Top 5 DSP tips
In this month’s article, we give our run down of the top 5 things to consider when selecting a DSP for your campaigns. Not all DSP’s are created equal!
#1 Algorithmic technology
Hopefully this doesn’t shock you at being the first tip for picking the right DSP. Fundamentally on programmatic, we are tasked with finding business effective from just showing someone an ad. No matter how skilled you are in media planning, media buying, media strategy or have a fantastic offer or incredible business, if the technology we are trying to use to perform this is terrible, the results will be too. Being specific here, DSP’s leverage algorithms and machine learning to continually adapt what they buy by looking at how it performs.
Good DSP’s huge a huge amount of data coupled with a hugely complex rule-based machine to adapt, getting better and better over time. There aren’t many ways to look out for this before jumping in so use your instincts and research to guide you towards where the market is. There’s a reason a select few DSP’s are used by mostly everyone!
#2 Targeting depth
Being able to actually design your campaigns in a way to achieve your business objectives is paramount. Your DSP must be able to facilitate this. If for example you need to be able target a specific radius around your business as that is where you operate, you need a DSP that can facilitate this. Equally, you might be an app owner and need to target people who have installed apps from the Music category of the app stores. Again, your DSP has to be able to facilitate this. Not all of them can.
#3 Billing
This might sound like an odd pick here. But let us explain ourselves. There are DSP’s out there which will tell you that you only need to pay on a click or on a conversion goal. You should be extremely wary of this. All programmatic buying is transacted using impressions and thus on a CPM basis only. If a DSP is offering you the ability to pay on anything other than this, you can be quite confident that they will be arbitraging the difference between impressions and clicks i.e their setup is designed to make money on the difference in engagements. The way this typically works is either buying specific inventory types that are cheap and can get poor quality clicks relatively easily or simply faking it. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Watch out!
#4 Tracking integrations and setups
Measuring the success of your campaigns is the only way you will know if you should carry them on. Whether your investments are making you a return. You would be surprised how many DSP’s cannot facilitate even the most basic of setups. For example, if your business operates a website which allows customers to make payments, being able to track the revenue driven from the purchases originating from Programmatic is key due to reasons we have outlined in previous articles. Not all DSP’s can do this. Equally, if you are using an ad server and want to implement 3rd party impression pixels for verification, not all DSP’s have the functionality. This can be a difficult area to inquire about, but it is extremely important.
#5 Creative capabilities
All of Programmatic have a standard set of creative sizes and specs that apply across the ecosystem. On the most basic level, your DSP must be able to facilitate these. However, since everyone has access to these, being able to make these creatives work harder with a unique format is a great way of differentiating your business from the rest. Good DSP’s will have methods in-platform that allow you to modify your standard assets to make something that really stand out. If yours doesn’t, there are plenty that do and it might be worth looking into those, ASAP!
So there we have out top 5 tips for determining if the DSP you’re looking at is right for your business and its campaigns.