We spoke with Dino Brdar, Supply Lead at Publicis Groupe Sweden, about how buyer-led curation and marketplace solutions are improving deal management, campaign efficiency, and access to relevant inventory.

Q: Tell us about your role, and how programmatic and supply strategy fits into the wider ‘Power of One’ approach across your agencies?

Dino Brdar: I’m responsible for marketplace solutions in Sweden and Denmark, and support Publicis stakeholders with local supply requests while maintaining dialogue with our publishers. Working across local and global teams helps us take a consistent approach. Our ambition is to use a marketplace solution whenever possible because it can improve deal management and make publisher investment easier to follow.

We began working with Index Marketplaces locally in early 2025. After a soft launch, we started using it actively later that year. Our relationship with Netric helped us get started, as well as the knowledge that Publicis had already used the platform elsewhere.

Q: When we spoke last year, you mentioned curation is a way to optimise campaigns before they reach the DSP. What led you to prioritise curation and solutions like Marketplaces, and how has this approach  impacted campaign quality or efficiency?

DB: Buyer-led curation on the supply side feels like the next logical step for programmatic. DSPs provide strong targeting tools, but they don’t let us optimise inventory before it reaches the platform. Curation filters earlier, so the DSP always receives relevant bid requests. 

Curated deals send fewer requests into the DSP, but bid rates rise because we enter better-matched auctions. In one case, the bid rate increased by 263%. We bought 95% more impressions, while the CPM was 3% lower than when targeting was applied in the DSP. The starting CPM was already low, making the additional relevant inventory especially useful.

The self-service model saves time because we replicate the DSP targeting in the SSP, rather than asking every publisher to reproduce it. We can also more easily activate Publicis Groupe’s own data and technology within a single environment.

Deals can be pushed to a new DSP seat at short notice. The platform also consolidates publisher investment. That’s easier than summarising spend across multiple seats and DSPs, and it gives us a clearer view of where the money is going.

Q: What does the combination of Netric's local Nordic presence and Index Exchange's global technology bring to Publicis Sweden specifically, from a buy-side perspective - and how does that differ from working with a purely local or global SSP?

DB: Local access is valuable to us because the Nordic market isn’t the largest. Regular meetings with Netric and Index Exchange let us discuss developments and challenges. Netric already has local publisher relationships, so we don’t have to create every contact ourselves. Index Exchange brings greater development resources and an established international network. That helps when a Swedish-planned campaign runs elsewhere. We’ve previously run campaigns across several other countries, such as the US and Brazil, where local guidance can simplify execution. The platform is user-friendly for anyone familiar with a DSP, and support from both teams has been strong.

Q: Can you share an example of a specific challenge Netric helped you solve?

DB: One request shows how efficient the Marketplaces setup can be. We needed local inventory for more than 40 partner seats in DV360. Each seat required a display deal, while online video needed separate deals for bumpers and longer formats.

Our publisher deals were already available, so I could combine several within each marketplace deal. Index Exchange also maps many DSP seats in advance, removing the need to send every seat ID for connection. Only a couple of seats appeared to need additional mapping. The traditional route would have required more than 2,500 individual deals and could have taken weeks. Using Marketplaces, I completed it in one day.

Q: What are Publicis Sweden's broader programmatic priorities for the year ahead, and how do you see the Netric/Index Exchange partnership supporting those goals?

DB: We’ve made good progress in establishing marketplace solutions as the natural first approach to deal management, although there’s more work to do. The aim is to create better buying conditions before the DSP starts bidding.

A major priority is using data on the SSP side. We’ve used Index Exchange’s Data Vendor Ecosystem across many campaigns through existing segments, and custom ones have also been sent to our seat. Third-party data can be difficult to activate in some DSPs, whose built-in options don’t always cover campaign needs. Applying data through the SSP provides us another route, as  relevant bid requests can be identified before reaching the DSP.

Ready to make marketplace buying more efficient? Speak with Netric’s team about strengthening your programmatic strategy.