Self-Serve Ad Platform
Direct deal CPMs run 10-20x open exchange. Most publishers can not access that rate because the process is too manual.
We build the advertiser portal, deal automation, audience builder, and billing layer that turns your direct sales operation from a manual bottleneck into a revenue channel that scales.
The bottleneck
Manual direct sales kills the rate
Direct-sold inventory is the highest-CPM channel most publishers have. But the process to close a direct deal at most publishers looks like this: advertiser emails, sales rep replies, spreadsheet goes back and forth, legal touches the IO, someone manually traffics the campaign. Three weeks minimum. Sometimes longer.
That process caps how many deals you can close. Your sales team spends half their time on admin work that a platform should handle. Advertisers who want to buy self-serve go elsewhere because there is no portal.
The revenue is already there. The audience, the inventory, the advertiser relationships. What is missing is the platform that lets buyers transact without going through a three-week email chain.
What we build
Full advertiser portal, publisher-owned
Not a SaaS seat. Not a white-label product with a rev-share attached. We build the platform from scratch, scoped to your inventory structure, your deal types, and your audience data. You own the source code. No ongoing platform fees.
Advertiser-facing portal
Buyers browse your inventory, filter by audience, placement, and format, and see real pricing — without emailing your sales team first. First impression matters. This is where buyers decide whether to come back.
Custom audience builder
First-party, second-party, and third-party audience segments available for targeting directly inside the platform. Advertisers build their own segments from your data. You keep full data ownership.
Self-serve IO signing and billing
Insertion orders generated, signed, and filed without a sales rep in the loop. Billing tied directly to delivery data. No spreadsheets, no manual reconciliation at end of month.
Campaign management and tracking
Buyers manage their own campaigns after launch: check pacing, review creative, see delivery against commitment. Fewer support tickets. Sales team handles new business, not babysitting live campaigns.
Direct deal automation
Deal workflows that handle the back-and-forth automatically: pricing negotiation, approval routing, contract generation. What used to take three weeks of email chains now takes a day.
Business outcomes
What publishers see after launch
10-20x
Direct CPM vs open exchange
Direct-sold inventory consistently runs 10-20x the CPM of open programmatic. The self-serve platform is what makes that rate accessible at scale without the manual ops bottleneck.
40%+
Revenue shifted to direct channel
Publishers with a self-serve ad platform and deal automation in place can shift 40%+ of total ad revenue to direct channels, reducing dependency on open exchange.
25%+
Above year-1 revenue projections
The self-serve ad platform we built for a Fortune 50 media company delivered 25% above target revenue in year one and drove 30% higher advertiser renewal rates.
3-week
Email chain replaced by same-day deal close
Manual direct sales runs on spreadsheets and email chains. Deal automation cuts the sales cycle from weeks to hours for standard deal types.
Who this is for
Publishers doing direct sales, or wanting to start
Small publishers
$500K-$5M ad revenue
Building a first direct sales channel. The self-serve platform makes it possible to take on direct advertisers without hiring a full sales operations team.
Medium publishers
$5M-$25M ad revenue
Direct sales team already exists but the process is manual. Platform replaces the email and spreadsheet workflow and lets the team close more deals with same headcount.
Large publishers
$25M-$100M ad revenue
Multiple deal types, complex audience targeting, high deal volume. Platform handles the complexity, gives advertisers self-service access to premium inventory, and keeps the ops team out of routine transactions.
Case study
Self-Serve Ad Platform for Disney+
“The self-serve flow made premium inventory easier to buy, reduced sales hand-holding, and the channel was delivering 25% more revenue than expected within the first year.”
Director of Ad Product, Alex S. — Disney+
Start here
Stop leaving direct deal revenue on the table.
We scope the platform to your deal types, audience data, and inventory structure. Build starts once the scope is locked. You own everything that ships. No rev-share, no lock-in.