Long-term exclusivity contracts may promise stability, but in an industry defined by rapid change, they leave publishers vulnerable to obsolescence and lost opportunities.
After being buffeted by cookie deprecation, declining search traffic, programmatic devaluation, brand safety blocklists, and various other regulations and platform changes that have made business on the open web more precarious, it’s no wonder publishers are seeking stability. Many ad tech vendors offer shelter to weather-worn media owners by offering ten-year contracts for their services. However, scrutinizing the small print, these partnerships resemble a deal with the devil.
The issue is not the length of the contracts but the exclusivity they demand, forbidding publishers from inking partnerships with other partners. Ten years is forever in digital advertising, during which companies can rise and fall, consumer behaviors can transform, and disruptive technologies can redefine the ecosystem. Locking in with a single vendor for an entire decade makes publishers significantly less nimble and adaptable in a market where such qualities are essential for survival.
It is no coincidence that we are currently seeing a resurgence of this practice. Many publishers are in a period of acute financial vulnerability, making them ripe for exploitation. Unscrupulous ad tech companies have leveraged these hardships to lock publishers into restrictive 10, 15, or even 20-year contracts.
Often, ad tech companies sweeten these agreements with upfront revenue advances or enticing short-term benefits, but they fail to offer long-term safeguards against evolving technological and market dynamics. This imbalance exposes publishers to the inability to pivot as advancements in AI, programmatic optimization, or monetization models reshape digital advertising.
The Tech Graveyard Is a Cautionary Tale Against Exclusivity
Digital advertising has always been a volatile place to do business. From the rise of programmatic advertising to privacy regulations like GDPR, each major change caused ripple effects that shook up how publishers and advertisers operate. Committing to a single vendor for a decade means gambling on stability in an inherently unstable market.
Consider the cautionary tale of ad network Rocket Fuel. Today, it’s a name few remember, but the industry once hailed it as a groundbreaking ad tech company for its early investment in artificial intelligence and automation. Despite a headstart in technologies that have since exploded, Rocket Fuel spiraled into a slow decline after a failed IPO, serious data privacy concerns, and extortionate margins lost the company all its luster.
Then there’s Turn, one of the first DSPs. Turn was a pioneer in its field, but after alienating its agency partners and pursuing a misguided pivot to a SaaS model, its popularity plummeted until bigger fish unceremoniously swallowed it up in the market. Anyone locked in with Turn would have had no choice but to wait for the ship to fully sink before disembarking.
On a broader level, Yahoo and Altavista’s tragic trajectories teach us that core pillars of the online world can come crumbling down. During their heyday — and before the colloquial verb for searching on the internet became “Google” — Yahoo and Altavista were digital powerhouses and key avenues for content discovery for early digital publishers.
It’s been so long since a major platform collapse that the current roster seems too big to fail. Still, sudden technological advancements can upend the balance of power, as we are seeing today with a host of serious AI competitors vying for Google’s dominance to be the new front page of the internet.
Exclusivity Clauses Are One Red Flag After Another
Exclusivity clauses are particularly dangerous because they rob publishers of the freedom to adapt to market changes.
Ten years ago, programmatic advertising was still proving its worth in a trading environment dominated by insertion-order buys. Today, programmatic trading has not only grown but grown too big for its own good, leading to widespread efforts to optimize its bloated supply chain — effectively flipping the priorities of the media ecosystem. The breakneck pace of technological change means sticking to a strategy from just a year ago is a risky move, let alone ten.
Beyond advertising, exclusive contracts hinder publishers’ ability to diversify monetization strategies. In response to falling open programmatic revenues, today’s most successful publishers have diversified their revenue streams with subscription models, first-party data activation, and contextual advertising. Discovering the right balance requires experimentation and the ability to fail fast, neither of which can happen if tech vendors restrict a publisher with strict contracts.
Instead of locking into rigid, long-term agreements, publishers should seek partnerships prioritizing mutual growth and flexibility. Consider performance-based contracts, which bind the deal to specific KPIs, ensuring that the publisher can escape if the vendor fails to deliver as promised, incentivizing greater alignment between both parties’ interests.
Flexible partnerships also allow publishers to enjoy the fruits of a competitive market. By collaborating with multiple vendors, publishers can leverage a variety of tools and supply paths to optimize performance and reach their audience more effectively at scale while shifting ad tech budget allocations towards the best performers.
While long-term exclusivity contracts are worthy of criticism, it’s also worth considering the challenges posed by short-term partnerships. These agreements may not provide publishers and ad tech vendors sufficient time to optimize collaboration, gather meaningful data, and refine strategies.
Medium-term contracts of two to three years are the sweet spot, allowing partnerships to mature while maintaining flexibility. Incorporating exit clauses tied to specific performance triggers—technological or commercial—ensures publishers can safeguard themselves against inefficiency without prematurely ending potentially fruitful relationships.
In the Media Industry, It’s Adapt or Die
Flexibility is crucial now when advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning provide generational leaps in personalized and predictive advertising, particularly in the contextual space. AI is separating the haves from the have-nots in ad tech, and no publisher wants to find itself stuck with the latter.
Digital advertising may not have the same core priorities in ten years as it does today. Consider how rapidly carbon measurement and optimization have become a core KPI for many brands and agencies as they reckon with the emissions generated by their campaigns. The industry is increasingly filtering Carbon-intensive supply out of media selection, which is bad news if you’re a publisher stuck in a contract with a partner boasting an enormous carbon footprint.
The promise of stability in the turbulent digital media industry is understandable, but ten-year exclusivity contracts with ad tech vendors are fraught with risk. The past decade has been host to once-great innovators that spiraled into obsolescence, so don’t let tomorrow’s failures drag you down with them.
In 2015, Snapchat looked like a serious competitor to Meta, desktop display ads dominated digital spend, and web publishers chased virality to ape Buzzfeed’s seemingly unstoppable growth. I’m not bold enough to predict what the media landscape will look like ten years from now but—given how much has changed over the past decade—I’m willing to bet that any deal inked today will be as out of date as doing your company’s first Ice Bucket Challenge in 2025.