At launch, private marketplace deals will be available with single or multiple publishers.

Through Backstage, Yahoo can benefit from its sell-side relationships more efficiently, without the costs and uncertainties of running an SSP business.

“It’s a different business model,” said Ari Paparo, CEO of Marketecture Media. “It’s much less tech and much less responsibility.”

Lifting all boats?

Theoretically, programs like Backstage and OpenPath benefit both publishers and buyers. By removing the SSP fee from the equation, the publisher makes more money and the advertisers’ ad dollars are spent more efficiently.

Yahoo says buyers are not charged an additional fee to use Backstage inventory, and publishers are still free to set their own prices.

Don Marti, vp of ecosystem innovation at publisher network Raptive, said that programs like OpenPath, which give publishers direct access to buyers, show promise.

“Publishers need to be able to capture more of the value for the content they create,” he said.

Ad-tech firms like Yahoo have been careful to frame the new connections they’re providing as helping the market, and not bumping against new competitors. But some in the industry are skeptical of the waning distinction between SSPs and DSPs.

Index Exchange’s CEO Andrew Casale wrote an open letter addressed to SSPs in April reaffirming the SSP’s commitment on the sell side. In an interview on Marketecture TV last week, CEO of DSP Viant Tim Vanderhook said he thought DSPs should stick to the lane of representing the buy side.

“SSPs want to be DSPs. DSPs want to be SSPs. I personally don’t believe in that,” Vanderhook said, later adding, “If you look at the Google antitrust suit or any of these, anytime someone gets in that position where you’re representing buyer and seller, that conflict of interest proves too much and usually their own profit margins skyrocket.”

And the jury is still out on how much these solutions can scale, as the incentives for tech that represents both the buy side and the sell side are not always aligned.

“[A DSP’s] entire job is to drive prices down … whereas an SSP’s is to get the best possible price,” said a sell-side ad-tech executive who requested anonymity to discuss industry relations. “You can’t please both of those sides at once.”