The complicated nature of the ad supply chain makes it difficult for advertisers to determine how much money they send to vendors. While this makes it tough for researchers to quantify the “tech tax,” several companies have recently examined how much media spend winds up in the hands of ad tech firms.
After auditing the programmatic ecosystem in May, GroupM estimated that on average, demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs) each take about a 10% cut of the ad spend flowing through their platforms. Collectively, these vendors receive about one-fifth of the overall spend advertisers send to publishers whenever they purchase their inventory.