Imagine you’re a cooking blogger with a significant following but struggling to monetize. To increase earnings, you decide to sell ad space on your website to advertisers that are aligned with your content and audience. Traditionally, this involves reaching out to individual advertisers, negotiating deals and managing ads yourself, which is time-intensive and has limited revenue potential. With the expansion of programmatic advertising, you can now utilize Supply Side Platforms (SSPs) to streamline this process, advancing your ad inventory and increasing revenue from your cooking blog.
What Is a Supply Side Platform (SSP)?
A Supply Side Platform (SSP) allows publishers to control and sell their ad inventory to the advertiser with the highest bid in a digital marketplace called Ad Exchange. An ad exchange acts as a matchmaker, helping pair publishers offering advertising inventory with advertisers searching for ad spaces to place their advertisements. SSPs play an important role in the advertising ecosystem because they essentially help publishers enhance their ad operations.
The interplay between publishers, SSPs, ad exchanges, and DSPs
The interplay between publishers, SSPs, ad exchanges and demand side platforms (DSPs) can get quite confusing, so let’s break it down together. SSPs connect a publisher’s ad inventory to various ad exchanges (marketplaces where advertisers and publishers purchase and sell ad space online) and DSPs (a type of software used by advertisers to automate the purchase of advertising). SSPs work with ad exchanges and DSPs to enable publishers to run real-time bidding (RTB) auctions, thoroughly evaluating the received bids and determining the bidding range.
When SSPs utilize both DSPs and ad exchanges, publishers can increase their exposure to potential purchasing advertisers. This increases the competition among advertisers for their advertising space and leads to revenue optimization.
How Do Supply Side Platforms Support Programmatic Ad Selling for Publishers?
SSPs support programmatic ad selling by helping publishers navigate the difficulties many face when conducting programmatic advertising, especially when dealing with more than one ad network at once.
Publishers maximize their revenue from advertising placements by looking for the most effective ad network optimization strategies. SSPs can automatically handle several of these optimization strategies, including real-time bidding auctions, frequency capping and relevancy screening.
Real-time bidding process
Publishers use RTB auctions to help sell their ad inventory effectively. When an internet user visits a website, the SSP notifies publishers of an available ad impression. The SSP sends details about the visitor to an ad exchange, which then connects with DSPs to relay this information for bidding.
Once the ad exchange receives the visitor’s details, it initiates an auction in which DSPs bid for the ad impression. The highest bidder wins, their bid is returned to the publisher, and the advertisement is displayed to the site visitor. This same bidding process is repeated for each and every possible impression on the web page whenever a site visitor loads or refreshes the page.
Ad network optimization
SSPs support programmatic ad selling for publishers because they can determine the best ad network to connect to when an available impression appears, helping them achieve the best yield.
This is made possible for publishers through SSPs’ dynamic feature, yield optimization. By leveraging previous performance, audience tendencies, market trends and advertiser demand, yield optimization adjusts ad prices to increase occupancy rates and sell impressions at the best price.
Frequency capping
SSPs, in collaboration with DSPs, can use frequency capping to control the number of times an ad is shown to a particular viewer. This is important because it limits the amount of ad fatigue experienced by website visitors by ensuring they don’t get annoyed or overwhelmed from repeatedly witnessing the same ad.
Relevancy matters
SSPs can also ensure that only relevant ad networks that meet certain criteria are considered during the trading process. This is important because many ad networks accept impressions based on specific areas or countries. By screening and filtering for relevance, SSPs help publishers target the correct audience, maximizing the efficiency of their advertising efforts.
What Are the Benefits of Supply-Side Platforms to Publishers?
SSPs offer publishers a wide variety of benefits. These benefits include efficiency in monetization, integration of header bidding to optimize yield and efficient reporting and control. These features help publishers streamline the ad sales process.
Monetization efficiency
Many publishers use SSPs because they efficiently monetize ad inventory by automating the process of selling ads to various ad exchanges and networks. This automation allows publishers to easily manage their ad placements.
Header bidding
Header bidding, a programmatic technology, allows publishers to offer their advertising inventory to multiple SSPs simultaneously. Publishers leverage header bidding because it helps them sell their advertising inventory for the highest price. By leveraging header bidding, publishers can decrease the risk of underselling ad inventory, leading to yield optimization.
Reporting and control
Another reason SSPs are beneficial to publishers is their ability to efficiently report and control. SSPs provide important metrics, such as the types of advertisers who are bidding, how much they’re willing to pay, and how often their advertising inventory is occupied. This information is important for publishers because it helps them see how valuable their inventory is to specific advertisers.
SSPs also enable publishers to set granular pricing rules. They do this by offering a publisher’s inventory to a wide variety of potential buyers, giving them more authority over their rates. Using “price floors,” SSPs ensure publishers do not sell any inventory below a certain threshold. There are even SSPs that allow publishers to establish “soft” and “hard” price floors. Publishers may accept bids below their specified minimum with a soft floor, while the hard floor sets a strict minimum price.
While SSPs offer many advantages, publishers must consider several drawbacks. One downside is reduced control over ad placements, which can sometimes lead to ads appearing on less desirable or unprofessional websites. This is an important factor to consider because appearing on these types of websites could harm a company's reputation if it’s associated with content that isn’t relevant or of high quality.
Another important factor to consider is that operating SSPs can become quite a complex task that requires a significant amount of technical expertise. This can be a significant drawback of SSPs because they can take a toll on a publisher’s budget. The complexities of integrating SSPs may lead to higher operational costs and reduce the overall profitability received from leveraging them. It’s important to note that we believe the positives of leveraging SSPs outweigh the negatives.
How Do SSPs, DSPs, and DMPs Work Together in Programmatic Advertising?
SSPs, DSPs, and Data Management Platforms (DMPs) are core components in the programmatic advertising ecosystem. DMPs collect and categorize data, helping DSPs and SSPs identify and target the correct audience with relevant advertisements and, by doing so, improving campaign performance for advertisers and revenue for publishers. DMPs play an essential role in the programmatic ecosystem by managing first, second, and third-party data.
Publishers, advertisers, and agencies often use DMPs to collect, analyze and utilize the large amount of data in the online advertising landscape. DMPs are software that organizes data received from various sources, which advertisers and publishers then use to refine their targeting strategies and extend their reach.
What Are the Top SSP Solutions Available to Publishers?
The top SSP solutions currently available to publishers are Google Ad Manager, PubMatic and OpenX.
Google Ad Manager
Google Ad Manager (not to be confused with Google Ads, a solution for ad buyers) is a valuable advertising management platform that offers publishers dynamic tools for monetizing their content across multiple platforms. We recommend this solution because of its advanced targeting capabilities and extensive reach, making it a top choice for many publishers.
Pubmatic
Pubmatic is another great solution for publishers because of its inventive technology that guarantees users helpful insights, yield management, and inventory optimization. AdRoll considers this a top choice for publishers because of its focus on transparency and high-quality advertising placements.
OpenX
Lastly, OpenX is another standout solution available to publishers who want maximum control over their inventory and pricing. Their high-quality solution is committed to innovation, making it a top publisher choice.
AdRoll and Supply Side Platforms
At AdRoll, we understand the importance of SSPs in programmatic advertising. That’s why we partner with top SSPs, including those we previously mentioned, and many others to offer a diverse set of ad inventories to advertisers. Our technology is layered over the leading exchanges and publishers, providing marketers with access to high-quality display, native and video inventory on a global scale in real-time.
We’re here to help optimize your marketing efforts effectively. Learn more about AdRoll’s unique advantages and start optimizing your advertising campaigns today!