As 2024 draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on a transformative year that has begun to redefine the programmatic landscape, proving this ecosystem thrives on efficiency and genuine value creation. What I remarked last December—that programmatic was entering a new era—has never been more evident than today.
This year underscored the imperative for a fair and transparent ecosystem, epitomised by the DOJ v. Google antitrust trial. While the ruling is pending, the proceedings amplified a critical message: The importance of choice and a level playing field in our market cannot be taken for granted.
At Index, transparency and fairness aren’t just ideals—they’re the foundation of our business. Choice is paramount. Media owners and buyers alike deserve the freedom to choose partners who consistently deliver the greatest value.
Nowhere was this commitment to transparency more evident than in our response to the proliferation of made-for-advertising (MFA) sites. MFA is the most dilutive event to the economics of publishing we’ve seen, and undermines the trust, integrity, and efficiency of programmatic.
Earlier this year, we made the decisive move to eliminate MFA entirely from our exchange. The impact was undeniable: Spend was reallocated to legitimate publishers, with the top 10 buyers previously spending on MFA inventory increasing their spend by 39% year-over-year.
This is the standard we set, not just for ourselves but for the industry. We believe the responsibility to combat MFA lies squarely with SSPs—this is not a buy-side problem—and we urge our peers to take similar action. Marketers deserve to know their investments are supporting legitimate publishers and delivering true value.
Beyond upholding quality and transparency standards, 2024 marked a paradigm shift in supply-side innovation. The rapid growth of Index Marketplaces has been particularly exciting on this front, creating entirely new opportunities for efficiency, choice, and value creation.
Historically viewed as a commoditised infrastructure, earlier this year we started breaking new ground by enabling curated marketplaces. With our unthrottled access to supply, we’re empowering marketers to unlock new opportunities and media owners to access increased demand, all while providing more choice on where in the supply chain to activate data. By leveraging existing supply infrastructure to enable more efficient scale, we’re able to drive down costs and pass those savings directly to our customers, accelerating our vision of total market efficiency.
The growth trajectory of curation is unparalleled in our 20-year history—surpassing that of programmatic itself and header bidding—and we’ve only scratched the surface. Since introducing Marketplaces in closed beta in January, we’ve launched over 60 partner Marketplaces, with just as many in active integration. And what’s most exciting is that through this beta period, we’ve uncovered numerous use cases beyond curation that can benefit from the same point of enablement. Companies can activate data, attention, algorithmic, creative, and carbon measurement solutions, among a host of others.
Also a driving factor in this new paradigm, signal loss propelled an industry-wide evolution. While Google’s shifting approach to third-party cookie deprecation dominated headlines, the need for flexible, consumer-first strategies has never been clearer.
Addressability strategies increasingly require a multi-modal approach tailored to channel, format, and market. We leaned into this challenge, investing heavily in testing Privacy Sandbox this year and sharing our insights along the way. We have no plans to change course—the ease of a single solution will soon cease to exist and those slow to adapt risk being left behind.
Finally, streaming TV cemented its position as a cornerstone of programmatic, showcasing its maturity and dominance in 2024. Shifting viewership and technological advancements have led to increased investment, notably exemplified through the outsized role streaming TV played in this election cycle.
We remained focused on advancing streaming TV capabilities, from ad podding to duration-based measurement, and solving for highly concurrent live event viewership spikes. Live events are a key area for innovation moving into the next year as we collaborate with the IAB Tech Lab to develop new standards.
As we enter 2025, I’m struck by the incredible progress we’ve made and the vast potential still ahead. Programmatic continues to evolve rapidly, and the companies that thrive will be those that deliver real value, foster transparency, and prioritise the needs of their customers. There remains much more exciting innovation to come.
To our customers and partners: thank you for your trust and collaboration. Together, we’re building an ecosystem that delivers efficiency, transparency, and choice at every turn.
We wish you a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year.
Andrew Casale
President and CEO
To help you shape your 2025 plans, we’re sharing our top trends and predictions for the upcoming year. Check them out here.
