<b>Take-rate stacking: where your CPM actually goes</b>

<b>Take-rate stacking: where your CPM actually goes</b>

The price you pay and the revenue the publisher receives are separated by a stack of take rates — the cut each intermediary keeps. Supply path optimization is, concretely, take-rate reduction. To optimize it you have to be able to see it.

1. Each hop (SSP, reseller, sometimes a second SSP) takes a percentage. These compound: a 15% SSP cut on top of a 10% reseller cut leaves the publisher roughly 76% of your spend, not 75%.
2. Some intermediaries take a fixed margin; others take a dynamic, undisclosed margin that varies by auction. The undisclosed ones are where money disappears.
3. You can estimate take rate per path by comparing your spend on a publisher through path A versus path B for matched inventory — the path that delivers the same audience for less is the lower-take path.

Log-level data from both sides (your spend, the publisher's payout, where you can get it) lets you measure the stack directly. Without it you are inferring.

<b>Why it matters:</b> SPO's real prize is not 'fewer paths' for tidiness — it's routing spend through the lowest-take path that preserves the publisher relationship, often recovering 10–20% of media cost. You can't manage a take rate you've never measured, so make path-level effective cost a standing report.