CANNES, France — So-called “programmatic” techniques for controlling and automating online ad trading came in to this world in low-quality ad inventory. But now even top-tier publishers are becoming happy to sell their ads in this way.

“Three years ago, they would have never worked with a SpotXchange – today they are,” says the ad tech company CEO Mike Shehan. “The whole ecosystem is finally getting up to speed on this issue.

“It’s good for publishers to be able to sell their own inventory – they’re going to get higher prices than they would in the overall marketplace.

“‘Programmatic direct’ is going to be an even faster segment for us. When you look at our revenue, 70% is from programmatic; 20% of that is programmatic direct – it was zero last year.”

SpotXchange also this week announced it will use DoubleVerify’s technology to combat ad fraud.

Shehan spoke with Beet.TV during a rooftop event on programmatic advertising  during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.   The event and our coverage were sponsored by SpotXchange and TubeMogul.  You can find more coverage from the event here.