Vox Media Launches Concert SSP With the Trade Desk

Ahead of Thursday's Vox Media Now event, the company announced Tuesday it created its own supply-side platform (SSP) for Concert, the company's publisher-led marketplace, where the Trade Desk (TTD) is also its exclusive demand-side platform (DSP) partner. TTD's cookie alternative Unified 2.0, along with Vox's Forte, the company's first-party data solution, will integrate into the new SSP for addressability measures and further audience reach for advertisers, according to Vox. The SSP also allows advertisers to directly access and use its signature ad unit, Athena, across Vox Media’s editorial properties like New York Magazine, The Verge and The Cut and other properties from companies like Condé Nast, NBCUniversal and BuzzFeed. "Up until now, Concert's mission has focused on the inventory and the creative, deploying a proprietary high-impact creative experience in trusted, well-lit publisher environments at scale. The launch of the Concert SSP pivots that focus to programmatic pipes and the supply chain," Vox Media svp of media revenue and head of Concert AJ Frucci told Adweek. Treading on thin ice Vox Media didn't just toy with the idea of programmatic. According to Vox, Concert has had an existing programmatic offering, but it's been a majority managed service business until today's launch. The company also said it's strengthening its role in the programmatic space with hopes of making it a larger share of its business. According to Vox, nearly 500 advertisers already spend their ad dollars on Concert and see a 150% increase in brand favorability and purchase intent. Reports project programmatic ad spend is supposed to hit more than $123 billion this year and reach more than $141 billion in 2023. It's a bankable business for sure, but Vox Media is also treading on the thin ice of an industrywide issue: fair business compliancy. While tech giants like Google and Apple are slammed with fine after fine by government bodies for their misuse of user data, there's also the unfair use or misconduct of its DSP and SSP services. More recently, Adweek recently reported Google's ad-tech stack was under fire by the U.K.’s Competition Market Authority where an investigation opened on whether Google broke the law by "restricting competition in the digital advertising market." Frucci told Adweek Vox Media has an advantage in the space where the SSP will offer a "more direct path" between its buyers and marketplace. "Today, all of the advertising technology and tools that are supposed to support premium publishers are built and owned by third-party companies who don’t have a direct relationship with audiences," Frucci said. TTD vp, publisher inventory development Will Doherty said in a statement that brands will have the benefits that come with programmatic buying like leveraging UID2 through this partnership since properly targeting audiences without Google's third-party cookie has been a cloud over advertisers' heads. "Our partnership with Vox Media will provide advertisers access to premium content in a way that hasn’t been done before across Concert's entire portfolio of trusted publishers, through the Concert SSP," Doherty added. Vox Media Relaunches and Expands Group Nine’s Performance Marketing Solution An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that UID 2.0 will be integrated into Forte. Instead, UID2, along with Forte, will integrate into the new SSP.

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Vox Media Launches Concert SSP in Partnership With the Trade Desk

Advertisers will have direct access to all the publisher's properties

Meseret Ambachew

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