The Best of DSPs in 2019 to Automate Marketing

Media buying has become a piece of cake thanks to demand-side platforms. They have been constantly gaining popularity proving automation in the marketing industry was a huge step forward.

DSPs provide numerous benefits for both marketers and clients. But what is it that makes them even more exceptional in 2019? To fully understand this concept, we need to dig deeper into programmatic.

DSP as an Integral Part of Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic is an automated process of buying and selling ads. It uses special software and data to target Internet users and DSPs serve as an agent helping to make it much faster and efficient. It takes milliseconds thanks to very precise Real-Time Bidding. All that marketers have to do is to specify the audience and place their bids on a DSP.
They next connect to an ad exchange where publishers place their inventory using a Supply-Side Platform. Advertisers can then buy that inventory via RTB. But DSPs help marketers a lot more. They are particularly useful to optimize campaigns and improve them thanks to several reports such platforms can generate. No wonder, they have become a number one method to buy ads online.
Dealing with middlemen has always been the least favorite part of advertising. Trading desks, salespeople, countless meetings, conferences - none of this matters anymore thanks to DSPs. Automating some of the most prominent marketing strategies was a successful technological invention and everything is going in the even more advanced direction. Let’s see what 2019 has brought.

The Most Prominent Advantages of DSPs in 2019

With a growing number of marketers and agencies using DSPs, platforms are forced to improve their performance by introducing new advancements. There are countless benefits such technology can bring to advertisers, so here’s what we think is of greatest importance.

• Unification - DSPs allow advertisers to manage all marketing activities thanks to the latest advancements. DSP platforms now offer access to analytics, data, traffic insights, and other crucial strategies enabling agencies to perform better.
• Transparency - as we mentioned before, transparency has become more attainable. Marketers get access to reports presenting traffic, resources, spendings, performance, etc. They can tweak every tiny bit of a campaign to make it successful.
• Digital inventory - with a single DSP, marketers are able to promote products across numerous websites, or apps. With multiple DSP, they can easily reach a possibly never-ending digital inventory allowing them to create more better-performing ads practically anywhere.
• Reduced cost - there’s no way marketers can overpay for the media they buy through a DSP. By setting a bid they can afford, advertisers secure themselves and their clients from overspending on inventory that will not bring them any greater benefits. And this directly translates to cheaper ads that don’t impact KPIs.
• Analytical advantage - no one can underestimate the importance of various reports provided by DSPs. Monitoring the performance of ads, marketers can adjust them, change channels, content, basically redesign their entire marketing strategy. Precious insights into their campaigns and cost-effective solutions give DSPs an edge over other media buying platforms.

DSPs in 2019

Market Study report on DSPs provides the latest statistics and forecasts for the next 5 years. The research shows that by 2024 the popularity of DSPs will increase by 26.3% resulting in $31,300 million in revenue. RTB will still remain the main focus, which gives advertisers a positive heads-up. Below are a list of things to take care of in 2019.

The Importance of Suppliers

Consider switching suppliers as it can reduce the cost of your advertising strategies. Review your ties with ad technology vendors and agencies and estimate if it’s feasible to stick to them. It may not always be possible depending on your contract, so you should see what the terms and conditions were and how much you can actually take with you if you decide to switch.

Multiple DSPs?

Executing campaigns using multiple DSPs is a good practice, especially in 2019 when the competition is much bigger than last year. Marketers should take advantage of this possibility and run different campaigns on various platforms to gain leverage. Not to mention that bidding on several DSPs increases the chances of winning an auction.

The Story Behind Auctions

Marketers should explore what’s hidden behind auctions. In 2019 ad tech companies have become even more transparent allowing advertisers to monitor how each auction is won. Why is it important? To find the best way to buy publishers’ inventory. After all, this is the main goal of DSPs and marketers so they should spend some time analyzing this crucial data to find the best-performing ads and adjust the number of impressions bought.

Ad Verification

In order to precisely track campaign performance, marketers should start licensing an ad verification technology. Having full control over insights and data is essential and marketers ought to be involved in the process of selecting ad verification partners.

Contracts with Partners

Not a lot of marketers can brag about having solid contracts with their partners and this is slowly changing in 2019. They should start reviewing suppliers and the ways they spend money to protect their interests. Everything has to be transparent; otherwise, no money should be spent. A lot of advertisers use external DSPs, which theoretically cannot be fully managed and monitored; therefore they’re not sure how the money is spent. Fortunately, you can have a contract and request certain insights.

Conclusion

It is estimated that in the next year the importance of demand-side platforms will become more prominent. They are commonly used today, but certain technological advancements that are taking place almost every day, have placed them quite high on the shelf of marketing strategies.
DSPs should also be embraced by in-house teams that decided to “ditch” their marketing agencies, which proves how simple it is to implement the use of such tools in various companies. No one knows where this trend is going, but forecasts and reports seem to be positive that DSPs have not yet been at the top of their game so maybe we’ll see their improvement this year.