ve never had before. This results in simpler upfront tracking, faster inventory forecasting, and improved reporting, as well as preferred rates which translate into CPM savings and more efficient bid metrics through advanced ad server connections.

GroupM’s Programmatic Investment lead, Esra Bacher said “As the buy side continues its SPO ambitions, our work with Magnite will be critical to delivering transparent and efficient integrations that deliver campaign success through access to quality media solutions as well as cost and operational savings through more streamlined programmatic infrastructure.”

Samsung Ads’ head of platform sales & agency development, Joe Melaragno, added “Our partnership with the GroupM Premium Marketplace is a win-win for both Samsung Ads and our clients. For our clients, GPM delivers a better overall user experience that ultimately results in better performing campaigns. From a business perspective, it allows us to more efficiently and effectively monetize our programmatic inventory within a controlled environment.”

Advanced inventory access

To simplify access to inventory for buyers, GPM leverages Magnite’s technology and supplier relations to curate premium suppliers into GroupM’s own video ecosystem. This gives GroupM buyer clients priority access to inventory and content parameters. By segmenting a single pipe of inventory to GroupM’s SpringServe seat, GPM can easily scale buyer spend while limiting the volume of Deal IDs that need managing. This creates better performing campaigns for the buyers, and sellers generate revenue without having to do the heavy lifting themselves.

“Linear investments won’t disappear overnight, but as people continue to cut the cord and more TV budgets shift to CTV and OTT, buyers will look for opportunities like this to move those budgets into more transparent environments where they can measure and showcase the improvements. Bridging those big linear dollars to programmatic delivery will be of increasing importance” said Matthew Sweeney, Chief Investment Officer at GroupM.

Samsung Ads success

With this new way of buying and selling inventory, Samsung Ads, the advertising arm of Samsung Electronics, has been able to open up their inventory within a controlled environment to lift revenue without having to do all the work themselves. On average, Samsung has seen a significant increase in their win-to-impression rate. Those win rates are accompanied by the working media efficiencies – improved render rates, decreased time outs, and CPM savings – that come from the streamlined and sophisticated programmatic pipes that the Magnite and SpringServe technologies provide.

Buy and sell side working together

As the ad industry continues to adapt to new data solutions and continued fragmentation of how users access content, buyers are looking to regain buying power, transparency, and control in their media buys. Magnite and GroupM’s collaborative relationship is a prime example of how the buy and sell sides can work seamlessly together to benefit the whole chain. From enabling GroupM and its clients to reach their campaign goals, positioning sellers like Samsung to get more value for their inventory, and providing the consumer with a better user experience – everyone wins.

Magnite’s Senior Vice President of Demand Facilitation, Mike Evans, added: “The combination of our tech, supply relationships and audience capabilities provide a centralized access point for agencies like GroupM to meet and exceed client demands. It’s great to see how the GroupM Premium Marketplace has driven such impressive results for a client like Samsung, but also how that success translates beyond just cost savings and revenue lift, to providing a more transparent, efficient, and responsible way of buying and selling media.”

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