PUBMATIC’S AGENTICOS GIVES LEVEL AGENCY A DECISIVE EDGE IN A HEAD-TO-HEAD TEST AGAINST INCUMBENT DSP

Level’s client needed precise, hyper-local audience targeting at scale. The buying team was running programmatic campaigns through the incumbent DSP but needed to evaluate whether PubMatic’s AgenticOS meaningfully outperforms in both operational efficiency and in campaign outcomes.

Level structured a direct head-to-head test: PubMatic’s AgenticOS versus the incumbent DSP, running simultaneously, with identical campaign objectives.

The stakes were high. The campaign parameters demanded precise demographic and geographic targeting—a context where inventory quality, audience reach, and cost efficiency are all equally critical. Level needed to know whether an agentic supply-side approach could deliver multiplicative outcomes, without requiring significant internal technology lift to operate.

PubMatic’s AgenticOS delivered results across two distinct areas: operational set-up efficiency and campaign performance. Both tell the same story. When premium supply, advanced supply-side targeting, and AI-powered buying workflows come together in one access point, the outcomes categorically improve.

Level accessed AgenticOS through the Buyer Agent built specifically for the Untapped Growth Collective, a direct connection into PubMatic’s platform that required no additional tech lift and no new integrations. Campaign parameters were set once and executed directly by the agent, removing the manual setup steps that typically introduce delays in traditional programmatic workflows. Where typical campaign implementation takes 3-5 hours, AgenticOS helped the Level team set up tactical parameters, budgets, and target audiences within 30 minutes.

SUPPLY-SIDE TARGETING THAT SCALES WITHOUT COMPROMISING QUALITY

Legacy programmatic workflows treat precision and scale as trade-offs. PubMatic signficantly reduces those trade-offs by applying targeting at the inventory layer — before the auction — so the supply pool is already qualified before a single bid is placed.

For Level’s client, that produced two concrete results:

• Hyper-local geo targets scaled successfully with zero brand-unsafe placements. The campaign delivered 1,755 unique publisher placements with no single source exceeding 13% of impressions, demonstrating that inventory diversity acted as a natural frequency cap, with no manual configuration required.
• Retargeting segments ramped in days, not months, putting PubMatic on pace to hit the client’s $0.32 benchmark cost-per-conversion within one month, versus the multiple-month ramp the incumbent DSP required.

UNMATCHED CAMPAIGN PERFORMANCE THAT DELIVERS TANGIBLE EFFICIENCY FOR CLIENTS

Across CPM efficiency, video completion rate, and total reach, PubMatic’s AgenticOS delivered outcomes the incumbent DSP couldn’t match. Driven by supply-side targeting intelligence and premium inventory scale, the PubMatic AgenticOS campaign execution amplified performance significantly.

• AgenticOS delivered a CPM that was 53% more efficient than the incumbent DSP, with premium OTT placement coming in roughly 66% below standard benchmarks.
• VCR outperformed by 54% overall demonstrating that PubMatic’s pre-auction filtering puts ads in front of engaged audiences, not just available ones.
• 114.9% more impressions delivered through AgenticOS, 2.14x more impressions per dollar. More efficient CPMs, applied across a larger and more diverse inventory pool, compound into reach and working media the incumbent DSP couldn’t match.

The success of the campaign, coupled with the ease of activation, opened a new category of campaign execution. The agency made a mid-flight adjustment to expand the program: a date-based, hyper-local activation with a tight turnaround is being allocated to AgenticOS alongside Level’s existing social buy. The open internet is now in the channel mix for time-sensitive, geographically specific campaign activations where speed and flexibility are the deciding factors.

Legacy DSP infrastructure was built for a different era of programmatic. AgenticOS was built for this one. PubMatic’s AI-powered infrastructure, proprietary bidder tech, direct premium supply, and platform scale don’t just add up — they compound, turning every bid into a more efficient, more effective outcome for buyers.

For Level and the agencies in the Untapped Growth Collective, the question is no longer whether the PubMatic buying opportunity outperforms. The question now is how fast to scale future campaigns.

Reach out to your PubMatic representative to go deeper on AgenticOS for your brand and clients.