u/DataBeat_adtech

Guys, we just wrapped our May Sellers Report, and while the surface numbers still look like steady expansion, the underlying shift is more interesting.
When we broke it down, a few patterns stood out:
• ~63% of net growth is coming through reseller paths
• High-traffic publishers actually showed negative net growth this month
• Most expansion is coming from low-traffic / creator-led inventory
• Premium publishers are clearly consolidating and reducing partner overlap
• Contextual + curated SSPs are gaining ground as SPO pressure increases
• Duplicate paths are still adding unnecessary noise to the auction

Net-net: supply is growing, but it’s becoming more fragmented in the middle layer and more selective at the top.
Premium publishers are tightening distribution paths, while incremental growth is shifting toward creator-led and privacy-safe inventory ecosystems.

Guys, we just wrapped our May Sellers Report, and while the surface numbers still look like steady expansion, the underlying shift is more interesting.
When we broke it down, a few patterns stood out:
• ~63% of net growth is coming through reseller paths
• High-traffic publishers actually showed negative net growth this month
• Most expansion is coming from low-traffic / creator-led inventory
• Premium publishers are clearly consolidating and reducing partner overlap
• Contextual + curated SSPs are gaining ground as SPO pressure increases
• Duplicate paths are still adding unnecessary noise to the auction

Net-net: supply is growing, but it’s becoming more fragmented in the middle layer and more selective at the top.
Premium publishers are tightening distribution paths, while incremental growth is shifting toward creator-led and privacy-safe inventory ecosystems.

Guys, we just wrapped our May Sellers Report, and while the surface numbers still look like steady expansion, the underlying shift is more interesting.
When we broke it down, a few patterns stood out:
• ~63% of net growth is coming through reseller paths
• High-traffic publishers actually showed negative net growth this month
• Most expansion is coming from low-traffic / creator-led inventory
• Premium publishers are clearly consolidating and reducing partner overlap
• Contextual + curated SSPs are gaining ground as SPO pressure increases
• Duplicate paths are still adding unnecessary noise to the auction

Net-net: supply is growing, but it’s becoming more fragmented in the middle layer and more selective at the top.
Premium publishers are tightening distribution paths, while incremental growth is shifting toward creator-led and privacy-safe inventory ecosystems. 

right now, we're seeing ChatGPT ads are being treated as the next big surface performance channel but the fundamentals still feel rough - ~$200K minimum spends, reporting limited to weekly CSVs (no real‑time dashboards), limited control. In that setup, expecting ROAS is premature.

The pixel rollout is progress sure but even with that, targeting clarity and conversion paths are missing. I mean there’s still a pretty big gap between “can measure” and “can confidently optimize”

plus a observation- a lot of this feels like AI talking to AI. Not even sure how much of the ad is actually landing with a human vs getting filtered/reshaped along the way.

right now, we're seeing ChatGPT ads are being treated as the next big surface performance channel but the fundamentals still feel rough - ~$200K minimum spends, reporting limited to weekly CSVs (no real‑time dashboards), limited control. In that setup, expecting ROAS is premature.

The pixel rollout is progress sure but even with that, targeting clarity and conversion paths are missing. I mean there’s still a pretty big gap between “can measure” and “can confidently optimize”

plus a observation- a lot of this feels like AI talking to AI. Not even sure how much of the ad is actually landing with a human vs getting filtered/reshaped along the way.

One pitfall we’ve seen lately is teams treating ChatGPT ads like a performance channel way too early. Right now, the reality is ~$200K minimum spends, reporting limited to weekly CSVs (no real‑time dashboards), and infrastructure that’s still pretty barebones. In that setup, expecting ROAS is premature. At present, LLM ads should be treated as a learning investment for a way to understand how agentic workflows & AI‑driven placements are behaving.

Also, maybe a weird observation- A lot of this feels like AI talking to AI. Not even sure how much of the ad is actually landing with a human vs getting filtered/reshaped along the way. What do y’all think?