A fee audit on one SSP recovered 14 cents of every dollar to working media

A fee audit on one SSP recovered 14 cents of every dollar to working media

Supply path economics are not only about CPM; the take rate (the share of spend an SSP keeps as fee) varies sharply by path. One buyer measured it directly.

1. Under a DSP that exposed gross-versus-net spend per SSP, they computed the realized take rate per path.
— Path A (direct SSP): 11% take rate.
— Path B (reseller-fed SSP): 25% take rate, for the same publisher and audience.
2. They confirmed both delivered comparable viewability and invalid-traffic rates.
3. They shifted 70% of the publisher's budget from Path B to Path A.

Evidence: working media (spend that actually reaches the publisher and buys impressions) rose by roughly 14 cents per dollar on the reallocated budget, increasing won impressions 11% at flat total spend.

Why it matters: two paths to the same impression can have wildly different take rates. CPM tells you the price; the fee tells you how much of your dollar becomes inventory. Measuring net-to-gross per path is how you find the leak.