Another year. Another reflection. Another LinkedIn post we all swear we hate - until it’s our turn. 2025 was the year @curate found its stride: a sharper identity, a stronger platform, deeper partnerships, and a herd that believes curation should actually work.

Out of work but not out of value. Anne replies to a veteran of adland navigating what’s next, and introduces a new path forward.

A trillion-dollar industry can’t agree on what “transparency” means, or who it’s for. This piece explores why neutrality has been missing from adtech, and how an agnostic curation layer like Aardvark finally puts every participant on the same page.

@curate has rolled out three major updates to Aardvark — Global Rate Cards, Automated Billing, and a new Fractional Worker option — all designed to return clarity, control, and fairness to media buying. These upgrades streamline planning, simplify finance workflows, and open a new entrepreneurial path for independent operators.

The adtech industry’s biggest secret? Its complexity is entirely self-made. Hidden fees, opaque reporting, and tangled supply paths have long served to protect high margins, not buyers. @curate is changing that. With a platform that collapses 47 confusing steps into just three, we’re replacing black boxes with transparency and simplicity. No hidden fees. No mystery layers. Just full visibility and control. Our mantra says it all: “Your complexity is a tax. Our simplicity is

The market may be turbulent, but this isn’t the end of your story; it’s the pivot. You’ve got the network, the trust, and the judgment; now you need a vehicle that lets you monetise them on your terms. With @curate’s Aardvark, seasoned execs can launch a boutique, transparent media practice with zero setup costs, fixed pricing, and auditable reporting from day one. Trade corporate uncertainty for independence, and turn relationships into revenue.

Halloween may be spooky, but for some of us, it’s just… annoying. If the thought of doorbells, decorative gourds, and sugar-fuelled chaos makes your skin crawl, Rhys Denny’s survival guide is for you. Three tips. Zero trick-or-treaters. Maximum peace and quiet.

A planner writes to Anne, our resident pub-loving agony aunt, asking if fixed CPMs and Time-as-a-Service are really worth it. Anne pulls no punches, just transparency, fewer emails, and more time for a Hobnob.

@curate’s “Build Your Own Marketplace” shows how to take control, combining transparency, scale, and efficiency in one flexible ‘meta-SSP’. Forget the open exchange chaos and endless PMPs. Own your pipes, your performance, and your profit. Smarter media buying. No fluff. No BS.

Still confused about what curation actually means? We break it down with a healthy dose of humour, rugby analogies, and zero adtech jargon, finally explaining the art of smarter media buying, once and for all.

Anne, the Agony Aardvark, replies to her first letter from a frustrated publisher.

Welcome to Letters to Anne: Our new initiative where industry folks can submit their programmatic pain points, existential media-buying crises, and general adtech grievances to our in-house agony aunt; Anne the Aardvark.

Today, @curate is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Go Wombat, a Ukrainian-based global software development company

But here’s the thing: while some might find our holiday habits somewhat distasteful - embarrassing even - I’m here to make a case for the British traveller. Remove the politics, ignore the colonial cringe - and let me show you the good side of being from these tiny islands.

You’ve got curated deals from us live in your DSP. But something’s not quite clicking like it did when our eyes first met. Fewer bids. Dodgy delivery. Impressions drying up faster than a suburban British lawn during a six-week rain drought. Let's explore why.

At @curate, we’ve always called out the BS in programmatic. But it doesn’t stop there. We’re now calling out the cultural rot that’s infected too much of this industry for too long.

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

If attention is the new currency in advertising, then time is its most undervalued asset. And if there’s one thing that makes my Welsh blood boil like a pan of Bisto, it’s time wasters.

The annual pilgrimage of adland’s finest is nearing, as the usual suspects prepare to descend on the Croisette in M&S linen shirts and some truly criminal boat shoes. With just two weeks to go, I’ve been thinking about how to prepare for Cannes so that when this Welsh dragon lands on the Riviera, I’m fully armed for the week ahead.

Something’s been digging beneath the surface of the programmatic ecosystem. And it couldn’t have happened at a better time.