• by Philip Rosenstein , January 27, 2017

SpotX, a video inventory management platform, has seen the rise of a particular skill set in the advertising industry: the publisher-buyer matchmaking specialist, or what the company calls a demand facilitation specialist.

“Transitioning from traditional media executions into programmatic transactions is often a major shift for publishers and buyers,” stated Sean Buckley, CRO, at SpotX. “As ad servers and SSPs continue to advance, and more publishers automate their video sales process, the role of people in programmatic remains as important as ever. Demand facilitation specialists are currently among the fastest growing skill sets needed within our company.”

With the growth of programmatic ad spend, and the increase in the use of private marketplaces, SpotX’s Demand Facilitation team found an increase in the incidence of relationships structured through private marketplaces and direct deals.

Over 2016, the Demand Facilitation unit saw a 200% net increase in revenue.

SpotX found that the growth is mainly driven by private marketplace deals, accounting for 45% of ad spend transacted on the SpotX platform. The company expects that percentage to exceed 50% in 2017.

Lending to the increase in private marketplace usage has been the introduction of Curated Marketplaces, where inventory is grouped from a number of publishers and pre-filtered by themes such as viewability and audience attributes.