Publishers and advertisers have come a long way since migrating from print to digital media.
In the early days of media, publishers primarily consisted of newspapers, magazines, and later, radio stations. Then the introduction of radio and television brought new opportunities for both publishers and advertisers. But with the advent of the internet, the media landscape underwent a significant transformation.
This major shift ushered in display advertising, where publishers needed to monetize their websites, and advertisers needed relevant sites to reach their target audience. Today, digital media is a complex and dynamic ecosystem. It is constantly evolving and so is the potential for a so-called Supply-Side Platform (SSPs).
Supply-side platforms manage and coordinate the process of supplying and distributing ad inventory with the help of automated technology. This includes buying and selling digital display advertisements in any ad format.
So supply-side platforms are indispensable when publishers and digital media owners want to sell their ad space. These platforms have long been successful and are integral to the programmatic advertising ecosystem.
For example, one significant feature of a supply-side platform is real-time bidding (RTB), also known as real-time auction. Let’s look at it from a publisher’s perspective: RTB boosts revenue by opening impressions to as many buyers as possible. The buyer that submits the highest bid wins the bidding and their ad is displayed.
Supply-side platforms enable this process automatically by efficiently connecting publishers and advertisers. This empowers publishers to show native, video, or display ads to visitors and monetize across a variety of channels, be it in-app, web, CTV, or audio.
Supply-side platforms connect publishers to multiple demand sources at the same time in a programmatic marketplace. Meaning SSPs can sell a publisher’s inventory in several ways: directly to ad networks, via direct deals with demand-side platforms (DSPs), and probably most commonly via RTB as explained above.
But let’s have a deeper dive on how RTB works:
A demand-side platform (DSP) is a programmatic software designed for advertisers, serving as a vital tool in streamlining media buying across multiple channels. DSPs enable brands and agencies (the demand side) to efficiently navigate the advertising ecosystem, working with SSPs, ad exchanges, ad networks, and direct integrations.
They empower advertisers to make informed decisions on which impressions to purchase and at what price, effectively managing the supply side. By leveraging demographic data, as well as browsing and shopping signals, advertisers can strategically target specific audiences.
On the other hand, SSPs offer similar technology and functionalities, but they cater to publishers, assisting them in optimizing their inventory and maximizing yield by securing the best possible offers.
Over the years, SSPs have developed further functionalities. Today, many offer ad-exchange mechanisms that enable publishers to connect directly to advertisers’ DSPs rather than through other ad exchanges. We’ve listed other unique selling points that can give your supply-side platform a competitive advantage:
Data science optimization: A supply-side platform protects the publisher’s profits with a minimum price for impressions. This is where the power of data science comes into play. Data science applies systems, tools, and algorithms to obtain information and actionable insights from different sets of data. The captured data enables optimizations of the auction through the identification of relevant channels, correct pricing, and more.
Floor price optimization: Publishers can set parameters for an inventory price floor. This process is called floor price optimization (FPO) and ensures that an auction will never fall below an agreed price. This considerable benefit ensures publishers maximum profit.
Supply path optimization: The ad-buying ecosystem is getting more complex which makes it difficult to understand how many stakeholders are involved and how much they are taking out of the media buyer’s spend. Supply path optimization (SPO) enables buyers to find the best connections, which can be also described as the most scalable, transparent, and efficient supply paths. SSPs that use SPOs ensure the best ROIs for both the supply-side platform and the demand-side platform.
Contextual capabilities: Contextual targeting of audiences isn’t that new but it has gained popularity over behavioral targeting. Nowadays there is a higher demand for relevant, non-intrusive ads, better consumer awareness, and stringent privacy regulations. This is why targeting audiences based on their browsing environment involves using contextually-sourced keywords or developing categories by topic.
The supply-side platform needs to set parameters so a platform’s crawler can scan and categorize different sites’ content according to every page’s key themes, phrases, contextual data, and alt text.
When a user visits a website, the ad server seamlessly matches its content with relevant ads. This process makes it more likely that the user will be interested in the content and ad presented. It’s important to note that this approach gains trust and creates meaningful relationships for both brands and publishers.
While there are many programmatic advertising channels and supply-side platform suppliers, not all are created equal. Rise constantly works to evolve its unique, fully programmatic Marketplace (SSP).
Rise has developed a contextual database that uses its contextual capabilities to optimize the auction even further for publishers. In addition, advanced and improved targeting allows advertisers to reach new audiences at scale and more precisely. For more information check out our website or visit our knowledge center.
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