Over the past several years, the advertising industry has poured time, money, and technology into cleaning up programmatic media buying. Marketers have consolidated supply paths, prioritized premium inventory, and moved aggressively away from made-for-advertising (MFA) sites. Yet, despite this progress, programmatic waste continues to rise.
According to the latest Programmatic Transparency Benchmark from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), global advertisers today are losing $26.8 billion in media value each year to inefficiencies, which marks a 34% increase from the first benchmark two years ago. That means that for all the innovation in transparency, sustainability, and supply path optimization, the industry’s return on investment isn’t improving fast enough.
This disconnect underscores a simple truth: It’s not enough to clean up the open marketplace. To truly reverse the trend, advertisers must double-down on curation, and on doing it well.
A growing efficiency gap
The ANA’s latest data paints a mixed picture. On one hand, the market is maturing. Private marketplace (PMP) transactions now make up nearly 88% of all programmatic spend, and exposure to MFA domains has dropped to a median of just 0.8%, down from 15% only two years ago.
Yet, the study’s TrueCPM Index, a key measure of media efficiency, fell from 37.8% to 36.5%. In other words, even as advertisers buy cleaner, more premium inventory, the overall relationship between cost and quality is slipping.
The takeaway? Marketers have succeeded in eliminating the worst waste, but they haven’t yet optimized what remains. That’s where smart, data-driven curation can deliver the next leap forward.
Why curation is the key to cutting waste
At its core, programmatic curation is the practice of packaging together the right audiences and the right inventory so advertisers can buy them as a single, ready-to-activate deal. It’s about improving relevance and precision by ensuring every impression has a reason to exist.
Done right, curation reduces waste in three fundamental ways:
1. Tighter audience-inventory alignment. By matching verified audience data with high-quality supply, curated deals eliminate unnecessary intermediaries.
2. Simplified activation. Strong curation programs reduce manual orchestration and enable direct activation through performance-optimized PMPs.
3. Continuous optimization. The best curation partners use real-time feedback loops to refine targeting mid-flight, keeping campaigns efficient as they scale.
We know what success requires. However, not all curation offerings are created equal. Some simply repackage existing open-market inventory without adding real intelligence or data depth. True efficiency comes from curation built on privacy-compliant, high-quality signals and direct access to premium supply.
The Start.io difference
Start.io’s mobile-first approach to curation was built for exactly this moment. By combining 20+ first-party mobile data signals with direct, premium publisher supply, Start.io creates curated deals that deliver both performance and transparency.
Mobile data provides a uniquely accurate, real-time view of user behavior, with signals that can extend beyond the device itself to inform omnichannel buying. Start.io uses these insights to build precise audience-inventory packages, available through PMPs on all major DSPs. That means advertisers can activate quickly, target accurately, and optimize continuously without the inefficiency of multiple handoffs.
Every curated deal is designed to minimize waste: fewer intermediaries, fewer mismatched impressions, and more measurable outcomes. Whether the goal is to reach sports fans in a specific region or high-intent shoppers across devices, Start.io’s AI-driven curation process ensures media spend goes further and works harder.
Turning progress into performance
The ANA’s report shows real progress, but it also demonstrates a growing urgency to finish what the industry started. Today’s programmatic waste is harder to spot, which makes it all the more important to address.
Curation, when powered by accurate data and direct supply relationships, is the most effective way to close the efficiency gap that still costs advertisers billions.
To find out how Start.io can help ensure your media dollars don’t contribute to the “waste” in the next ANA report, reach out to our team today.
