The Price is Right, with Aardvark

Programmatic advertising has a problem.

No, it’s not the late nights propped up outside The Crown and Two Chairman with a glass tint in my eye. No, it’s not the obscenities that take place in Cannes during an Ubercopter ride. And no, it’s not even about murky supply chains or questionable data usage. 

Programmatic has a severe problem with pricing. And potentially a side of gaslighting, depending on how you look at it.

For too long, media buyers have been forced to navigate an ecosystem where the true cost of media is obscured by stacked fees, markups, and middlemen. Revenue-share models, while convenient on the surface, often mean that buyers don’t know where their budget is really going, or how much of it is actually reaching the publisher.

That's why we, team @curate, decided to do something different.

We built Aardvark, and with it, a fixed CPM pricing model designed to bring predictability, simplicity, and - finally - transparency to programmatic buying so that you can see better, and therefore do better.

“Come on Down!” (Bruce Forsyth)

In the traditional revenue-share model, tech partners take a cut of your media spend as their fee. The more you spend, the more they make. Sounds fair…until it isn’t.

Here’s why:

• Fees scale with your budget, not your performance

• Incentives are misaligned, pushing higher-priced inventory means more revenue for them, not necessarily better results for you

• You lose visibility into where your money is really going (tech, media, data… who knows?)

It’s a bit like watching The Price is Right back in the ‘80s. Brucie shouts, “Come on down!” and a nervous contestant joins the stage, only to get stitched up by the spin of the giant wheel. You’re promised prizes, but end up guessing blind.

That’s what it feels like when your budget disappears into a black box of mark-ups and mystery margins. (This is where the gaslighting comes in). 

The result?

• Less working media

• Lower ROAS

• More questions than answers when it comes to spend and strategy.

“Nice to See You, to See You, Nice” (Bruce Forsyth)

We built Aardvark’s pricing model to flip the script. We want you to see everything clearly — because, after all, it is nice to see (you), isn’t it?

With a flat CPM tech fee, buyers get total clarity and full control:

• No hidden markups

• No rising costs as your media budget grows

• No incentive for us to push you toward more expensive inventory

It’s simple, clean, and aligned with your goals — better performance, not just bigger invoices.

Proof in Performance: The £50K Test

Let’s break it down:

Display Campaign Example:

Aardvark’s fixed CPM model delivers 4.8M impressions

Typical rev-share model: 3.2M impressions

→ That’s 48% more impressions and a significantly lower cost per conversion

CTV Campaign Example:

Aardvark drives 1.4M completed video views

Rev-share model delivers 0.78M

→ That’s 60% more completed views, for the same budget

In both scenarios, more of your spend reaches real users, not the black box of middlemen and tech tolls.

“Nice” (Audience)

In today’s landscape, where every pound is under pressure, transparency isn’t a nice-to-have - it’s a strategic advantage.

With Aardvark, you know exactly what you’re paying for, and exactly what you’re getting in return.

Our goal isn’t just to surface better inventory, it’s to surface a better way of doing business.

Aardvark’s fixed CPM pricing model is just one of the ways we’re reshaping programmatic for the better.

No tricks. No markups. Just pure, unfiltered performance. 

Whether this has inspired you to fire up YouTube and watch old episodes of Brucie from the ‘70s, or got you curious about how Aardvark can help -  I’d consider either a win.

For the latter, just drop me a message here.