Starting today, media networks can onboard audiences directly to demand-side platform (DSP) marketplaces like The Trade Desk and Yahoo DSP, with no secondary revshare fees. This helps media sellers maximize audience size and revenue potential while protecting margins.
Self-serve offsite media drives new revenue, but comes with a catch
As retail and commerce media networks run out of onsite inventory to sell, monetizing audiences through offsite media offers a direct path to new revenue.
Most media networks enter offsite media through managed services, running ads on behalf of advertisers. It’s a proven model. But advertisers are understandably pushing back for more direct control. They want to manage creative, adjust bids, and track performance from their own DSP seats. Managed services also miss out on larger brand budgets, relying on shifting shopper or trade dollars instead.
DSP marketplaces give performance and brand advertisers the self-service capabilities they want. Media networks list audiences publicly or privately through the marketplace, and advertisers use them directly from their own ad account.
Despite the revenue potential, self-service offsite media comes with a catch: it has a reputation for low margins compared to managed services and onsite media. Some of this is by design, since offsite media requires buying another publisher's inventory. But the model's reputation for thin margins isn't entirely its own fault.
Traditional onboarders eat into your margins
The DSP marketplace model should be simple: list your audiences, set CPM rates, and set access rules. Advertisers run campaigns from their own DSP seat and pay the marketplace. The DSP takes a revshare fee, and you keep the rest.
LiveRamp and similar onboarders have broken that model. They require you to list audiences through their own secondary marketplace first, forcing you to pay another revshare fee on top of the DSP's. As your offsite revenue grows, so does the cut handed to LiveRamp. Your margins stay thin, and growth stalls.
Hightouch unlocks marketplace monetization without revshare fees
With Hightouch, you can now list audiences directly on DSP marketplaces like The Trade Desk and Yahoo DataX while managing access, pricing, and consent in one place — without unnecessary fees.
Match Booster, Hightouch's data onboarding solution, lets you maximize audience size and revenue potential with one click — replacing LiveRamp for self-service onboarding. Unlike LiveRamp, your audiences are available in hours instead of weeks. And with automated governance tools, your privacy team can trust that every opt-out and data deletion request is honored across your marketplace listings.
Hightouch charges no second revshare fee. Media networks migrating from LiveRamp cut their total marketplace fees roughly in half, recovering revenue on every campaign that runs.
How it works
Imagine a retail media network helping a CPG brand promote a new cereal product. The CPG wants to use the network's audience data as a targeting layer for a national awareness campaign. In Hightouch, the setup is simple:
1. Curate an audience
A non-technical user at the retail media network builds an audience by prompting an AI agent or using the visual audience builder. Because Hightouch connects directly to the retailer's data warehouse, the user draws on granular purchase data, in-house machine learning models, and consent flags. For example: "convenient breakfast foods buyers in the past 52 weeks, with high purchase propensity, opted in to ad targeting."
2. Onboard the audience to DSP marketplaces
The user creates a sync from Hightouch to The Trade Desk or Yahoo DataX (the Yahoo DSP Collaboration Platform), names the audience, and enables Match Booster to expand its size. Switching the targeting level to “household” extends reach to all people and devices in each member's home.
3. Set access levels and data rates
They set access levels (public or private), grant the CPG partner's ad account permission to use the audience, and define CPM and percentage-of-media rates. They use the same interface to revoke access when the campaign ends.
4. The CPG brand team uses the audience in their own DSP account
The CPG partner logs into their DSP seat, selects the listed audience, and launches the campaign. They monitor performance and make adjustments directly. The media network's CPM fees are included in the campaign cost, which the DSP collects for future payment.
4. The media network views usage in their marketplace account
The media network tracks impressions and revenue through the DSP's reporting tools. Reports update daily. Media sellers flag brands underspending and reach out to proactively drive usage. Finance teams monitor usage across advertisers to forecast revenue.
5. The media network gets paid directly by the DSP
The marketplace collects its standard revshare fee and pays the rest directly to the media network. Hightouch does not collect a secondary revshare fee, even when providing data onboarding services through Match Booster.
The bottom line
Traditional onboarders like LiveRamp take 15% of every self-service dollar you earn on top of the DSPs fees, without providing any additional functionality. With Hightouch, you onboard audiences directly to DSP marketplaces without the secondary fee.
Ready to cut your marketplace fees in half? Book a demo.
