The semantic slide of programmatic’s power word: ‘curation’

Curation’s biggest problem might be its name.

Everyone has a different version of it. Ask an ad tech vendor, and curation is about packaging high-quality inventory for better performance. Ask a data broker, and it’s a vehicle for layering on proprietary audiences. Ask a publisher, and it is a rare chance to reassert some control in an ecosystem that’s spent the last decade pulling power away from them. The only thing everyone can agree on? It’s a growth area.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Money is moving behind it. Deals are getting done. The term “curation” now appears in pitch decks, product updates and M&A strategy. It’s become a default explanation for what comes next in programmatic.

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