Tech tax, stack transparency, and why publishers are paying for complexity with TeqBlaze’s Nikita Bansal

Publishers today face a paradox: their ad stacks have never been more sophisticated, yet many are losing more revenue than ever to hidden fees, redundant layers, and opaque optimization logic. What looks like technical evolution often masks a quiet transfer of control - and margin - away from publishers and toward the vendors running the infrastructure.

As consolidation promises simplicity and managed solutions offer convenience, the fundamental question remains: who really owns the data, the decisions, and ultimately the revenue? To unpack these challenges, Rob sat down with Nikita Bansal, CEO of TeqBlaze. Here, they discuss tech tax, transparency, and what genuine publisher control actually looks like in 2025.

Rob: Publishers talk about stack complexity like it’s a technical challenge, but it’s really a margin challenge. How should publishers start diagnosing the actual financial impact of complexity on their net revenue?

Nikita: Many publishers still treat stack complexity as a technical task: adding tools, keeping things connected, fixing integrations. But every new layer has a cost. Extra wrappers, duplicated floor logic, overlapping optimizations, they all take a slice of revenue.

The real problem is that complexity quietly eats into profit. It is not always visible, but you can see it in thinner margins and less control over what actually drives results. Step by step, the stack starts working more for vendors than for publishers. This is what I call the ‘tech tax’, the money lost to redundant setups, hidden fees, and demand paths that do not really perform. By  comparing gross and net yield per partner, publishers can see how much value disappears in between.

To get a clear picture, follow the money. Track the full journey from bid request to payout and mark where value drops. See which layers overlap or add no measurable lift. Once publishers start thinking in terms of cost and outcome rather than tools, it becomes easier to decide what stays and what should go. That’s the foundation for real optimization.

Rob: From your perspective, revenue-share percentages aren’t enough anymore. What kind of visibility should publishers be asking of their partners to understand how optimization and demand routing really work?

Nikita: Revenue share is a surface metric. Even if you can see 85%, you still have no idea where the remaining 15% goes. Those percentages disappear inside algorithms no one explains, such as optimization layers, filters, prioritization rules, or duplicated functions. So the question shouldn’t be about percentages but about what actually happens to your inventory between the bid request and the auction win.

Publishers need to see where and why money gets lost: Which floor strategies are really applied and how do they affect CPM? How is demand distributed across DSPs and why? Which requests are filtered out before the auction and on what grounds? If a publisher doesn’t have this visibility, they can’t assess demand quality or understand which optimizations actually drive results.

This is fundamentally a margin issue. We see that those who regularly analyze their inventory path and ask partners specific questions - such as why certain bidders win more often while others lose share - end up with a noticeable lift in net revenue.

Transparency means control and confidence in how the stack operates. If a partner can clearly explain their decisions, it shows confidence in their technology, and those are the partners worth working with.

Rob: For publishers, so much of what happens in the stack (from bid prioritization to floor strategies) sits behind black-box optimizations. How much value is actually lost to that kind of opacity, and what can publishers do to gain the visibility they need?

Nikita: From our experience, lack of transparency across the ad stack leads to measurable revenue loss and weaker control over operations. Every hidden layer in bid prioritization, dynamic floor pricing, or mediation creates a risk of lost value. When publishers don’t have access to the logic behind pricing, commissions, or demand selection, they end up paying for inefficiency rather than performance. In some cases, this technical tax can reach 40-45% of advertiser spend.

Opacity also slows down decision-making and makes it harder to manage inventory quality. The way to address this is through full data access. Publishers should insist on log-level reports that include actual bids, clearing prices, commissions, and demand sources. If a platform cannot explain its optimization model or share data, it is a sign that transparency is missing. Open tools such as Prebid and client-side header bidding give publishers direct visibility into how auctions run and how demand competes.

Regular audits and supply path reviews help identify where money leaks and which intermediaries add little or no value. Often, simplifying the stack and removing duplication directly improves yield. Consolidating technology partners can make operations more efficient, but relying on a single vendor often creates new blind spots. It’s important to keep enough independence to verify performance and control key settings.

Revenue optimization should be treated as a joint process. Publishers need clear KPIs and open reporting from every partner. Vendors, in turn, should be ready to prove their results with data, not assumptions. In the end, transparency directly impacts revenue. The more clearly publishers see how auctions, pricing, and fees are formed, the less value is lost in the system.

Rob: There’s growing talk about ‘pre-integrated’ or managed solutions as the antidote to fragmentation. What does consolidation actually solve, and where should publishers be careful not to trade transparency for convenience?

Nikita: Fragmentation has been one of the biggest operational challenges for publishers. Managing multiple SSPs, data tools, and analytics systems leads to duplicated functions, higher costs, and data gaps. Reducing the number of partners genuinely improves efficiency, speeds up decision-making, and helps publishers see their monetization picture more clearly. However, many managed or pre-integrated solutions create a different type of dependency. When one platform controls the entire stack, publishers often lose visibility into how impressions are prioritized, how fees are calculated, and what rules drive auctions.

True transparency requires that every decision in the stack can be explained. Integration only works if publishers still have access to log-level data, auction logic, and performance metrics. Otherwise, they trade operational simplicity for hidden value loss.

Some publishers are now turning to white-label infrastructure to solve this. It allows them to consolidate technology and streamline operations while keeping ownership of data, pricing rules, and decision-making. It’s a model where control remains on the publisher’s side and technology stays accountable. Fewer systems make sense only when visibility increases, not disappears. Anything that cannot be verified eventually becomes a tech tax.

Rob: When so much of yield optimization happens behind vendor walls, who should own accountability for performance, and what does shared responsibility between publishers and partners actually look like in practice?

Nikita: Accountability in monetization cannot sit on one side. In the past, publishers were seen as fully responsible for revenue, while technology partners simply ‘supported’ them. But publishers cannot control what happens inside opaque algorithms, and vendors cannot perform without publisher inventory. Real accountability must be shared, not delegated.

In practice, shared responsibility means clarity of roles. The publisher defines priorities and KPIs, setting what type of yield or balance between UX and monetization they want to achieve. The technology partner commits to transparency - providing explainable optimization logic, open reporting, and data that can be verified independently. Together, they review performance, run audits, and adjust strategies based on auction dynamics, not assumptions.

This extends beyond revenue alone. When optimization happens entirely behind vendor walls, publishers lose visibility and the ability to manage inventory quality. This limits flexibility and builds technical dependence.

White-label infrastructure makes shared responsibility real. It gives publishers full control over data, logs, and auction rules while still benefiting from automated optimization. True accountability means co-management. Both sides hold the steering wheel - the publisher defines direction, the partner ensures transparency and reliable execution. Every decision should be explainable, measurable, and open to verification. No one can be accountable alone.

Rob: Let’s go back to the ‘tech tax’ you mentioned at the start. You’ve said publishers might be paying for complexity instead of revenue. How should they measure their ‘tech tax’? What metrics or questions reveal when the stack is working against them instead of for them?

Nikita: Tech tax is the invisible gap between the money advertisers spend and the revenue that actually reaches the publisher. It builds up through too many intermediaries in the supply chain, platform markups hidden in layers of fees, opaque floor pricing algorithms, and technical leakages such as lost impressions, timeouts, or filtered traffic that never gets monetized.

You can spot tech tax when your supply chain object or sellers.json shows a chain that’s too long, CPMs keep rising while net revenue stalls, or won bids don’t match the impressions recorded - these are all signs your stack is leaking value. Traffic reselling between SSPs or missing log-level transparency are other red flags, meaning you’re paying for complexity instead of performance.

The real task isn’t to calculate the tax but to understand where it comes from. Which intermediaries actually bring demand, and which just sit in the middle? Is there a measurable link between their work and your revenue growth? Without access to log-level data, these questions stay rhetorical.

A white-label setup changes the equation. It gives publishers direct ownership of logs, visibility into every bid and fee, and control over auction logic and floor pricing. With that level of transparency, tech tax stops being a mystery. It becomes something you can measure, optimize, and, most importantly, reduce.

Rob: What’s the one question every publisher should be asking themselves right now to know if their stack is serving them, or the other way around?

Nikita: The one question every publisher should be asking right now is simple: If my monetization stack stopped working tomorrow, would I still understand my data, demand, and revenue drivers? If the answer is no, you’re serving the stack - not the other way around. True control means owning your data, understanding how every decision impacts revenue, and being able to act without waiting for someone else’s system to respond. A strong partner should extend your capabilities, not define your limits.

In summary, the path forward isn't about adding more tools or chasing the next optimization layer - it's about reclaiming control through transparency, accountability, and infrastructure that works for publishers, not vendors. As Nikita makes clear, true optimization begins when you can see, understand, and act on every decision affecting your revenue.

Ready to reduce your tech tax and reclaim control of your stack? Get in touch with the TeqBlaze team to explore white-label infrastructure built for publisher transparency and independence.

This is content created in paid partnership with TeqBlaze. We only feature partners who we believe bring real value to the publisher community.