When programmatic ad trading entered the marketplace in the form of real-time buying from open online ad networks, many publishers feared it would devalue their inventory.

But, slowly, publishers have begun to exert controls to keep pricing higher than that. Now rates could rise higher again, one exec says.

“Publishers put their inventory in too quickly and didn’t manage that inventory – we started off in a low-rate environment,” programmatic VP Meredith Chip Schenck tells Beet.TV in this video interview. “That stigma has stuck.”

Since then, so-called private programmatic marketplaces, which ringfence inventory sources in to premium clusters, have done much to ease publishers’ concerns.

“There should not be a rate difference,” Schenck says. “We foresee a time when programmatic premium buying should actually be more expensive than standard direct buying for run-of-network or run-of-site media.”

Meredith is now making more revenue from premium programmatic than from open programmatic, and Schenck thinks there are more potential ways than even private marketplaces in which publishers can wring premium value from programmatic trading.

This video part of a series about the state of programmatic advertising sponsored by OpenX.  Please find other videos from the series here.