What are Ad networks? How are DSP networks operated? What distinguishes a DSP platform from an ad network? Which is most suited to your requirements? What potential does this platform have?
If you are involved in-app monetization, you need to be familiar with the words DSP and ad network. Although they may appear to be comparable platforms at first look, their methods and features are very different. Making the correct decision at the outset can have a major impact on your campaign’s success. So, to answer the question of which is better when they face off each other in “ad server vs DSP” we’re going to have to get deep into each of their details. This principle goes with any plan of comparison, even if it’s “ad network vs ad exchange” we would be required to perform the task in the same manner.
The goal is to optimize your advertising campaign in order to attain the desired outcomes, which include reaching premium audiences, receiving a high volume of interactions, and improving publisher monetization. It’s not only about turning on an advertising campaign. This is when the ad network and the DSP (Demand Side Platform) come into play, greatly contributing to the campaign’s success.
It pays to make the effort to learn about programmatic advertising if you want to maximize ad performance. This includes understanding the distinctions between an Ad Network and a Demand Side Platform (DSP). There are a number of terminologies in the online advertising space that publishers need to understand when they first start out.
This article will explain what demand side platforms and ad networks are, as well as how they differ for advertising campaigns.
Let’s begin by providing a basic definition of an Ad Network and a DSP.
A Demand Side Platform: What Is It?
An advertising network, or ad network, is a platform that serves as a go-between for publishers and advertisers. Because it enables advertisers to locate open advertising slots on websites or mobile apps, its functionality is essential.
Advertising networks compile inventory from multiple sources and provide it to advertisers as a substitute for showcasing their commercials, allowing them to reach global audiences.
In addition, they oversee the distribution of ads and help with invoicing and payment between partners. To put it succinctly, it is a marketplace where buyers and sellers come together to complete secure and transparent transactions on a single platform.
In real-time bidding auctions for ad spaces, advertisers use Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), an online advertising technology platform.
Media buyers who “demand” advertising inventory can purchase it simultaneously from a number of providers, including publishers, ad networks, and ad exchanges, thanks to demand-side platforms.
One advantage of a DSP network is that it consolidates all providers into a single platform, making it incredibly simple for media buyers to oversee and maximize programmatic advertising.
A key component of programmatic advertising, which eliminates the majority of the human factor from the auction, is a demand-side platform. In accordance with the ad campaign specifications established by advertisers, it collaborates with the Supply Side Platform, which stands in for the publisher or ad seller, to automatically match publisher inventory with an appropriate ad unit. This software delivers the impression in milliseconds and shows the ad performance data on the user dashboard.
Demand-side platforms: whence did they originate?
When programmatic advertising was launched in the 2010s, they emerged as ad networks’ primary rivals. They were developed as a means of establishing the ideal environment for simultaneously executing several performance ad campaigns without the need for human labor.
As DSPs continue to develop, mobile DSPs have emerged to assist advertisers in overcoming the various obstacles associated with mobile advertising, such as figuring out how to present a message that is pertinent and doesn’t detract from the user experience of using a mobile app or visiting a website.
An Ad Network: What Is It?
An advertising network is a media organization that charges advertisers a fixed price for the ad inventory it offers across several publishers.
Consider the Ad Network as a go-between for publishers and advertisers, or, in the case of programmatic advertising, between DSPs and SSPs.
When advertisers sought to purchase online advertising and had to deal directly with publishers to pay them for the space, ad networks came into being.
Because most smaller publishers were viewed as too tiny for advertisers to do business with, this method favored major publishers with enormous audiences. Reaching out to the larger publishers and reaching a larger audience was just simpler.
Let’s begin by examining the many advantages of an Ad Network and Demand Side Platform:
Benefits of Demand Side Platforms:
1. Having access to several sources of inventory:
The ability for media buyers to purchase ad inventory simultaneously from several providers, such as individual publishers, ad networks, and ad exchanges, is the main advantage of a demand-side platform. Ad buying management is made considerably simpler by the DSP network, which houses all of the vendors in one interface.
2. Instantaneous Bidding:
With programmatic advertising auctions, marketers may place real-time bids on available inventory. By placing bids on ad impressions, advertisers can launch their advertising campaign with ads displayed on publisher websites practically immediately.
This has the advantage of giving advertisers more flexibility and allowing them to make real-time campaign tweaks to constantly enhance ROI with minimal delay. It’s media buying that saves time.
3. Targeting the right audience:
Using bespoke filters and changes based on the features of the platform, advertisers may more precisely target their audience on demand-side platforms. You can construct unique audience segments within a multitude of global publications thanks to precise targeting possibilities.
Media buyers can avoid squandering money on pointless impression purchases by using these extended targeting options, which include user data like age and hobbies.
4. Make any offers:
Each impression’s true value determines its CPM, and advertisers are free to make any bids they choose based on how much they believe the ad impression is worth.
5. Simple administration:
With just one simple interface, demand-side systems greatly simplify the process for advertisers of managing inventory purchases from various data sources, managing different ad exchanges, and more. Compared to managing numerous media buying platforms or individual publications, the media buyer saves time.
Through the integration of different inventory sources (or publishers) into a single platform, marketers can make use of enhanced targeting capabilities and a wider range of device platforms for ad campaigns, including mobile advertising.
6. Total Mechanization:
The best thing about a DSP is that it automates regular optimization tasks in addition to bidding. Media buyers don’t have to spend their days poring over daily analytics reports and optimizing A/B tests. The platform does everything: it identifies the top-performing traffic sources, assigns them a higher priority, and blacklists publishers that produce subpar content.
7. Improved reporting during campaigns:
Demand Side Platforms provide reporting capabilities that are more intelligent and transparent, which is crucial for managing an effective advertising campaign. Through a single interface, advertisers may view real-time statistics regarding the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns across several ad inventory providers.
8. Increased brand defense:
In digital advertising efforts, brand reputation is crucial, and a demand side platform may support this. The media buyer chooses where their advertisements are shown when they use demand-side platforms.
9. Advantages of Ad Networks:
Get all of the niche and top-ranked publications in one location.
Depending on their objectives, media buyers have a variety of ad networks to select from, including topic-specific networks, inventory-specific networks, and premium networks for international publishers like CNN and The Guardian which receive millions of visits every day.
These premium publishers will not sell directly to advertisers or entrust their inventory to ad exchanges or SSPs. Media buyers can only access premium inventory through ad networks and use it in their campaigns.
10. Spend money on clicks and conversions:
Unlike DSPs, which sell traffic for set bids, ad networks do not. They can function with a variety of pricing structures, including installs, clicks, and conversions.
As a result, media buyers can maximize their spending and cut costs associated with ineffective traffic sources. Media purchasers can choose between two types of accounts offered by some ad networks: one for CPM/CPC advertising campaigns (clicks and immersions) and another for CPI advertising (installs).
11. Reduce setup and optimization time:
Advertising networks are a great choice for time-efficient media buying if you’re trying to save time. Using an ad network to broadcast ads eliminates the need to spend days optimizing performance or building up ad campaigns.
DSP’s limitations
1. Most likely, you require many DSPs.
Most advertisers can’t afford to stop at one DSP in a world where data protection standards are in place. Each of them provides distinct audiences, data, and targeting options. And you need to know that you have other options and won’t lose out if one goes down or changes something that affects your business.
2. It can be costly to operate DSPs.
Demand-side platforms are only worthwhile to utilize if you are spending several thousand dollars a month on digital advertising, even with all of their perks.
3. DSPs may be intricate.
It might be time-consuming to become familiar with DSPs, therefore this is something that should only be done if you have a sizable programmatic advertising budget.
Ad Network Restrictions
1. Transparency is lacking:
The absence of transparency is Ad Networks’ greatest drawback. Because the site reporting is frequently hidden, marketers are unable to learn where their purchased media is being aired, how much it costs, or how well their campaigns are doing.
The majority of DSPs offer complete transparency down to the impression level, meaning that advertisers can view the ad placement, audiences they can contact, and return on investment. For end-to-end performance visibility, the campaign data can be examined on reporting dashboards or transferred to other reporting tools via APIs.
Ad networks, on the other hand, do not provide this degree of openness. Advertisers cannot get real-time placement visibility and impression tracking is restricted because inventory is aggregated across numerous publishers prior to sale. It’s very difficult to monitor who sees your adverts, and it’s also very difficult for the publisher to monitor who purchases your advertising space.
2. Set CPM:
The fact that all impressions, regardless of the inventory’s quality, are equally expensive is another drawback of ad networks. The network predetermines and fixes inventory pricing. Regardless of the value that each impression generates, advertisers pay a set price for impressions (CPM), clicks (CPC), installs (CPI), or actions (CPA).
3. Increased labor by hand:
With an Ad Network, in contrast to DSPs, there is less automation throughout the process and more manual labor required. Nevertheless, in order to save time during the ad campaign launch, ad networks offer their members a traffic manager who sets up campaigns on the platform. However, the procedure can be much slower, particularly if you’re managing thousands or even hundreds of campaigns at simultaneously.
This contrasts with a DSP, where the process between the advertiser and publisher is automated through programmatic advertising. The software uses machine learning to accomplish everything automatically, including bidding and optimizations.
4. Audience parts that have been predefined:
Ad networks provide pre-defined categories and audience segments, which is wonderful if you’re pleased with the pre-defined segments but not editable or updateable by users. This severely restricted your ability to target.
Conversely, a DSP enables marketers to target lookalike consumers or a list of particular users. Then, real-time adjustments to audience targeting and the delivery of tailored creatives to those audiences can be advantageous to marketers.
Conclusion:
How do you decide between an ad network and a DSP in the end? It all depends on your objectives. However, you absolutely need a Demand Side Platform if you’re thinking about switching to programmatic advertising in any way.
The goal is to optimize your advertising campaign. Top-notch technology, the audience, performance monitoring tools, brand safety, transparency, and more are all provided to advertisers.
Arguably, its superior cost and time efficiency over ad networks stem from its increased automation. Programmatic advertising has advanced to the point where it’s difficult for advertisers to find the same ROI elsewhere, whereas formerly Ad Networks were the icebreaker for advertisers.
Ad networks aren’t dead yet; they’re just still changing. Some have begun to provide DSPs with additional features, like impression limits and audience targeting, as well as real-time bidding capabilities. They are, in essence, transitioning into programmatic ad networks.
