Premium Inventory: Overrated, Misunderstood, or Just Misused?

The media industry has an obsession with premium inventory—even when performance isn’t there. It’s not just advertisers; sales teams push it too.

Want to sell Sky inventory? Go work for Sky. That’s not what programmatic is best used for.

I once helped out on a campaign for a German client that wasn’t my own. The targeting didn’t make sense—it was for B2B solar panels, yet the campaign was set up to only run across three PMPs. The results? Predictably poor. But the response from the salesperson? “It needs to work because it was sold like this.”

Yeah, and I need GTA 6 to come out yesterday—but that’s not how reality works.

You always need Plans A through E at the bare minimum. If one plan doesn’t work and you’ve got no backup, you look foolish.

This is why The Trade Desk’s stock drop has sparked so much industry discussion. Some believe it’s down to walled gardens like Google and Amazon DSPs tightening their grip on exclusive inventory. But the bigger issue? People keep trying to bend programmatic into something it’s not meant to be.

Instead of forcing inventory choices that don’t align with the brand or campaign objectives, embrace what programmatic does best: data-driven strategies and real-time optimisations. That’s where the real value lies.

What even is premium inventory?

It can be subjective. Is it based on high web traffic? Being classed as a ‘high-end’ website?

Personally, I consider LadBible to be premium inventory purely due to the sheer number of eyeballs it attracts. But not everyone sees it that way. In reality, premium is brand-dependent—what works for one advertiser might not make sense for another.

Forcing the idea of ‘premium’ without considering performance and fit is what holds back so many campaigns.