“Publishers are encouraged to integrate more tools or activate more features, but those changes often benefit the vendor more than the publisher.” This is the problem Andrew Morgan is on a mission to fix, with Trade House Media. We sat down with him to discuss the problems publishers face today and how they can be fixed.
What is your background and how did Trade House Media come about?
I started in 2007 at Target in Windsor as a trafficer, then spent time at Dart before its acquisition by Microsoft, followed by agency roles. Later, I co-founded Video Natives with partners who had similar experience across the supply chain.
That collective background shaped our thinking. We had all seen technology businesses built in isolation, often by people without publishing experience, creating solutions and then working backwards to find problems. In 2017, alongside Richard Cook and Antoine Pilate, we founded Trade House Media with a different perspective, having been publishers ourselves.
We had owned and operated sites, so we understood the challenges first-hand. That ultimately led to acquiring an ad server business in 2022, which now underpins our unified platform, Tradecore.
What do you mean by the “franken stack” that many publishers operate today?
Most publishers are running a patchwork of third-party vendors, often held together with Google Ad Manager at the centre. These systems rarely communicate effectively, creating inefficiencies and limiting visibility.
Each vendor promises incremental gains, but over time the stack becomes overly complex. Publishers are left managing multiple contracts, logins and data sources, without a clear view of performance.
The result is that publishers risk becoming commoditised within the supply chain, rather than remaining in control of their own value.
Why has the industry ended up in this position?
A key factor is how many ad ech companies are structured. They are often venture-backed and built by people without publishing experience, which creates a misalignment with publisher needs.
Even when intentions are good, incentives tend to favour the platform. Publishers are encouraged to integrate more tools or activate more features, but those changes often benefit the vendor more than the publisher.
Over time, publishers have followed this advice, but many would say they are not better off than they were a decade ago.
How does Trade House Media approach this differently?
Our focus is on simplification and alignment. We bring together ad serving, analytics, inventory management and auction optimisation into a single platform with one interface and one contract.
Publishers can integrate their existing demand partners, as we are demand agnostic, and manage everything in one place. That removes the need for multiple systems and reduces operational complexity.
The key benefit is clarity. When everything sits within one environment, publishers can properly understand performance and optimise accordingly.
What types of clients are you working with today?
We typically see three main use cases. The first is what we call accidental media owners, businesses with large audiences but where advertising is not the core focus. For example, companies offering services like webmail can generate meaningful revenue without it being their primary business.
The second is enterprise publishers, particularly those with multiple teams and regions. These organisations often have complex setups and benefit from consolidating their technology stack into a single platform.
The third group is smaller or independent publishers who may previously have relied on solutions like AdSense. For them, it is about unlocking more value from their inventory.
Publishers are often seen as slow to change. What is your experience of that?
Change is slow, typically with a sales cycle of 12 to 18 months. Large publishers have budget constraints, resource limitations and legacy systems, which all create friction.
However, once we are integrated, even on a small subset of sites, we can demonstrate performance improvements. That proof point often leads to wider adoption.
We also remove operational barriers. Changes can be made through a user interface rather than relying on developer resource, which frees up teams to focus on growth.
What opportunity do you see with so-called accidental media owners?
It is a significant opportunity. These businesses often do not have in-house expertise in advertising, and monetisation is not a priority.
When we engage with them, there is an education piece, but the appeal is clear. It is net new revenue, which is attractive from a finance perspective, especially as it does not require major structural change.
Because they are not entrenched in traditional ad tech workflows, they can often move faster than established publishers.
How are you approaching AI within the platform?
We are taking a measured approach. Rather than rushing to market, we have focused on practical applications that deliver real value.
For example, we are using AI for price floor optimisation and bidder performance analysis, tasks that would be extremely time-consuming for humans, especially across multiple sites and geographies.
We are also exploring natural language querying, allowing users to ask simple questions like how much revenue was generated yesterday.
What are your priorities for the year ahead?
AI and CTV are key focus areas, alongside expansion into the US. We are also targeting larger publishers and broadcasters, where the impact of consolidation is most significant.
At the same time, we remain a boutique business. We are not looking to scale to thousands of publishers, but instead to work closely with a smaller number where we can make a meaningful difference.
Who do you see as your main competitors?
Companies like Assertive Yield and newer platforms entering the space are the closest comparisons. There is a broader trend towards consolidation, which reflects the industry recognising that the current fragmented model is unsustainable.
However, our positioning is slightly different. We offer a full platform, including ad serving, and focus on close relationships with publishers rather than scale.
What is your outlook for publishers and the wider adtech ecosystem?
There has been a long period where publishers have been on the back foot, adapting to advertiser demands and increasingly complex technology.
What is encouraging now is a shift towards rebalancing that dynamic. Publishers are starting to push back and recognise their value within the ecosystem.
Ultimately, there is no advertising without publishers. The future lies in giving them the tools and control to operate more effectively, rather than adding further layers of complexity.
