The New York Times' Clean Stack Doctrine: Every Partner Has To Earn Its Place

Most publishers add supply-side partners like insurance, on the theory that more demand partners mean more competition for every impression, but The New York Times runs the opposite play, says Courtney Glaze, vice president of revenue operations, on this week's AdExchanger Talks. "We're really looking for partners rather than incremental transactions," she says. "It's not demand for demand's sake." The Times pulled open programmatic from its mobile app in 2019 over load-time and reader-experience concerns, then brought it back in 2024 on controlled terms; when Glaze joined from Vox Media shortly after, the Times was working with a short list of demand partners with limited access to a portfolio that now spans Cooking, Games, Wirecutter, The Athletic and more than 40 podcasts. The list has grown only selectively, including an agreement this year to use Magnite as its preferred supply-side platform for in-app private marketplace deals. "We are evaluating if tools and demand are duplicative or incremental," Glaze says, "if they integrate cleanly with the rest of our stack and whether the value justifies the tax" - meaning both the cost and the operational burden. Crucially, the Times measures return on investment against more than ad yield: subscriber acquisition, lifetime value and audience development all factor in, which is why it is deliberate about when open market demand makes sense and when direct or a private marketplace serves the business better.

The crux

The Times is arguing that in a cookieless, AI-intermediated market the scarce asset is a clean, high-trust supply path, and that diluting it across interchangeable partners destroys more value than the incremental demand adds.

Sell-side read

If you cannot yet quantify the operational tax of each SSP or demand partner, start there: the framework the Times uses (duplicative versus incremental, integration cost, yield versus lifetime value) is a board-ready way to justify cutting the long tail of your own stack.

Watch

whether Magnite's preferred-SSP position at the Times stays narrow (in-app PMP only) or widens into the rest of the portfolio over the next two quarters, which would signal a real consolidation trend rather than a one-off.