Demand-side platform (DSP)
A demand-side platform (DSP) is a type of software that allows an advertiser to buy advertising with the help of automation. Because they allow mobile advertisers to buy high quality traffic at scale with minimal friction, DSPs are a powerful marketing automation tool.
There are two important stages to how a demand-side platform works.
First, the advertiser uploads creative, sets up targeting and puts down a budget for their campaigns. This can all be done via the dashboard. Once the campaign creative is uploaded, the DSP scours through its network of publishers for sites and mobile apps that fit the advertiser’s criteria and makes a bid for placement. After this, the DSP resolves the bid, places the ad, and manages payment – all in a matter of milliseconds.
Why are demand-side platforms important? The most obvious way in which DSPs are important to mobile marketing also applies to automation in general: this process allows marketers to avoid spending time and energy on something that can be completed by an automated machine.
Rather than manually contacting hundreds of publishers with offers to advertise, DSPs help advertisers quickly set up campaigns and manage them with ease. This allows user acquisition experts to spend more time working on other valuable areas – such as user base segmentation – to improve performance long-term.
Another reason why DSPs are proving particularly useful to mobile advertisers is that campaign performance can be managed in real time. Instead of having to wait for a campaign to end, mobile advertisers can easily adjust campaigns from DSPs without causing disruption.