Cherry Picking in Ad Tech: What It Is and How to Protect Your Inventory

When publishers move to programmatic, one of the biggest fears is losing control.

Will buyers cherry pick your best inventory and leave you with the scraps? Will premium deals dry up?

In this video, I break down:

What “cherry picking” means in ad tech and programmatic advertising

Why it’s a real risk — and when it’s not

How smart channel management can protect your premium sales while unlocking new demand

Using a simple orchard-and-cherries analogy, I show how publishers can set guardrails, balance legacy sales with new revenue streams, and avoid the trap of over-protecting inventory at the cost of growth.

Chapters:

0:00 – The fear of cherry picking in programmatic

0:49 – Cherries as an analogy for ad slots

1:45 – Premium sales vs. self-pick model

2:27 – Guardrails to protect premium deals

3:16 – What channel management looks like in ad tech

3:46 – The risk of over-protection

4:48 – When inventory shouldn’t go programmatic

5:20 – Balancing direct sales with programmatic