Media buyers are more equipped than ever to handle programmatic media. The self-service user interfaces (UIs) of DSPs empower media professionals to truly bid on the right impressions at the
right time. The problem is the process isn’t streamlined: full access comes from using many platforms. It makes the programmatic marketplace inefficient. There are huge ad tech
opportunities for centralizing programmatic buys into a single platform.
There are lots of programmatic buying platforms to choose from, each with distinct use cases.
- Standard: These DSPs are typically used to bid on standard banner impressions. Each DSP utilizes its own algorithm and matches cookies to their own set.
- Format-Specific: There are DSPs for video, mobile, rich media, native, and content. Format-specific DSPs have unique value propositions for granular controls and data
visualization.
- Closed Inventory: Amazon, AOL, Facebook, and Yahoo have built their own buying platforms to protect their proprietary inventory and data from
commoditization.
- Automated Guaranteed and PMPs: Guarantee players and SSPs have positioned themselves as a replacement to more premium inventory that is traditionally
negotiated.
There’s a potential of using over 10 UIs to buy programmatic media. Are media buyers becoming bogged down with too many tools? Are they in
danger of UI fatigue? Yes and no.
Today’s media buyers are more hands-on. They traffic ads, review site analytics, and buy media programmatically. They have even
taken on viewability and fraud monitoring platforms. Using multiple UIs isn’t as daunting as it used to be. But they are also beginning to assess operational trade-offs. For
instance, even though two DSPs may have unique cookie sets and bidding algorithms for banner impressions, will they provide enough uplift to warrant the time to learn and manage both DSPs? How
about format-specific DSPs?
Publishers and ad vendors are beginning to understand this. The first questions they are (or should be) asking advertisers is, “What is your
programmatic tech stack?” Plugging into an advertiser’s tech stack will increase their chances of making it on a media plan. Vendors looking to become a new part of an existing
tech stack will need to prove their added value to warrant the labor and expense of learning a new tool. Programmatic buyers are becoming more critical of what they place in their toolbox in
order to remain more nimble.
The ad tech space will also continue to evolve. Yahoo’s purchase of Brightroll and Rubicon Project’s purchase of iSocket and Shiny Ads are just
the beginning of horizontal acquisitions that will create more holistic programmatic buying solutions. Standard DSPs have built out PMP libraries to reduce the need of working with SSP UIs and
are developing better user experiences to support other formats.
One huge consolidation opportunity in the ad tech space is a universal programmatic management platform. The best
success case is in paid search with campaign management tools like Marin and Kenshoo. All advertisers with robust search accounts use these platforms to consolidate bidding across Google, Yahoo,
Bing, and even Facebook. A universal programmatic management platform could also be a central UI to monitor and control global frequency capping and unique reach, two metrics that are becoming
more important as advertisers add to their programmatic buying tech stack. Consolidating to a single buying platform would solve the efficiency problems associated with managing too many
UIs.