Audience Town

Index Exchange Unveils Transparent Data Marketplace for Curators

Index Exchange announced the Data Vendor Ecosystem, a data marketplace designed to support sell-side deal curation by enabling curators to select third-party data sources and activate them in deal IDs across any DSP. The offering complements Index Marketplaces' existing curation and leverages partnerships with Experian, Audigent and others to provide data from multiple brokers and publishers. Notably, Index does not take data- or curation-fees; instead it shares only its standard media-revenue split with publishers, while allowing curators and buyers to access data on a transparent, off-the-shelf basis. The marketplace aggregates data sources such as Experian’s consumer data and Audigent’s Hadron ID, with a broader roster including Attain, Audience Town, DoubleVerify, Dstillery, IRIS.TV, LiveRamp Data Marketplace, Lumen, Proximic by Comscore, Samba TV and The Weather Company. The platform emphasizes speed, scale, and transparency in sell-side decisioning.

The Future Of Ad Tech Will Be A Return To Vertical

AdExchanger columnist Ed Carey argues that the future of ad tech will return to industry verticals. Historically, vertical networks dominated the space from 2001 to 2010, focusing on sectors such as travel, finance, auto, and premium publisher inventory. Around 2010, real-time bidding and programmatic buying favored horizontal platforms serving broad consumer brands, with consolidation led by Google and Facebook. Carey contends that to grow and compete with digital giants, innovation must shift back to verticals that possess deep industry knowledge and speak the language of their clients. Vertical ad tech emphasizes endemic offline data and industry-specific pricing, built on top of horizontal infrastructure. Major horizontals increasingly partner with verticals via APIs and integrations to unlock new revenue streams. The piece notes neglected industries—real estate, healthcare, education, cannabis, and direct-to-consumer—as opportunities for vertical specialists. The future is vertical again.