Index Exchange vs Multilocal

Intelligence, Meet Impression: What Sell-Side Decisioning Means for Programmatic Advertising

New blog post from Index Exchange discussing sell-side decisioning in programmatic advertising, published Oct 23, 2026.

Ad industry tallies early losses from Apple Safari tracking block

Apple's latest Safari update has blocked tracking technologies used by major ad tech vendors, causing early revenue losses for publishers. Aditude reported a 10.5% drop in eCPMs among updated users, with Safari accounting for 11.7% of ad impressions and 11.4% of ad revenue for its clients. The impact is currently limited as only 8% of users have updated, but fears grow ahead of Q4. Some publishers with subscription models are less affected, while others worry about dependencies on blocked vendors. Apple's lack of communication and perceived favoritism towards its own ad network have drawn criticism. Index Exchange remains unaffected but calls the move an overreach. The Trade Desk's ad server was blocked but temporarily restored in a test version after a bug report.

• Apple's Safari update blocked tracking technologies used by major ad tech companies.
• Aditude reported eCPMs fell 10.5% among users with the update, impacting publishers' revenue.
• Safari accounts for 11.7% of ad impressions and 11.4% of ad revenue for Aditude's clients.

Index Exchange CEO: Sell-Side Innovation, CTV Transparency, AI Agents

In an interview with ADZINE, Andrew Casale, CEO of Index Exchange, discusses the evolution of programmatic advertising. He argues that sell-side innovation, including modeling and containerization, is increasing complexity but also value. Buyers can now run their own models on the sell-side, democratizing decision-making. Casale addresses the black box concern, noting that while the internal logic of buyer models is opaque, the platform observes their actions. He highlights the shift towards modular infrastructure, with Index enabling data providers and DSPs to run modules on its cloud. Regarding CTV, Casale emphasizes the need for more transparency, noting that while genre data is increasingly available, show and episode data remain limited due to legal and distribution issues. He discusses the evolution of pod serving and the role of agentic advertising, distinguishing between workflow automation and impression-level decisioning, which remains the domain of mathematical models. Casale sees AI agents as useful for automating manual tasks but not as a revolution that will shift power from walled gardens.

• Andrew Casale, CEO of Index Exchange, discussed sell-side innovation, CTV transparency, and AI agents in an interview.
• Index Exchange processes around 20 million requests per second.
• Most of Index Exchange's CTV supply includes genre data; show and episode data are often kept for direct deals.

Sovrn Partners with Multilocal to Scale Curation

Sovrn, a publisher technology and data company, and Multilocal, a curation intelligence firm, announced a partnership to scale curation across the Sovrn Ad Exchange. Multilocal's proprietary engine, cureon®, will support planning, activation, and optimization of private marketplace (PMP) deals on Sovrn's exchange. The collaboration combines Sovrn's supply, data, and commerce signals with Multilocal's curation intelligence. Sovrn reaches over 500 million consumers daily and has commerce data from over 50,000 retailers. This partnership aims to create more relevant and effective opportunities for buyers by translating data and supply into curated deals. Executives from both companies emphasized the importance of curation intelligence in programmatic advertising, moving beyond deal creation to continuous optimization.

• Sovrn and Multilocal announced a partnership to scale curation across the Sovrn Ad Exchange.
• Multilocal's curation intelligence engine, cureon®, will support PMP deal planning, activation, and optimization.
• Sovrn reaches over 500 million consumers daily across websites, mobile apps, and CTV.