• by Shirley Marschall , Featured Contributor, April 3, 2025

Everyone in ad tech complains about fragmentation. No one actually fixes it. Because, let’s be real, why would they?

Ad tech is stuck in a paradox. The industry loves to talk about how inefficient, opaque, and costly fragmentation is, yet every time a company expands beyond its “core,” it’s met with backlash.

We saw it with The Trade Desk’s Kokai expansion. We see it whenever supply-side platforms (SSPs) talk about convergence, but ultimately reinforce separation.

So, what’s the real issue? If consolidation is so desirable, why does fragmentation persist?

The answer isn’t simple. Multiple players -- publishers, agencies, platforms, walled gardens -- benefit from keeping the ecosystem fragmented.

Let’s break it down.

Every Layer Takes a Cut

Fragmentation is expensive, but it’s also lucrative.

Every additional player in the supply chain -- SSPs, curators, ID solutions -- takes a fee. If the ecosystem were fully consolidated, a lot of those middle layers would disappear, along with their revenue.

Agencies Need Complexity to Justify Their Role

If programmatic were truly plug-and-play, why would brands need agencies?

Media agencies have always been the gatekeepers of ad tech. They decide which DSPs to use, how budgets are allocated, and what measurement standards to follow. And here’s the kicker: tech platforms incentivize them to keep spend flowing.

If programmatic were radically simplified and transparent, many brands would take buying in-house. Instead, the complexity justifies agency fees and prevents brands from gaining full control.

Publishers, RMNs, and Streaming Networks Don’t Want Standardization

Advertisers want cross-channel measurement. They want transparent, apples-to-apples performance metrics.

But do publishers, retail media networks (RMNs), and streaming giants actually want that?

Nope.

Why? Because standardization means comparability, and comparability means more scrutiny.

• Retail media networks thrive on fragmentation. They operate in silos, using their unique data as a competitive advantage. If clean measurement exposed the reality of performance, ad dollars might shift elsewhere.

• CTV players don’t want to be measured like display ads. Walled gardens like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video prefer their own attribution models. Standardization would force transparency on their effectiveness.

• Publishers use fragmentation to protect their inventory. If buyers could easily compare SSPs and inventory quality, low-value supply would be the first to go.

Fragmentation isn’t just an inefficiency; it’s a strategy to maintain control.

No One Wants Another Google (Except Maybe Google)

The irony of ad tech is that everyone wants consolidation -- just not in the hands of a competitor.

• The Trade Desk positions itself as the “anti-Google,” but its Kokai expansion has raised questions about centralization.

• Amazon is aggressively expanding its ad tech stack, but no one wants Amazon to become the next walled garden monopoly.

• If Google is forced to sell its SSP business, could we see DV360 integrating publisher-side capabilities to maintain its dominance? It wouldn’t be the first time Google rebuilt its power in a different way.

Everyone complains about fragmentation, but when a single player gets too powerful, the industry revolts.

This constant push-pull dynamic means fragmentation remains the default.

Transparency and Fragmentation Are Two Sides of the Same Coin

You can’t have full transparency and full fragmentation at the same time.

The more players in the system, the more hidden fees, undisclosed auction mechanics, and opaque pricing structures exist.

Yet, advertisers demand both transparency and optionality. They want to see every cent spent while also having the flexibility to work across multiple DSPs, data providers, and measurement partners.

This is why ad tech has never had a true “single source of truth.”

• The more intermediaries exist, the harder it is to track spend.

• The more transparent the supply chain becomes, the fewer middlemen can justify their existence.

So, Where Does This Leave Us?

The industry loves to say it wants consolidation. But every major player benefits from fragmentation in some way.

At this point, fragmentation isn’t an accident. It’s a deliberate strategy.

And yet, advertisers hold the key. They control the budgets, they set the expectations, and ultimately, they’re the only ones with the power to demand real change. But will they start asking the hard questions?

Because if they don’t, nothing will change.