Programmatic platforms are still unclear whether supply-path optimization is a way to get rid of one another or help each other reach sustainable profit levels in the space.
“I wouldn’t look at what [SSPs and DSPs] are doing as trying to go around one another,” said Katie Evans, chief operating officer at Magnite, speaking at AdExchanger’s Programmatic IO conference in New York last week. “We’re trying to create an ecosystem that is going to be successful in the future.”
More automation, please
One reason for DSPs to use SPO is to automate campaigns that are earmarked for direct buys, which doesn’t threaten the role of an SSP, said Will Doherty, VP of inventory development for publishers at The Trade Desk, also speaking at Prog IO.
OpenPath, The Trade Desk’s publisher-direct DSP product, is one example, he said. Similar logic should apply for SSPs trying to put publishers and agencies in closer contact without necessarily putting anyone out of business (like The Trade Desk, which traditionally sits between SSPs and advertisers).
This sense of competitive separation may explain why both DSPs and SSPs, including Magnite and PubMatic, are all busy spinning off their own SPO initiatives.
Supply and demand
Advertisers turn to SPO to automate buys across multiple publishers and reach as much of their intended audience as possible without “requiring buy-side decisioning,” Doherty said.
Magnite’s ClearLine product is the mirror version of OpenPath, in that it goes from the SSP straight to the agency buyer. And ClearLine, like OpenPath, also pitches itself as a better place for traditional direct sales budgets.
In that respect, Doherty added, the alleged competition between Magnite’s ClearLine and TTD’s OpenPath is overblown. They’re transferring their own direct deals through these channels, rather than poaching business.
Besides, as much as SSPs can help with fancy cross-platform audience targeting, advertisers still have a lot to gain from buying some supply directly through a publisher. Direct buys avoid the “ad tech tax,” for one thing, and give advertisers a clearer view into which publishers are driving the intended campaign results.
Publishers typically work with multiple SSPs, so each individual DSP-to-SSP pipeline only reveals a part of the whole picture. But buying direct-to-publisher gives advertisers a full view into the “true state of avails by impression” for a particular publisher, Doherty said, which helps buyers avoid buying repeat inventory. It also helps advertisers save money by not bidding against themselves.
SPO shouldn’t be a “winner takes all” game, Doherty said. It helps all ad tech platforms decide “which impressions to buy on behalf of [advertiser] clients.”
