Roku Eschews Open Exchanges for Premium Deals

The marketplace is built on a programmatic stack. So when a publisher wants to take advantage of our data and sell aggressively, they can also set it up in a private marketplace and bid it to their buyers.

The reason we think programmatic is such an important component of not just how we sell directly, but of [Roku’s] marketplace, is because as advertising becomes more and more targeted, you need a much higher level of automation. And you need to equip the buy side of that transaction with the tools to make more dynamic decisions about whether they want that impression, that user, or not.

We do not.

We haven’t needed to. We have very valuable direct deals. The suggestion that a lot of over-the-top [OTT] video is traded on open exchanges is overstated. There are a wide variety of Tier 2 and Tier 3 publishers who float [video] inventory in the open exchange, in part because they don't operate direct sales since they don't have solid demand. Most of the premium ad-supported publishers in OTT and on our platform do not sell on the open exchange.

I do think it'll come in time as the space matures. But unfortunately, a lot of that demand either isn't appropriate for the OTT living room environment or is very, very remnant price.