Mobile DSPs are splitting into two camps: those pulling business closer to themselves and away from agencies, and those recruiting agencies as partners to reach new categories of spend. Moloco just staked its claim in the second camp.
Moloco, the performance ad tech firm best known for mobile advertising, has formalized an agency partner certification program built around roughly a dozen agencies, including Dentsu UK & Ireland, PMG, M+C Saatchi Performance, SplitMetrics, RocketLab, and Admiral Media, according to the company’s own agency partner program page. Certified partners get co-selling arrangements, joint case studies, and input into how the program itself is built.
PMG, one of the launch partners, framed the shift plainly. “As brands prioritize measurable performance and scalable growth, partners like Moloco play an important role in reaching high-value audiences in harder-to-access environments like mobile apps,” said Mary O’Brien, Head of Programmatic at PMG, in a case study published on Moloco’s site. “We’re proud to be an official launch partner of their certification program.”
The move matters beyond the dozen named agencies because it signals where a mobile-first ad tech vendor thinks its next growth has to come from: not more mobile install spend, which is a mature and commoditized category, but the CTV and streaming budgets that live inside agency holding companies rather than direct advertiser relationships.
The original insight for marketing leaders is less about Moloco and more about what a formal, co-built agency program signals in a market where some DSPs are cutting agencies out entirely. It gives agencies a reason to keep defending an intermediary’s presence in the stack ahead of the next budget review, and it sets a bar: any DSP pitching an “agency program” should be asked whether it comes with the same co-built pillars, or is just a rebranded referral fee. That question is getting sharper as AI tooling costs squeeze agency margins and agencies consolidate around fewer core ad tech platforms.
Source: Moloco
