Examples and advantages for publishers of a supply-side platform are discussed.
Supply-Side Platforms, or SSPs for short, are one of the most widely used aspects of programmatic advertising and a crucial component of the advertising technology (adtech) tools of today. Learn everything you need to know about SSPs, including who uses them most, how it works, and its advantages and disadvantages.
Supply-Side Platforms, or SSPs, are what?
Digital advertising publishers have been using Supply-Side Platforms, also known as Sell-Side Platforms, a type of adtech software system, since the late 2000s, to manage and distribute their ad inventories as efficiently as possible. Using a Demand-Side Platform (DSP), SSPs assist publishers in providing advertisers with advertisements.
Both SSPs and DSPs are subsets of the same technological entity: programmatic .
Advertising, which automates many aspects of digital advertising, such as purchasing and placing advertisements through Real-Time Bidding (RTB) in accordance with publisher and advertiser criteria and parameters (such as target audience characteristics, channels, etc.).
How operate supply-side platforms?
RTB auctions are the most common means by which SSPs sell a publisher’s ad inventory to advertisers or ad networks.
Main characteristics of an SSP
SSPs simplify and broaden the ad selling process for advertisers by providing a crucial service to publishers with inventory of ads to sell. The traditional in-person meetings between advertisers and publishers to negotiate advertising contracts have been replaced by this programmatic approach.
SSPs help publishers and the ad selling process in the following ways.
Assisting the Advertising Selling Process.
The capacity to manage ad inventories of any size and enable publishers to conclude advertising arrangements with dozens of potential buyers without having to meet with each individual buyer and sign contracts is one of the primary advantages of an SSP.
Assisting Publishers.
Compared to the traditional demand waterfall, which involves offering inventory to ad exchanges one at a time until a bid is accepted, SSPs enable publishers to automatically sell ads to multiple ad exchanges and ad networks.
SSPs also have tracking and analytics features, which publishers need to know in order to figure out how well their ads are working and get accurate audience and impression data.
The main parts of an SSP.
Five essential components make up supply-side platforms: Ad exchange functionality, data tracking, and a reporting database were incorporated into the backend and infrastructure through integrations with other AdTech platforms.
Infrastructure and the backend.
Without a solid backend and supporting infrastructure, no software system can function, and SSPs are no exception. The majority of SSP backend components are hosted on the infrastructure of a third party, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Integrations.
To assist in the sale of a publisher’s ad inventory, SSPs are designed to integrate with other adtech platforms and systems (such as DSP, ad server, ad exchange, etc.).
Additionally, they may include integrations with data management platforms (DMPs), which organize first-party, second-party, and third-party data into segments for improved targeting and assist publishers in maximizing revenue.
The Ad Exchange
The integrated ad exchange functionality of an SSP is one of its most important features, facilitating publishers’ direct connection to an advertiser’s DSP. An alternative to traditional external ad exchanges, this function facilitates direct deals between advertisers and publishers.
Trackers.
Trackers are used by SSPs to gather information about the audience of the publisher’s website. They gather information about each visitor’s behavior and demographics, which are then processed to create a user profile. These user profiles can be used by publishers to better target their advertising strategies and discover trends in their audience.
Database for reporting.
A reporting database receives a portion of the information gathered by trackers and automatically generates analytics reports measuring each ad’s performance and effectiveness: clicks, impressions, fill rates, etc.
How does SSP aid the advertising selling procedure?
The ad selling process is supported by SSPs in four important ways:
-Transactions by RTB: Publishers can sell more ads to more platforms because SSPs and RTBs can automatically sell their ad space to an ad exchange.
-Relevance of the Ad Network: For the publisher’s inventory, an SSP can filter and select only the most relevant ad networks.
-Optimization of Ad Requests: Publishers can see who buys their ad inventory at the impression level thanks to an SSP, which sells individual ad impressions. Publishers, on the other hand, are in charge of their ad inventory and can always optimize their ad requests.
-Capping the frequency: The number of times a specific visitor has seen an advertisement can be tracked by SSPs and DSPs. Advertisers who want to use frequency capping must have this feature: restricting the number of times a visitor can view one advertisement before switching to another.
Advantages of Using SSPs
Publishers can take advantage of a variety of Supply-Side Platform features, which come with numerous benefits. The most important reasons to use an SSP for your advertising campaign are listed below.
Increased effectiveness of advertising.
The immediate improvement in your ad fill rates is the most obvious advantage of employing an SSP. A publisher’s inventory of filled ad spaces is compared to the inventory of unfilled spaces to determine the fill rate. There are fewer unused ad spaces with a higher fill rate, which raises revenue.
By increasing the fill rate and maximizing the revenue per ad space, an SSP can guarantee the sale of all available ad spaces to the highest bidder. Additionally, a lot of SSPs include brand safety tools that keep your ads as high-quality as possible while preventing malicious advertisers from serving them aggressively or in a way that hurts the user experience (UX).
Increasing the reach of your ad campaign.
To fill the ad inventory, publishers frequently offered ad space at extremely low prices in the past. Despite the fact that this strategy made ads profitable, it was ineffective due to the set price’s tendency to be too low.
By establishing a price floor, supply-side platforms prevent publishers from employing these strategies: a value that must be met before any bids will be accepted. SSPs, on the other hand, can be adapted and offered at a new, appropriate price point if your advertising campaign contains novel and exceptional content. Publishers can prioritize expansion over profit optimization when necessary because this feature ensures that new campaigns receive maximum exposure.
Improved revenue yield
The term “yield” or “ad yield” refers to the amount of money generated by advertisements. The selection of the best bid prices for your ads and the optimization of ad displays to reduce fatigue (such as displaying the same ads for an extended period of time) are the primary goals of an SSP. However, due to the fact that the advertiser with the highest price may not always be the most relevant, it is not intended to select the highest bidder every time.
Even if it offers the highest CPM bid, an SSP will ignore an advertiser in a different region with content that does not meet any of your requirements.
Instead, SSPs try to match your content with the most relevant advertisers by taking into account your requirements and needs. In order to maximize yield, they will only look for the best prices within these parameters.
Problems with Using SSPs
Despite the numerous advantages that SSPs provide to publishers, it is essential to remain aware of the difficulties associated with their use. Here are a few of the most well-known ones.
Market Segmentation in the SSP
The region, industry, business size, and applications all play a role in the division of the global SSP market into various segments. Europe, North America, South America, Asia-Pacific (APAC), and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) are examples of region segmentation, while education, manufacturing, IT, telecoms, and finance are examples of industry segments.
Finding the right SSP for your region, industry, applications, and specific requirements is one of the most challenging aspects of using them.
Complexity.
The nature of programmatic advertising means that changing minor details may occasionally necessitate interacting with multiple options and interfaces, despite the fact that finding the right SSP can help you reduce the complexity of managing and selling ads to advertisers.
As a result, a lot of SSP solutions add their own level of complexity, making it harder to manage your ad inventory if their workflows aren’t easy to understand or efficient. Try an SSP to see if it improves your productivity. This is the only way to be sure that it works for you.
Cost of services.
Although each platform has its own pricing plans, the majority of them charge a percentage of the total amount spent on advertising. The typical rates range from 15% to 35%. However, each SSP may charge additional fees for additional services like fraud detection, enhanced viewability, and brand safety tools, which could bring the total service costs up to 30-50% of the ad spend.
Where do SSPs fit into the ecosystem of online advertising?
Numerous components make up the ecosystem of online advertising between publishers and advertisers: Ad servers, data suppliers, DSPs, media agencies, ad networks and exchanges, and other smaller components
One of the elements closest to publishers is supply-side platforms. Ad exchanges, ad networks, DSPs, and DMPs are directly accessed by them, facilitating publishers’ access to advertisers.
SSP versus DSP
Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) and SSPs should not be confused. A software platform known as a DSP is intended to assist advertisers in purchasing ads from publishers across multiple ad exchanges. To put it another way, a DSP serves the same essential function for an advertiser as an SSP does for a publisher; technology that makes it easier for publishers and advertisers to connect and work out deals for ad spaces.
Supply-Side Platform Examples
Some of the best SSPs on the market right now, along with their distinctive value propositions, are listed below.
Manager for Google Ads.
Google Ad Manager is unique in that it is both an ad exchange and a supply-side platform, bringing together the services and features of both types of platforms under one roof. The Trustworthy Accountability Group has approved Google Ad Manager as a platform free of piracy, fraud, malware, and other threats to brand security.
The unified first-price auction system applies to ads on Google Ad Manager, requiring the winning bidder to pay the highest bid. Additionally, the service provides a comprehensive collection of management tools for native ads, video ads, and other formats. Additionally, publishers with more than 5 million page views per month can use Google Ad Manager for free.
OpenX
OpenX is one of the largest and best-performing SSPs currently available, consistently ranking among publishers’ top ten choices. It gives customers access to over 30,000 highly rated advertisers and a wide range of analytics tools as well as custom reports.
OpenX is only available to publishers with 10 million page views per month due to the highly sought-after nature of its advertisers.
Magnite.
Magnite, formerly Rubicon Project, is one of the oldest and longest-running Supply-Side Platforms. Since its inception in 2007, Magnite has collaborated with some of the world’s largest clients, including Fox, Discovery, Hulu, and Disney, and has been one of the most consistent top performers when it comes to providing its services to publishers.
Magnite is well-known for providing a wide range of static and dynamic ad formats that can accommodate virtually any publisher’s ad space. They also provide a platform that respects privacy and complies with the most prominent regional regulations (such as the CCPA and GDPR), which aids in expanding worldwide.
PubMatic.
PubMatic is another well-established and older SSP that was established in 2006. High-profile clients like Verizon, Dictionary.com, and Electronic Arts rely on PubMatic’s services.
PubMatic is frequently referred to as one of the best SSPs for maximizing ad yield. It has access to over 400 DSPs, exchanges, and networks, numerous configuration options and controls for publishers, and an easy-to-use interface. Additionally, the company employs moderation tools to maintain ad quality standards, ensuring that publishers receive only the best-performing content.
Xandr.
Until 2018, Xandr was known as AppNexus. It is a multifaceted adtech company that provides an SSP, an ad exchange, a DSP (Xandr Invest), and an ad curation platform (Xandr Curate). Publishers with a minimum of 10 million page views per month are eligible for monetization.
Header bidding and television advertising (such as OTT and Connected TV) make up the majority of Xandr’s monetization strategies. They provide publishers with unique inventory with an exclusive private marketplace exchange that enables them to increase the value of their ad inventory and offer their ad slots to a carefully selected group of partners.
