Navigating programmatic challenges: The road to a cleaner ad supply chain

Programmatic advertising has emerged as a transformative force in the digital marketing landscape, offering advertisers and publishers a data-driven approach to target their audiences. Despite the vast benefits, issues have arisen with new tools and platforms springing up all the time. As we approach the second half of 2025, what are the major challenges advertisers face in programmatic advertising, and how can we tackle them? 

Worldwide Business Research 2025 found that complexity is the top challenge for programmatic advertisers, with inventory quality and transparency also significant concerns. Marketing budgets are often siloed across teams with differing processes and metrics, complicating the supply chain. Advertisers frequently struggle to understand where their money goes, given the many intermediaries involved. Meanwhile, ad placement quality can vary significantly; the survey also reflected that only 35% of marketers have control over on-page ad placement, which heavily impacts campaign effectiveness. 

We are witnessing a growing awareness among advertisers and publishers of the problems arising from a convoluted supply chain and an increasing demand to build something better. Indeed, the open internet has provided remarkable advancements over the years—AI-driven solutions, the utilisation of first-party data, and solutions that enable direct connections between advertisers and publishers are fostering a streamlined and cleaner supply chain, helping advertisers improve targeting accuracy and maximise return on investment.  

With the surge in AI applications, AI-driven solutions are gaining traction in programmatic advertising. These tools can significantly reduce ad spend waste through precise targeting and real-time bidding optimisation. By leveraging predictive analytics and behavioural insights, these tools enable advertisers to focus their budgets on high-value audiences and dynamically adjust bids for maximum efficiency.  

Additionally, real-time reporting and actionable insights empower advertisers to make informed decisions and increase conversion rates. That said, some may worry—will AI take over our jobs? AI, however, is best viewed as a co-pilot rather than a replacement. While AI excels at processing data and automation, human expertise remains irreplaceable in providing context, nuance, and judgment—aspects that structured inputs and data alone cannot fully capture. 

To truly harness the power of AI, first-party data must be at the core. It gives marketers direct insights into their own audiences, making it essential for AI-driven applications. Our 2024 study found that three-quarters of marketers in the Asia-Pacific region believe they do not fully understand the value of the customer data they possess. Additionally, a similar proportion of marketers expressed uncertainty about which first-party data is available to them. This highlights the significant untapped potential of first-party data.  

By leveraging first-party data, advertisers can gain insights into their loyal customers’ browsing behaviours, consumption patterns, and purchase habits, enabling them to create more impactful and hyper-personalised customer experiences in a cost-effective manner. Blue Insurance, a Hong Kong insurance company, has utilised first-party data on The Trade Desk’s platform to reach high-potential audiences that match their existing customers, successfully increasing conversions by 146%. This demonstrates the importance of first-party data for advertisers in delivering powerful campaigns. 

The connection between first-party data and solutions such as OpenPath that enable direct connections between advertisers and publishers is essential for supply chain transparency. The principle behind this is to simplify the programmatic advertising process by reducing intermediaries. It enhances efficiency by increasing bid volume for publishers, offering true price discovery through direct visibility into bid data, and streamlining operational workflows. With enhanced bidding power, advertisers can allocate more funds to competitive bids, maximising their return on investment while ensuring that more ad budgets reach publishers, fostering a fairer and healthier ecosystem.  

This call for clearer supply chains signifies an industry-wide shift toward efficiency and value. AI-driven solutions, first-party data insights, and solutions that enable direct connections between advertisers and publishers are all instrumental in minimising supply chain issues, enabling advertisers to navigate complexities more effectively. When the open internet collaborates while maintaining a competitive spirit and continually innovating, we can create a better supply chain and a healthier advertising ecosystem where everyone benefits. 

This article was written by Chris Ngan, general manager, Hong Kong and Taiwan, The Trade Desk.