Ray Philipose is VP of Olive Audience at Olive Media.
The business of running programmatic campaigns certainly requires sophisticated technology, but what do marketers really need to be successful? What is a DSP good for and how should you choose one?
To back up a bit, DSP stands for ‘Demand Side Platform’. It’s the term used for an automated online media buying platform. There are many vendors who offer DSPs, and even more opinions on how use them. Here are six key questions you should be asking yourself when evaluating a DSP:
Does it have access to media inventory I want to buy?
Since ad exchanges are interconnected, most DSPs have access to the same display ad inventory. But not all have full or even any access to buy pre-roll video, mobile app inventory or Facebook’s FBX. Facebook has also restricted access to its programmatic inventory, recently dropping more than 15 companies from FBX.
Does it integrate with other platforms?
There are several kinds of technology platforms that make DSPs more effective. These include data management platforms (DMP), business intelligence (BI) platforms, and viewability / fraud verification vendors. These are most useful when integrated in an automated way. Many DSPs will have these integrations pre-built. While some vendors will promise whatever integration you ask, it’s safer to choose integrations that are already in place.
Is the platform mobile ready?
In many ways, buying mobile inventory programmatically is the same as desktop-based inventory, but with additional mobile-specific capabilities, like the ability to target by GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude) and mobile app IDs. Not all of these concepts are fully built into all the major DSPs.
How effective is its automated (algorithmic) optimization?
Every DSP will have an automated method to improve campaign performance. This is inherently abstract and difficult to describe, so breathless technology marketers resort instead to describing the people building the system, who may be former rocket scientists, Navy SEALS or Shaolin Monks. (Hopefully they’re good software developers!) The only way that I know to gauge the effectiveness of automated optimization is to test it against another system. While it’s hard to build a perfectly fair test, it can still yield useful results.
Does it have access to proprietary data?
The success of programmatic campaigns depends in part on the quality of data used to target audiences. Some technology suppliers also own a set of proprietary data and have made a business decision to only make it available through their own DSP.
Does it support different transaction models?
Suppliers sell inventory on different transaction models, such as CPM, CPC, and CPE to list a few. Some transaction models are much easier to execute when using certain DSPs.
So what do you pick?
A DSP is the minimum technology you need for programmatic buying. The major DSPs all have fairly comparable feature sets, and they’re constantly working to improve their competitive position. Having a clear view on your programmatic marketing objectives and answers to the six questions above will help you make your decision.
