Ciaran O'Kane picks up his pen to sketch out a new three letter acronym for the industry: PSV. Meet the Proprietary Signal Vendors...

Last year ExchangeWire coined a new industry TLA: SSA (Super Signal Aggregator). Essentially an SSA is an aggregator of signals (brand safety, contextual, etc). It also includes activation and measurement capabilities - a full data stack for brands and agencies. But these SSAs invariably lack specific signals sought after by buyers. In most cases specialists dominate. We are calling them PSVs (Proprietary Signal Vendors). Areas like attention, quality and sustainability are being used across the industry. 

They have a few dominant players - or one standout vendor dominating. It's a vibrant category.  We even have a panel at ATS London on Sept 15, featuring Lumen, Picnic and The Goodnet, in detail.

Often dismissed as vanity, tick boxing metrics, the PSVs have evolved into performance focused signals - sustainability being the obvious example. Sustainability is emerging (from the trough of ad tech disillusionment) as a key signal in this burgeoning category. The Goodnet in particular has carved out an outcomes based business. And brands realise that if you target people who really care, you get results. I

In this special MadTech Sketch we track the PSV evolution from vanity metric to performant signal.