The busiest time of year has arrived, bringing both opportunity and pressure for publishers. As campaigns ramp up and budgets finalize, it’s the perfect moment to take stock of your setup and ensure every impression is working for you.
Throughout 2025, many publishers tested new technologies and refined their supply paths to protect yield and simplify operations. Now, as we head into 2026, it’s time to turn those learnings into action. From tightening ad quality to embracing smarter, AI‑powered workflows, these strategies will help you finish the year strong and start the next one even stronger.
Re‑check Your Floors and Formats
Consistency is the gift that keeps on giving. Make sure your floor prices align across all partners, so you’re not leaving value on the table. At the same time, you may want to evaluate if DSP direct floors should be priced slightly higher to even the playing field with all of your partners.
Review the tools and dashboards that surface pricing insights so you can spot anomalies quickly and stay focused on strategy. And remember that automation and AI can now help streamline these checks even further, freeing more time for planning and growth.
Let AI Do the Heavy Lifting
AI has moved from promise to production in supply‑side technology, and PubMatic is putting it to work for publishers. Across our platform, it’s helping partners save time, surface insights, and grow revenue:
- PubMatic Assistant brings conversational intelligence to your workflow, delivering proactive recommendations, simplified deal creation, and instant answers to help you troubleshoot and optimize faster.
- Creative Category Manager enhances transparency in sensitive and complex verticals, using AI to evaluate and categorize creatives in real time – building confidence for both buyers and publishers.
- PubMatic for Publishers unifies inventory management, insights, and optimization in one AI‑powered platform, streamlining operations, revealing new opportunities, and giving publishers greater control across channels.
Together, these tools act as digital helpers for your ad ops team, automating routine work so you can focus on strategy and growth.
Double‑Down on High‑Value Formats
Video continues to be a standout performer, attracting buyer attention and premium CPMs. Ensure your video placements pass all relevant signals and identifiers; more complete data makes your inventory more discoverable and more valuable.
As audience journeys evolve and traditional search referrals fluctuate, diversifying into richer, high‑value formats helps maintain engagement and revenue stability. Video, CTV, and other immersive environments keep users interacting directly with your content -creating incremental opportunities that complement display and search traffic.
If you haven’t already, this is the time to allocate additional investment and attention to video inventory, creative quality, and signal coverage.
Tidy Up Your Supply Path
Nothing dampens holiday performance like inefficiencies in the supply chain. Duplicative inventory and multi‑hop supply paths can reduce transparency and yield.
Follow best practices to keep things clean and efficient:
- Send a single ad request per unique impression opportunity.
- Use multi‑format requests only when slots truly support different formats.
- Consolidate sizes within the format object rather than sending multiple calls.
- Align floor prices and always include transaction and placement identifiers.
A streamlined path not only supports better relationships with buyers but also strengthens overall inventory value. A clean house benefits everyone across the ecosystem.
Curate and Differentiate
Curation is becoming the hallmark of successful publishers. Use first‑party data to package inventory that meets specific buyer goals and lean into tools like Connect and Activate to manage those relationships at scale and also extend your reach to non-O&O inventory.
Private marketplaces (PMPs) and key‑value pairs (KVPs) help publishers showcase the value of their inventory and strengthen direct connections to advertiser demand, key advantages during the holiday season.
Keep Learning: Test, Collaborate, and Shape What’s Next
Innovation in programmatic is moving fast, from the emergence of agentic AI to new industry initiatives like the Ad Context Protocol (AdCP). These efforts are setting new standards for how digital advertising is transacted, driving greater efficiency, insight, and monetization opportunities for publishers.
This is the moment for publishers to experiment and get involved. Test new tools, provide feedback, and connect with working groups driving these standards forward. Lean on your PubMatic teams and available resources to explore how these advancements can strengthen your business and prepare you for what’s ahead.
A Strong Finish for a Bright New Year
This season is about more than decorating dashboards with fresh data. It’s about working intelligently. By combining AI‑enabled tools with clean supply practices, diversified formats, and thoughtful curation, publishers can head into the new year with confidence.
So, tune up those floors, refresh your signals, and let smart tools handle some of the heavy lifting. Cheers to a polished, profitable holiday season and a smarter start to the new year.