E65: Building an Ad Platform

In this episode of 1 to 100, formerly the SAAS Operators podcast, Gabriel and Jordi from Publicit join us to talk about making connected TV, digital out of home, and other ad inventory accessible to smaller brands.

Publicit started from a simple problem: smaller companies can buy Meta and Google ads in minutes, while most other ad inventory is expensive, difficult to access, or built for large campaigns. Publicit is trying to make those channels self-serve and measurable for SMBs and mid-market brands.

Gabriel explains how Publicit evolved from a marketplace idea into its own bidder and DSP infrastructure. The company connects directly to SSPs and publishers, processes hundreds of thousands of bid opportunities per second, and runs an inference on each bid in real time.
We talk about what happens as CAC rises on Meta and brands start looking for the next place to spend. Audience moves, and advertisers increasingly need to test CTV, digital out of home, and other channels instead of relying on one platform.

Publicit can also take audiences from Meta, CRM lists, and other sources and use them for retargeting on connected TV. That starts to make CTV look more like a performance channel, with targeting and measurement that smaller advertisers can actually use.

We also talk about fundraising in Europe, why Gabriel cared about investor distribution as much as capital, and how Publicit used business angels and ad-tech operators to get access to customers before raising from VCs.

The lesson for advertisers is Meta does not have to get every next dollar. As CAC rises, more channels become worth testing, especially when they can be bought, targeted, and measured more like Meta.