As digital advertising rapidly evolves, publishers face rising expectations for performance, transparency, and long-term value. From first-party audience activation to header bidding innovation, the ability to monetize inventory at scale increasingly depends on smart infrastructure, quality demand, and AI-powered optimization. In this joint interview, AnyMind Group and Magnite share how they’re helping publishers across Asia unlock greater yield through curated marketplaces, audience targeting, and cutting-edge ad tech. The conversation highlights how both companies are aligned in helping publishers thrive in 2025 and beyond.
An Khanh Vu
Regional Head of Platform Operations, AnyMind Group
Asia is a mobile-first, highly fragmented landscape, which makes operational efficiency just as important as revenue growth. The trend we see is clear: publishers are investing in AI tools and strategies that simplify complexity, centralized tag management, audience connectors, and intelligent reporting so they can focus on strategy rather than manual setup.
Kamanasish Chowdhury
Senior Account Director, Platform Solutions, Asia, Magnite
As a co-founder of Prebid.org, Magnite has been at the forefront of header bidding innovation for many years supporting publishers to implement and optimize header bidding to drive revenue and increase operational efficiency across their businesses. The adoption of header bidding in Asia is accelerating because it delivers what both buyers and sellers want – transparency, efficiency, and stronger performance. Magnite’s Demand Manager is helping bridge that gap across platforms and regions
With increasing pressure to improve ad revenue without compromising user experience, how is AnyMind helping publishers build a more sustainable and scalable monetization strategy?
At AnyMind, we believe sustainability in monetization starts with user experience. That’s why we go beyond ad operations and provide publishers with UI/UX consultation, reviewing site/app design and user journeys to develop ad placement strategies that align with the natural flow of content.
Our proprietary AnyManager Tag Service (ATS) makes it easy for publishers to manage all ad positions through a single script. With ATS, we can quickly run A/B tests on formats and measure the impact on both revenue and user engagement, ensuring that every change drives yield without disrupting user experience.
We’ve also developed flexible solutions for innovative formats such as Rewarded Ads. For example, in long-form articles, we’ve helped publishers introduce a simple “Read More” button at natural breakpoints in the content. When clicked, users see a rewarded ad before continuing. This creates a value exchange that feels like a seamless part of the reading journey, resulting in higher acceptance from users and stronger revenue performance for publishers.
In a fragmented ad ecosystem, how is Magnite enabling publishers to tap into high-quality demand and unlock more value through advanced marketplace and targeting solutions?
Magnite provides publishers with technology and tools to monetise their content across all screens and formats including CTV, online video, display and audio. Our goal is to empower publishers to drive their own success through automation, flexibility, control, and most importantly access to demand from the world’s biggest agencies and brands.
Magnite’s Buyer Marketplace and Auction Packages is one way for publishers to open up to a greater pool of strategic buyers and advertisers, access new budgets, while maintaining control over how inventory is distributed and differentiated.
Magnite is seeing significant growth in our Marketplace and Deals business with agencies and brands looking to access highly curated inventory across premium and contextually relevant environments that align with their campaign goals.
In addition, Magnite Access enables media owners to maximise the value of their data assets with a suite of customisable and interoperable tools. Amid a changing audience and identity landscape, our goal is to empower publishers to unlock the full value of their audiences, while also helping buyers connect with high value target audiences at scale, and with precision in premium environments.
As audience data becomes more valuable, how can publishers in Asia build and activate first-party audiences to increase revenue and stand out in a signal-loss world?
The key for publishers is to start by understanding both their users and advertisers. We encourage publishers to analyze user behavior patterns on their site/app and align these insights with advertiser demand. For example, since many advertisers in Asia prioritize demographic targeting, we help publishers build demographic audience segments inferred from users’ reading behaviors.
Additionally, we’ve built connectors that enable publishers to link GA4 with Google Ad Manager, making GA4 audience segments available directly in GAM for campaign targeting. This allows publishers to create segments based on user engagement or on-site behavior, then activate those audiences seamlessly for direct deals. By bridging behavioral insights with advertiser needs, publishers can strengthen their value proposition to advertisers.
Header bidding continues to evolve. What’s its role in publisher revenue today, and what new innovations can publishers expect from Magnite’s header bidding solutions in 2025?
Magnite Demand Manager helps Prebid publishers unlock real revenue gains—no added ops strain required. Recent upgrades include AI-powered wrapper automation (+5% spend at Ranker), richer Prebid + ad server reporting, and seamless APS/CTV compatibility. Today, 13 of the top 50 Comscore publishers—including BuzzFeed and Disney—rely on Demand Manager, driving +30% YoY spend and accelerating growth across APAC. Three exciting Demand Manager innovations coming soon are: Control Center, Mobile Monetization with Prebid SDK, and Automated Wrapper Management.
4.1. Control Center
- What it solves: Managing and optimizing third-party vendors and identity solutions has traditionally required time-intensive setup, contractual navigation, and manual oversight.
- Publisher benefit: Control Center puts configuration, testing, and management directly in publishers’ hands streamlining how they discover, activate, and optimize third party solutions. With one-tap onboarding, click-to-sign contracting, and Magnite-managed billing, publishers can easily deploy trusted partners across identity, ad injection, price flooring, and more. This automation not only simplifies operations but also helps publishers monetize cookieless environments, increase yield, and scale efficiently across APAC and beyond.
4.2. Mobile Monetization with Prebid SDK
- What it solves: Mobile is the primary way audiences access content in many markets, but managing in-app monetization has traditionally been complex and resource-intensive for publishers.
- Publisher benefit: With the Prebid SDK, publishers can easily onboard and manage their mobile app environments from a single, streamlined UI without the heavy lifting of spinning up Prebid Server. This includes defining bidders, media types, and ad units without heavy developer work. By simplifying setup and reducing maintenance, Demand Manager empowers publishers to capture revenue from in-app inventory more efficiently, a critical advantage in mobile-first regions like Asia.
4.3. Automated Wrapper Management
- What it solves: Configuring wrappers manually across timeouts, bidder selection, and floors is complex and inconsistent, making it hard for publishers to fully optimize header bidding. Automated Wrapper Management streamlines this process by centralizing controls, applying continuous optimization, and simplifying billing
- Publisher benefit: Publishers can improve auction performance without heavy manual setup or maintenance, capturing revenue uplift through smarter optimization of wrapper settings. With updated pricing after Sept 1, 2025, the feature is free to use if lift is under 1 percent, giving publishers a low-risk path to greater efficiency and stronger yield
Looking ahead, how are you using AI to create smarter monetization, whether it’s optimizing yield, building better targeting, or reducing technical complexity for publishers?
For AnyMind, AI is not just about smarter monetization, it’s also about helping publishers run leaner, more efficient operations. Internally, we’ve automated many ad ops workflows, such as ad unit creation and demand setup, reducing manual processes by up to 70%.
On the publisher side, we’re building new AI-driven solutions directly into our AnyManager platform. This includes an AI Analyst that can surface insights automatically, enabling publishers to ask natural-language questions and receive instant answers.
By combining operational efficiency with AI-driven insights and decision-making, we’re equipping publishers with the tools to optimize yield, simplify technical complexity, and future-proof their monetization strategies.
Magnite dedicated AI team.
At Magnite, machine learning—often considered the first wave of AI and deeply connected to today’s advancements—has long powered the core of our platform and underpins demand forecasting, traffic shaping, header bidding optimization, ad quality, and more.. These models continually learn from one of the most robust datasets outside the walled gardens, helping publishers maximize yield and enabling buyers to reach the right audiences more effectively.
We’re now applying the next wave of AI, including large language models, in practical ways that unlock client value. Tools like Audience Assistant, an LLM chatbot within Magnite’s curation tools designed to enhance discoverability and improve the scale of a deal, by allowing a client to search key ideas associated with the audience they’re seeking to target, and Magnite Segments make it easier to discover and activate audiences, while Demand Manager and our Ad Quality capabilities improve efficiency, brand safety, and revenue outcomes at scale.
With our recent acquisition of Streamr AI , we’re also integrating AI-powered creative generation and campaign setup into ClearLine, simplifying workflows for SMBs and mid-market advertisers and bringing new demand to sellers.
Looking ahead, Magnite’s focus is on applying AI responsibly and transparently to enhance monetization—improving efficiency, enriching signals, simplifying workflows, and delivering better outcomes across the ecosystem.
