Platform Updates: New Viant Deals Marketplace Improves Advertiser CTV Value

October 19, 2026 in Blog

Platform Updates is a new Viant Blog series exploring how the products and capabilities within the Viant Advertising Platform help marketers navigate their media with greater intelligence, transparency, and control to achieve stronger outcomes.

Key Takeaways: Deals Marketplace Puts More Value Behind Every CTV Dollar

Discover Premium Inventory: Browse ready-to-activate deal collections and search available CTV (Connected TV) opportunities in one place.
Skip the Markups: Deals are powered by Direct Access, which connects directly into premium publisher ad servers and cuts out unnecessary reseller or SSP (Supply Side Platform) hops and markups. Marketplace Deals averaged 22% lower CPMs than comparable Client Deals purchased through SSPs.*
Activate with Exclusive Intelligence Signals: Marketplace Deals leverages Household ID, IRIS Content ID and TVision attention signals to reach the right households in more valuable viewing environments.
Buy With Confidence: Review the publisher, Deal ID, channel, pricing, supply path, scale and supporting documentation before activation.

It’s the week before launch, and a media buyer is still chasing answers on a premium CTV campaign. She knows the quality, brand-safe, scalable inventory she wants exists. But finding it means piecing together fragments from disconnected sources, and understanding what a deal actually includes means waiting on back-and-forth with sales teams. Somewhere between her budget and the publisher’s ad server, layers of intermediary fees take their cut: fees she can’t see and can’t explain to her client.

By launch day, she finds herself asking, “Is what I’m getting worth what I’m paying?”

As spend moved from linear TV to Connected TV, advertisers gained digital precision and measurability. But more publishers, more signals and more intermediaries also mean more places for cost and complexity to hide. Every unnecessary hop in the supply path is money that never reaches working media.

That’s the problem Marketplace Deals was built to solve.

The Marketplace is a centralized destination inside the Viant Advertising Platform where advertisers can discover, evaluate and activate premium, pre-negotiated CTV inventory. Its purpose is simple: maximize the impact and value of every CTV dollar through lower costs, better addressability, higher-quality impressions, and easier execution.

Cut the Reseller Markup, Keep the Value

Every unnecessary hop in the supply path is money that never reaches working media. Marketplace Deals plugs into premium publisher supply via Direct Access, which cuts out unnecessary intermediary hops and reduces SSP deal markups so more budget reaches working media.

In an analysis of all deal types running on Viant, Marketplace Deals delivered average CPMs 22% lower than comparable Client Deals bought through SSPs.* That means more budget for advertisers to put toward extended reach, more frequency or the channels driving the most demand.

Smarter Signals Lead to Stronger Impressions

A lower CPM is only valuable when it buys the right impressions. Once a Marketplace Deal is live, Viant’s proprietary intelligence helps you make the most of that inventory:

Viant Household ID supports precise household-level targeting.
IRIS Content ID provides insight into the surrounding content environment.
TVision attention signals help identify viewing moments where audiences are more likely to be present and engaged.

Together, these signals ensure budget is invested in the viewing environments most likely to drive results.

Skip the Back-and-Forth

Since CTV commands premium CPMs, buyers need real confidence in exactly what they’re activating. The Marketplace is built to provide that transparency without the back-and-forth with sales teams or publishers.

Getting started is simple. Open Marketplace Deals in the left-hand navigation bar of the Viant Platform:

Discover tab: browse featured Marketplace Deals.
All Inventory tab: search, filter, sort or review deals in a list-based view.

Buyers can search and filter by channel, deal label or sensitive category, then open any deal to see its full profile: bid price or range, plus details on inventory, media, locations, devices and demographics. This makes it easier to compare opportunities, explain media decisions internally and identify the deals with the strongest combination of quality, scale and value.

Deal labels flag inventory for specific needs, from live to seasonal to in-language to cost-effective. A few examples include:

Live Sports Power Bundle: Premium live sports programming across major publishers.
College Football: Regular-season and postseason game coverage.
AMC Halloween FearFest: Seasonal Halloween programming and related horror content.
TVision High-Attention Inventory: High-engagement viewing moments from TVision using real human presence and eyes-on-screen signals across IRIS-enabled CTV inventory.

Advertisers can benefit by the flexibility of picking which deal type fits:

Marketplace Deals are featured inventory bundles built for broader activation, providing a fast and transparent starting point for advertisers who want quality inventory without a lengthy setup process.
Custom Deals are bespoke deals built around the specific requirements of an individual advertiser or campaign when a more tailored solution is needed.

Advertisers can start with Marketplace Deals and work with their Viant team to develop Custom Deals as campaign needs become more specific. In addition to Marketplace and Custom Deals, Viant Direct Access supports PG and PMP transactions, giving advertisers greater buying flexibility on the same direct supply path.

More Value From Every CTV Opportunity

With the Deals Marketplace, advertisers pay less to reach premium inventory and see exactly what they’re buying before activating. That’s how more of the budget ends up on screen, where it belongs.

Ready to see it in action? Log in to the Viant DSP, select “Marketplace Deals” from the left-hand navigation bar and open the Discover tab, or reach out to your Viant account team for a walkthrough of the Marketplace Deals available for your next campaign.

*Average CPMs for Marketplace Deals were 22% lower than comparable client deals purchased through SSPs, based on Viant’s analysis of CTV deals executed on the Viant Platform over a one-month period. Volume of impressions, inventory availability, audience, and other campaign terms may vary between Marketplace and client deals, and impact details such as average CPM.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a cookieless DSP?

A cookieless DSP is a programmatic advertising platform that identifies and reaches audiences using durable, privacy-first identifiers rather than third-party cookies.

Instead of relying on fragile browser tracking, these platforms leverage advanced solutions like Household ID™ to maintain scale and precision. This approach ensures that digital campaigns remain effective and measurable regardless of evolving browser restrictions or privacy regulations.

How does programmatic advertising work without cookies?

Programmatic advertising functions without cookies by activating first-party data through identity resolution frameworks like Unified ID 2.0 and the Household ID. Marketers also utilize contextual targeting to align ads with real-time content and prioritize natively cookieless channels such as CTV and DOOH. These methods allow for high-impact reach and frequency management without the need for invasive user-level tracking.

What is the difference between a DSP and a cookieless DSP?

Traditional DSPs rely on syncing third-party cookies across exchanges to build audience profiles, a process that is increasingly fragmented and unreliable. A cookieless DSP uses people-based identity, first-party data, and privacy-safe signals to reach consumers across all devices.

Viant DSP was purpose-built to be cookieless from the ground up, ensuring it never relied on the legacy infrastructure of third-party cookies.

What targeting options are available in a cookieless environment?

Marketers in a cookieless environment can utilize a robust suite of options including contextual targeting, first-party data onboarding, and household-level identity resolution.

Furthermore, interoperability with alternative ID frameworks like Unified ID 2.0 allows brands to maintain significant scale across the open web. These diverse tactics provide a durable, privacy-forward alternative to outdated cookie-based audience segments.

How is campaign performance measured in a cookieless world?

In a cookieless world, campaign measurement is achieved through modern attribution models such as incrementality testing, Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM), and secure data clean rooms.

The Household ID serves as a critical cross-device attribution layer, linking high-impact exposures on CTV to conversions on other digital devices within the home. This transition allows advertisers to prove ROI and optimize spend without relying on fragmented, cookie-based signals.