You may have have noticed the term “supply-side platform” being pushed a little harder of late by industry commentators and yield optimisers. SSPs are seen by some as the antithesis of a demand-side platform: its main function is to work on behalf of the publisher in order to secure the best market price possible for non-premium inventory. But what does an SSP actually do? Is it just another fancy acronym with no real value? Can it help publishers unlock the value of audience data, allowing them to charge more for their ad impressions? Janneke Niessen, COO and Co-founder of Improve Digital, explains what an SSP should be doing to help publishers, and why the current yield optimiser model is evolving to meet the new challenges of automated ad trading.
What is a supply side platform? Is it radically different from a publisher yield optimiser?
JN: A true SSP is a technology platform with the single mission: enabling online publishers to manage their inventory and maximise revenue from digital media. As such it offers an efficient, automated and secure way to tap into the different sources of advertising income that are available and provides insight into the various revenue streams and audience.
Publishers today need more than just an ad network AND yield optimisation solution. Improve Digital believes the current yield optimisers will evolve into true SSPs. The market continues to change rapidly, with media buying following suit. The opportunities like RTB and audience buying that have emerged as a result require publishers to have a significantly advanced application to manage their revenue and protect their brand. Improve Digital is now able able to provide this with the launch its new platform last month. Yield optimisers today are focused on optimising remnant inventory but the SSP of the future will cover all forms of inventory instead of just one, and contain additional features such as:
- Revenue optimisation - ad revenue optimisation on ad networks, exchanges, (non-guaranteed) direct CPC/CPM campaigns, audience targeting campaigns, guaranteed campaigns
- Insight – actionable insight in yield analytics and audience data
- Audience extension - possibilities for audience extension and retargeting
- Data - integration with multiple third party data providers and the publishers own data
- DSP's - enable easy integration with DSP's
- Brand protection - protection against malware detection and poor quality ads
- RTB - provide a controlled real time bidding environment
How supply-side platforms help publishers understand the value of their data?
JN: Publishers must be able to gain insight from their data if it is to be of value, and this currently focuses around transparency – what data is being passed to whom. For example, the data firewall in Improve Digital's platform enables pixels to be identified and tracks the source allowing a publisher to see who is passing on data without permission. It will also automatically alert a publisher when demand partners go beyond normal targeting. Knowing that will allow publishers to gain back control over who is allowed to pass data and against which price. The market will in the end define the value of data of each publisher.
Should SSPs help a publisher broker data?
JN: Brokering data is a specialist task, so most publishers won't have the resource and technology to efficiently undertake it. SSP’s enable publishers to efficiently broker the value of their data with the publisher maintaining complete control.
Should SSPs help a publisher to augment its reach? Let them become the media buyer to get access to more buying budget.
JN: This technique is already widely-used today when our current publishers use our platform to buy relevant media space/ audience when they need it. It enables publishers with a strong audience in a specific area to increase their revenue.
How can it help publishers obtain better pricing – in a real-time bidding environment? Could a SSP have dynamic and machine learning to adjust to price variations?
JN: Having a dynamic and machine learning platform to adjust to price variations is a pre-requisite of being a SSP. Improve Digital has seen significant eCPM improvements for publishers that are participating in RTB campaigns. However, a competitive bidding environment is essential to ensure a consistent and continuous revenue growth. The right user is extremely valuable to an advertiser, who is willing to pay a high price to reach them. And this means that we do not allow any real-time bids to win an auction unless the bid is high enough. In addition, Improve Digital enables the publisher to set a minimum price that must be achieved.
As well as raising the CPM on ad impressions, Improve Digital believes that RTB will increase the efficiency of digital advertising, and therefore its potential of reaching a large audience. This will further strengthen online advertising's competitive advantage, thereby encouraging advertisers to move budget currently spent on other media onto the digital channels.
RTB is still in its early stages and careful consideration of RTB partners and use of the technology is key. There is more on this topic in our RTB white paper.
Improve Digital is playing a key role in continually innovating and developing new opportunities in the online advertising world. Premium publishers from all over the world use its real time and predictive optimisation technology to increase revenues from ad networks, exchanges and CPM/CPC campaigns, balanced with their direct sales strategies. Improve Digital clients benefit from local presence, local market knowledge, and best-of-breed service. Improve Digital represents the PubMatic technology exclusively in Europe adding additional technologies, services and expertise.