Independent agency Goodway Group shrinks SSP roster to single digits

This shift signals a maturing programmatic market where agencies are aggressively disintermediating the supply chain to reclaim margins. By using tools like the SupplyChain object to audit every hop, Goodway is proving that premium scale no longer requires 20+ SSP connections. For the broader ecosystem, this puts immense pressure on 'reseller' SSPs that lack unique inventory or direct-to-buyer integrations. As DSPs like The Trade Desk and Yahoo increasingly bypass traditional SSP functions via OpenPath and Backstage, the industry is moving toward a 'thin' supply chain model. Watch for whether larger holding companies follow this indie lead and mandate single-digit SSP rosters in upcoming Q3 planning cycles.

The push for supply-path optimization (SPO) is gaining momentum as ad tech consolidation accelerates. Per The Trade Desk in early 2026, its OpenPath solution now handles approximately 60% of the platform's demand, allowing advertisers to bypass traditional SSPs to reach publishers like Vizio and Hearst directly. This shift has led to measurable performance gains, with some advertiser campaigns seeing win rates three times higher than those on indirect paths. Similarly, Yahoo’s Backstage has streamlined access for its DSP users, reflecting a broader trend of 'DSPs going direct' to capture efficiency. This move toward transparency is underpinned by IAB Tech Lab standards. According to IAB Europe reporting from August 2025, the SupplyChain object and sellers.json are now finalized for full industry adoption, providing the cryptographic and structural signals needed to audit a bid's financial path. These standards enable buyers to distinguish between 'DIRECT' and 'RESELLER' inventory with high precision. Jounce Media’s March 2025 benchmarking found that while the average publisher still integrates with 24.5 SSPs, 'durable' supply chains—those using the most direct paths—now capture 69% of all gross ad spend. This concentration of spend into high-trust channels is a defensive response to the rise of 'made-for-advertising' (MFA) sites and bid duplication, which Jounce estimated accounted for 32% of video auctions in 2025. Consequently, the share of ad spend actually reaching publishers climbed to 47% in late 2025, per the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), up from much lower historical averages. For agencies like Goodway, the goal is to shift this 'working media' percentage even higher by using these standardized signals to automate the exclusion of low-value intermediaries.