With the explosion of the programmatic space in recent years, choice is one thing you won&#;t be lacking when it comes to picking a new DSP (Demand Side Platform).
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For some media buyers, off-the-shelf solutions will fit the bill perfectly; for others, bespoke features are needed to realise their true programmatic vision and business goals on a global scale.
So, if you&#;re in the market for a new demand platform, but you&#;re suffering from a bit of &#;analysis paralysis&#;, the BidCore team is here to help.
To simplify your decision-making, we&#;ve compiled 9 essential questions you should ask to help whittle down your choices and make a better DSP decision for you and your business.
Short on time? Jump to the topics that matter to you most by clicking a section below.
While any good DSP should be able to bring something unique to the table, there&#;s a core set of functionality the platform will need to even get off the starting blocks.
If a DSP can&#;t get the basics right, chances are it&#;s not going to deliver the performance you need. So, before anything else, you need to confirm that the DSP you&#;re considering has those bases covered.
That means:
Whether your objective is brand awareness, user acquisition, retargeting, or even all three, your DSP should be flexible enough to support your buying or campaign goals. Moreover, it should also be able to do this across multiple media channels and inventory types, including Display, Video, Mobile, CTV, and Native; the last thing you want to do is switch between DSP platforms depending on the campaign format.
The lower the friction, the more work you get done, the better your return on investment.
Simple.
The ad tech industry is facing an identity crisis, but perhaps not in the way you might think.
In early , Google will finally remove support for third-party cookies from its Chrome browser, closing the loop on a process which has been a long time coming.
But what does it mean for programmatic advertisers? Don&#;t worry &#; this isn&#;t the end.
To maintain programmatic efficiency in , you&#;ll likely need to leverage various technologies: privacy-compliant deterministic and probabilistic IDs,1st-party data, machine learning and browser-based solutions, contextual targeting, and more.
Between now and when third-party cookies go away, you can expect identity solutions to grow in complexity. We&#;ve already seen over 50 different types of identifiers enter the marketplace &#; many of which may be left by the wayside as time goes on. It is your DSP&#;s responsibility to help you navigate the opportunities and support your choices.
As a starting point, your DSP partner should have a plan for working within Google&#;s &#;Privacy Sandbox&#;, which will require supporting a good number of the so-called &#;avian&#; solutions, including Turtledove, FLoC, FLEDGE and others. With Google&#;s inventory making up a large proportion of supply, it&#;s essential that your DSP has a plan for Privacy Sandbox if you want to maintain access to this supply.
Beyond a plan for Google, your DSP partner should allow you to activate audiences using the third-party ID solution(s) or partner of your choice &#; and help you understand which to use (and when) based on campaign goals for performance, reach, and so on.
Finally, your DSP should be able to assist you when it comes to non ID-based targeting methods, too: contextual signals, data clean rooms, and more.
We&#;ve talked a lot so far about how DSPs work and how to choose one, but, when all&#;s said and done, it really boils down to one thing: performance.
All reputable DSPs will offer some standard out-of-the-box optimisation capabilities targeting the most common digital KPIs, such as maximising clicks or CTR, minimising CPM, maximising viewability, spending budget evenly, etc. For some media buyers, these may be sufficient to meet their goals.
But do these one-size-fits-all metrics actually mean success for your business?
Every company is unique, so KPIs are often equally one-of-a-kind: maximise time-on-site, return visitors, session depth, and many more. You know your business better than anyone, and you know the metrics which matter most to your success &#; so why would you spend time optimising to clicks when you really care about session depth?
To drive real performance, you need to optimise to goals that are meaningful to your business and need to partner with a DSP that is able to provide that level of flexibility. To achieve this, it would be wise to check to see if your DSP partner offers:
By leveraging optimisation features like these, you can successfully drive the very best performance for KPIs that are meaningful to your business.
One of the great things about programmatic media buying is the superior level of flexibility and control it brings to the table.
If you&#;re just starting out, those basic DSP features we mentioned earlier will be exactly what you need to begin realising the potential of programmatic.
But, over time, you might start to ask some different questions:
All of these questions really speak to one thing: flexibility.
The bigger players in the DSP space simply won&#;t have the bandwidth, or even the technical infrastructure, to help you expand your programmatic processes in this way. And, because their platforms are tailored to a mass audience, it&#;s unlikely they&#;ll have the motivation to make these changes just for you.
So, when looking for a new DSP partner, it&#;s important to consider one that&#;s flexible enough to help you achieve your unique goals as your programmatic buying evolves over time.
In today&#;s competitive marketplace, data is king.
Properly leveraging your proprietary data assets is one of the most powerful tools in any programmatic media buyer&#;s toolkit. Doing so instantly unlocks granular audience targeting which will drive greater campaign performance and a bigger bottom line for you.
Some DSPs offer limited data integration capability, but others &#; like BidCore &#; were built from the ground up with your data in mind.
When it comes down to it, successful data activation is about visibility into the bidstream. More specifically, it&#;s about using your data to locate your target audience with laser precision and in a secure manner. A preferred DSP partner will help you to securely integrate your first-party data and activate your data assets in a variety of ways to maximize your performance.
But targeting based on your first-party data is really just the beginning.
A good DSP will deliver features that help you take your data-driven activity to the next level. This might mean helping you create custom prediction models, lookalike audiences, building bespoke buying and optimization strategies, and much more &#; all leveraging your 1st-party data. Also, if your data is incredibly sensitive, it&#;s important to work with a DSP partner that offers flexible options for how to activate your data in ways that ensure it never leaves your preferred environment.
Only by working with a DSP which allows you to tap into the true potential of your data will you unlock truly differentiated performance in programmatic.
Campaign management, inventory supply, and data activation are really just one side of the DSP. Still, they are not truly valuable until you know how well everything is working.
It&#;s here that your DSP&#;s reporting and analytics tools come into play.
At the most basic level, you&#;ll need visibility of metrics like ad impressions, clicks, and cost, all of which will give you a good sense of how your campaign is performing. But why stop there? Whether you&#;re working with partners against specific KPIs, as discussed above, or you simply want to eke out as much performance as possible from each line item, advanced reporting can help.
A good DSP partner should provide additional reporting functionality, such as conversion and custom event tracking, as well as robust reporting APIs that can be used to integrate with your native reporting dashboards and workflows. An even better DSP will offer in-depth reporting on even more granular data points, giving you greater control of your performance. For example, with BidCore and its u-Slicer tool, you can build custom reports in real-time, and even drill down into the log-level data to glean insights other DSPs could only dream of.
It&#;s advanced reporting tools like this that can make the difference between a standard DSP and a world-class one&#; so choose wisely.
It&#;s a bit of an understatement to say that the programmatic world is complex.
Sometimes you just need a reliable third-party to help you know your ORTB from your PMP &#; especially when you&#;re new to the ad tech world. That&#;s why it&#;s important to look into the levels of support the DSP you&#;re considering has to offer.
Depending on the level of spend you&#;re bringing to the table, most DSPs will provide a dedicated account manager in combination with a support team for incidental issues. You&#;ll probably also be well-supported during the onboarding phase, but what happens further down the line?
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If you&#;re new to programmatic buying, you&#;ll probably need more support during the early days, but ad tech moves fast, so how will you keep up? Huge DSPs often don&#;t have the time (or inclination) to keep their customers informed of industry changes, let alone how to make the most of new features.
For these reasons, it&#;s always a good idea to choose a DSP partner which can:
One of the biggest deciding factors for any DSP is the inventory it offers.
Put simply, if you can&#;t access the inventory, and therefore the audiences, you need, the DSP won&#;t do much good at all. The same goes for inventory types and media channels.
Consequently, one of the first things to do when approaching a new DSP is to ask the following of their supply:
If your DSP offers multiple SSPs and publishers right out of the box, you can hit the ground running when it comes to launching campaigns and generating real results.
It&#;s worth noting here that almost all DSPs will claim to have access to the very best inventory, and in many cases it&#;s true. But so does everybody else.
The real trick is to find a DSP which can carve you a path to high-quality supply, even in more niche markets. A good DSP will be able to make this happen either with direct publisher access or via Supply Path Optimisation (SPO) strategies to deliver peace of mind to even the most risk-averse of advertisers.
It&#;s a delicate topic, but it&#;s often a deciding factor: pricing and cost.
Traditionally, DSPs have charged using a share-of-media model, meaning a certain percentage of overall spend would go to the DSP as a fee. The only problem? As the marketplace has become more competitive, agencies and advertisers are having their budgets squeezed, making it a lot harder to justify a 15-25% cut just to have their hat in the ring.
Thankfully, the industry has evolved &#; and pricing with it.
Here are two ways BidCore differentiates its pricing models:
These are just a couple of examples, but there&#;s a lot more to programmatic pricing than meets the eye. The bottom line for now is that you should always ask your DSP about the pricing models they offer and ask which is best for your business.
If you&#;re feeling a bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices when it comes to picking a new DSP, the BidCore team is here to help.
With our nimble, flexible, and scalable DSP, you can discover a programmatic solution that grows with your business &#; making it precisely as complex as you need it to be.
April 28,
The demand-side platform (DSP) you use to purchase campaign inventory will have a direct impact on your company's ability to drive sustainable growth. So how do you know if a DSP will deliver the results you need -- as measured by true business outcomes?
Here are 11 questions to ask any vendor whose DSP you are considering. Their answers will help you determine whether or not you should test the DSP, and ultimately add them to your ad-tech stack.
The purpose of a DSP is to enable you to purchase inventory efficiently, and machine learning (ML) drives efficiency.
More than that, ML is essential for delivering return on ad spend (ROAS). Every ad impression the DSP evaluates and buys for your campaigns should bring you closer to identifying and honing in on the ideal targeting criteria for your campaign.
If your DSP doesn&#;t leverage machine learning, keep looking.
If the DSP outsources its ML, it&#;s probably a white-label bidder, which is far less than ideal.
To begin, that white label bidder will be somewhat generic as it is designed to work with all brands that may use it. It will take considerable effort on your part to train it to your unique business needs. It will also take time for it to learn who your ideal audience is, and where to find them -- time you pay for in terms of media spend and ROAS.
Additionally, the digital advertising ecosystem has seen seismic changes as a result of emerging privacy regulations and changing consumer attitudes. A DSP that maintains a ML team can respond to market conditions faster.
ML is powered by neural networks -- i.e. networks of computers (aka neurons) that mimic the human brain. Like our brains, these networks capture signals, instantly assign a weight or level of importance, calculate decisions, and assess the outcomes in order to make a better decision the next time around. Unlike our brains, however, neural networks can receive and process more signals than a human brain can.
The more neurons a network has, the bigger the brain that&#;s assessing impressions and predicting which ones will deliver the business outcomes you want. Deep neural networks (DNNs) have many more neurons, enabling it to identify and exploit important nuances that lead to better and faster ROAS.
There are two reasons why deep neural networks drive better campaign performance. First, deep neural networks are designed to learn based on smaller training datasets -- a clear advantage in an age where privacy regulations are curtailing the use of third-party data sets. The ability to learn based on smaller training datasets will enable faster optimization, meaning you&#;ll see ROAS within two to three weeks, rather than the two months most DSPs need to fully train a model.
Second, DNNs can fire multiple inference models at every bid request. Those models cover a lot of ground -- assessing every aspect of an impression, including the operating system of the mobile device, time of data, IP data, and channel. The deep neural network knows the proper weight or importance of each answer to your particular campaign. It then combines all of this insight (on a sub-second level) to predict the value of the impression with regards to delivering actual business outcomes.
In the case of Moloco Cloud DSP, our ML sees 350 billion impressions per day. As a result, you get unprecedented scale, which, in turn, means you won&#;t exhaust your audience pool and won&#;t suffer as much from diminishing returns.
This question is a bit in the weeds, but it&#;s important for delivering the results you need. We want your ML to be as smart as possible, which is why Moloco asks all of our advertiser clients to share their postback data from all of their partners, not just us. If we can see all of your campaign results, we can deliver ROAS faster.
You can judge the efficacy of a DSP&#;s ML solution by asking the vendor about its &#;output rate&#; or how quickly its ML learns. If you&#;re planning a year-long campaign, waiting three months to see ROAS may seem like the industry norm, but it&#;s an unnecessary delay. ROAS should come in weeks, not months.
Here again, a deep neural network that uses your first-party data has an advantage. It won&#;t need to winnow out extraneous learnings from other brands. Your first party data -- the attributes and conditions that are likely to indicate a user has the potential to be a whale -- are the starting point, and deep learning ML never loses focus of it.
Tip: Most DSPs won&#;t share results of specific campaigns, but they should have CPA, ROAS and CPI metrics by industry vertical.
As mentioned above, the goal of a DSP is to let the brand purchase inventory efficiently, and a bid optimizer is essential to accomplishing that goal. Moloco&#;s bid optimizer maximizes ROI by better predicting the win probability, a feature that is extremely relevant as more and more auctions move towards first-price auctions. Factoring in market competition and win probability will be essential to secure the impressions and users brands need to grow their customer base.
Many DSPs will optimize the advertiser&#;s budget on a daily basis, but it&#;s equally important to be able to optimize it within a longer time frame (i.e. a weekly budget allocation). Rather than meet daily spending requirements only, the DSP should identify when users are most active and inclined to convert, regardless of the day of the week.
For instance, app installs occur when people have more time to explore and consider their value. In fact, iOS installs are 25% more on weekends than weekdays. Android installs are 6% higher.
Moloco&#;s Weekly Budget Optimizer looks at how your campaign performs, and optimizes ad spend for both time and day of week. Our ML engine will focus ad spend on the days and day parts when your users take the desired actions.
Brand safety and suitability are key concerns to all marketers. You don&#;t want your ad to appear next to questionable content, or content that simply doesn&#;t reflect your brand values. Nor do you want to purchase fraudulent impressions, even if you ultimately don&#;t pay for them. Only real people will convert, and the more real people who see your ads, the more you can build your customer base.
This is why IAB Gold Standard 2.0 certification is table stakes. To achieve certification, companies need to demonstrate their commitment to brand safety.
Industry awards are a recognition that a technology has been assessed and rated by independent evaluators, and deemed the best in the market.
For instance, Moloco has received a SMARTIES X award for its work with Korean shopping platform GS SHOP, which celebrates companies and technologies that result in significant business impact for brands, agencies, media companies, and technology providers.
Brand safety and brand suitability are top concerns for all marketers. As an advertiser, you should be able to see where every impression lands. Ask your DSP if they share log-level data, and in what formats it can be downloaded. Log-level data can help marketers develop strategies based on analysis of their creatives, unique impressions, and quality of traffic for example.
Does your DSP have a creative selection model and A/B testing capabilities? For instance, Moloco has a machine learning feature that automatically allocates budget to the best performing ad formats to help advertisers build high-performing creatives, and to analyze and refine the advertiser&#; existing creative strategy.
Additionally, many app publishers prefer to do much of their ad creation in-house in order to drive cost efficiencies as well as iterate on ads quickly. A DSP that offers creative support and expertise will help you to achieve those goals.
Moloco Studio is powered by multi-disciplinary experts from around the globe who are focused on combining creatives, technology, and a surplus of data insights to ensure we outperform even the most demanding performance metrics.
Finally, we have a tip for comparing DSPs: all DSPs ask you to start with a running budget and campaign flight time. When testing a new DSP against your current one, be sure to use the same test budget and timeframe so you have an apples-to-apples comparison. If you spend more with one DSP you will get biased results, in that the one with the bigger ad spend will have more opportunity to deliver results.
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