What we actually check when onboarding an operator.
By the SF Ads Media team · 5 min read
New publisher onboarding is the highest-stakes thing we do. A bad activation pollutes the demand-side trust we've spent months building with our DSP partners; a good one compounds for years. Our onboarding team has a checklist. Here's the version we feel comfortable making public.
What we check
1. Operator-owned inventory
The screens you sell on the network have to be screens you operate.
Not screens you broker on behalf of someone else, not screens you have
a "verbal arrangement" to monetize. We verify operating authority via
one of: ownership documentation, network-management dashboard access
(read-only), or a signed operator attestation. The goal is that anyone
tracing the SupplyChain from a bid back to the screen can
land on a real operator with real authority — no broker chains, no
re-broker rebates, no surprises in the audit.
2. Inventory specifications match reality
The categories you describe to us (gym, convenience, transit, etc.), the dwell-time and footfall claims, the screen dimensions — all of it has to match what's actually deployed. We don't require notarized measurements. We do require that what you submit corresponds to physical screens in physical venues, verifiable by spot-check.
3. Brand-safety alignment
We talk through the categories you want to exclude — competitive verticals, locally-objectionable content, anything specific to your venue mix. The exclusions get encoded into the demand-routing layer. The first weeks of fill are checked manually against your exclusions to catch edge cases.
4. Clean integration path
You don't need to run on our SDK. You don't need to run on a specific CMS. You do need a path to receive ad responses (OpenRTB or VAST tag) and a path to report back impressions and quartiles for verification. If your stack supports either, you're fine; we'll do the integration.
5. Payment plumbing
A real entity that can receive payment (US bank account for ACH or international for wire), a real W-9 or equivalent, real tax-residency information. Boring but unskippable. We pay on Net-30; we can't pay into a placeholder.
What we explicitly don't care about
Size
Single-screen operators are welcome. We've onboarded networks of three. The economics of programmatic don't have a minimum-inventory floor; we'd rather have a small operator running clean than a large operator with sloppy supply hygiene.
How long you've been in business
New operators get the same diligence as established ones. The checks are the same. We've activated networks that were six months old and networks that were a decade old; the operator quality matters far more than the operator tenure.
Whether you already work with other SSPs
Most of our publishers work with other demand partners alongside us. That's fine — we don't take exclusivity. We compete on demand quality and unit economics, not on lock-in.
The exact CMS or hardware you run
Brightsign, BrightLogic, ScreenCloud, NoviSign, OptiSigns, Yodeck, something you built yourself, something nobody's heard of — we work with all of them. The integration layer abstracts the CMS; the CMS doesn't need to know anything special about us.
If you operate DOOH inventory and are wondering whether you'd fit, the honest answer is: probably yes. Email us at partnerships@sfadsmedia.com with your operation name, rough screen count, and venue mix. We'll let you know within the business day whether the diligence path looks clean.