May’s net of +19.7k lines looks healthy on the surface. Look closer, and the removal-to-addition ratio sits at 95.4%, the tightest in the Feb – May window and a steep drop from April’s +102k net on similar gross volume.
- Resellers drove 63% of that gain against direct’s 37%. At 4.8% gross spread, the market is onboarding and pruning supply at a near-equal pace.
- The direct segment produced a net of just +7k. Publishers are dropping authorized direct partners at nearly the same rate they’re adding new ones.
- For mid-tier SSPs trying to get on publisher lists, that compression makes the window narrower even when overall activity looks busy.
The changes in the ads.txt lines show notable improvements compared to previous months. Here are some top SSPs that have gained a good number of new lines.
- PubMatic led at +3k lines, but the number that matters more is the top-three total: PubMatic, Rubicon, and OpenX combined for 10k lines, which is 51.4% of the month’s entire net from three players. The gap between first and second was just 242 lines, the tightest first-vs-second spread in the series. No breakout this month. Instead, a tightly grouped cohort of Established SSPs absorbed what growth was available.
Want to know more? Please download the full report for a detailed breakdown.
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