GroupM, WPP’s media investment group, has launched GroupM Premium Marketplace, which enables a unified approach to buying connected TV, digital video and display in addition to increasing media buying transparency and efficiency for clients.

The platform is powered by the Magnite sell-side platform in North America and PubMatic in EMEA. It will be introduced in additional markets later this year.

The marketplace gives clients direct access to publisher inventory with new standards for performance measurement, reducing opportunities for fraud and inventory misrepresentation in the media supply chain. Initially, the programmatic buys will be handled by the agency but a self-serve option will be created for clients that may want it in future.

Andrew Meaden, GroupM’s global head of investment, says clients will be able to understand where impressions are failing, how much they are paying across the entire purchase, and exactly who is receiving that money.

Meaden says the marketplace was an important initiative for Group M because it has been receiving constant feedback from clients with concerns about costs, brand safety, and transparency when moving to programmatic buying from manual type buys.

The agency has also heard many concerns from publishers about how much they are paid for high-quality inventory.

“We believe this is slowing down the move to programmatic both on the demand and supply side. We launched our marketplace to address this so our clients can benefit from fully programmatic buys, which we believe is the future of how we buy. We have a particular focus on CTV as we see the move from linear TV to streaming and the associated CTV opportunity as the biggest growth area in programmatic over the next few years,” he says.

The GroupM Premium Marketplace also introduces new pricing models designed to better support client businesses. GroupM clients will have the ability to choose all-inclusive, commission-based, or SaaS-based payment opinions depending on their business requirements.