Demand Side Platforms are self serve (meaning an individual builds campaigns inside a platform) media buying platforms that deliver programmatic media across different ad auctions. In this article we'll cover what matters most to understanding demand side platforms. This includes the basics of programmatic advertising, ad inventory, and measurement.
Choosing a DSP that is right for your agency or business may feel like a daunting task. The most important approach to take when researching your options is to understand the following key areas:
- User ID Graph - What the audience value proposition and selection looks like
- Unique DSP Value - What the unique benefit of the demand side platform and channel has for the marketing agency
- Inventory - The available audiences sizes and versatility in audience selection
- Integrations - The available options for ad tech integrations to the DSP
- Measurement - Overall effectiveness of the reporting. Is the reporting full funnel? (Match back to both online and offline sales)
All of the above are key areas to evaluate when looking at a DSP.
The above demand side platforms are the most commonly known across the digital marketing space. Many agencies lean into these DSPs for their client's programmatic media buying.
The Top Benefits of Programmatic Media Buying For Agencies
Agencies are set to benefit significantly from using DSPs to deliver programmatic media for their clients. Whether that is across streaming TV, display, or streaming audio. As streaming apps and smart speakers continue to gain market share, more and more ad products will also flourish. The top leaders in the market include Amazon Advertising, which has gained 24% market share with their Amazon Alexa device. They also continue to expand with the sale of Fire TV sticks and Fire TV enabled smart TVs.
Consumers are continuing to spend more time and money on their digital usage. On average users spend 2+ hours streaming on their TV and subsequent devices. The total hours and shopping behavior online provides companies a significant amount of data to enable agencies to deliver hyper-targeted marketing campaigns and insights.
Choosing the right DSP for your agency or brand will be determined on your ability to learn and execute the media within the platforms available.
The market has plenty of available demand side platforms, each with many intricacies that tend to cause confusion in the market. Our team has developed a full funnel ad platform for the Amazon DSP to make building and launching campaigns fun and easy.
For agencies and brands looking to expand their knowledge base we recommend reading our best demand side platforms 2022.
