When it comes to programmatic advertising, every player plays a role. While the ad exchanges pick up the most eligible ad in milliseconds, the host offering the ads is known as the demand-side platform. DSPs are a powerful automation tool that allows mobile advertisers to buy high-quality traffic at a scale with a minimal fraction. 

How does it work?

DSPs function in two important stages. In the first step, the advertiser uploads luring creatives, along with the targets and a campaign budget—all of this happens on a dashboard. Later, the uploaded campaign is scoured by the DSP, and bids are placed by the mobile apps and sites that match the criteria. This is followed by a bid for placement. Keep in mind, all of this is happening in milliseconds. This process is concluded when the bid is resolved, the ad is placed and payment is managed by the DSP. 

Demand-Side platforms and advertiCe 

DSPs offer a clear path to ad acquisition and campaign management tools. As advertisers ration access to their campaign management tools, comparing performance across DSPs can prove difficult. All the while, the failure of DSP to provide significant results can be catastrophic for a tightly budgeted campaign. 

AdvertiCe is transparent in its process and offers open route transactions to each party involved. AdvertiCe also lists a number of DSPs as integrated partners (you can see our full list here). To learn more about the AdvertiCe dashboard, take a look at our product page.

The significance of DSP

When it comes to automation, DSPs cut the time in the negotiation and allow automation to move freely. This process allows the marketers to save time and energy on manual scanning, all the while getting the job done through a DSP. 

DSP allows user acquisition experts to invest their time in other valuable areas which improve long-term performance, such as user base segmentation. In the times before, advertisers had to manually contact hundreds of publishers directly and negotiate the price range and quantity, but thanks to DSP, all of this has been replaced by the campaigns managers and automation. 

Another reason why DSPs are proving particularly useful to mobile advertisers is that campaign performance can be managed in real-time. 

 Is Google Adwords a DSP?

Google Adwords operates as a Demand-side platform that has access to a significant percentage of the world.

So, yes: Google Adwords is a DSP in a partial sense. But it is only limited to Google’s inventory. Although Google Display Network has access to a significant percentage of the world’s websites, there are many places where they have no reach. For example, Facebook display ads are not a part of Google’s ad network.