As digital advertising is becoming more competitive, publishers are not only looking for available ad space to ensure revenue but also technology that will connect the ad spaces with the appropriate advertisers. They will also need a system that will allow them to measure the demand for ads and optimize their impressions. That’s when a programmatic SSP becomes crucial.
SSPs of a new generation allow publishers to achieve automated sales of their ad space through real-time bidding. Moreover, the mechanism brings in demand partners, provides pricing options and leads to an increase in monetization in different environments like standard display, mobile and video ad serving platforms.
A publisher can understand the working of a programmatic SSP and its role in the general picture of the digital advertising market system thus forming informed decisions concerning the monetizing process.
What Is a Programmatic SSP?
A programmatic SSP is a digital advertising technology that automates the management, sale, and optimization of a publisher’s ad inventory. Rather than putting ad placements onto the market, publishers can allow prospective buyers to bid for inventory with the help of a Programmatic SSP.
The SSP acts as a connection between the inventory of GMOs on one hand and demand-side platforms on the other. Demand-side platforms hold information about offers of advertisers willing to buy inventory.
In general terms, here’s how the process works:
- A visitor accesses the website or app of the publisher.
- The impression becomes available and the ad request takes place.
- The SSP sends a request to the adsellers.
- The demand-side platform evaluates the impression and sends bids to the SSP.
How Does an SSP Fit Into the Programmatic Advertising Ecosystem?
| Technology | Primary role | Main objective |
| SSP | Represents publishers | Maximize inventory value |
| DSP | Represents advertisers | Buy impressions efficiently |
| Ad exchange | Connects buyers and sellers | Facilitate automated auctions |
| Ad server | Manages ad delivery | Serve and measure creatives |
| Header bidding | Invites multiple demand partners to compete | Increase auction competition |
The supply side platform acts on the publisher side while the demand side platform is on the advertiser’s side. Both of these systems link together via ad exchanges and real-time bidding platforms.
The two systems work together but cannot be used instead of each other. More precisely, simply pushing more SSPs into the mix does not necessarily mean that publishers will earn more revenues. When sources overlap, are slow to react, or send non-optimal bids, additional connections will only add to complexity of the operation.
Expert tip: Analyze the SSP from the perspective of its incremental demand and earnings—not only by the number of connected bidders.
Server-Side Header Bidding: A More Efficient Auction Approach
Traditional client-side header bidding involves the operation of auctions in the visitor’s browser. Bid requests are sent to multiple demand partners who will make bids prior to the decision of the publisher’s ad server.
While this method enables higher competition level, it also brings additional processing requirements, network requests, and JavaScript execution to the page. If not configured properly, header bidding auction may lead to sluggish loading times and lousy user experience.
With Server-Side Header Bidding, a large portion of auction processing is moved to an external server. A server-side solution requires far fewer tasks to be performed by the browser as all requests and demand-partner connections are made in one location.
Among server-side header bidding advantages one may name:
- Lower workload for the browser. During auction processes, less processing is required on the visitor’s device.
- Possibility of centralized auction management. Publishers control all demand partners from one server location.
- Scalability. Server-side architecture is able to provide service for high-volume inventory and multiple advertising environments.
- More control over the process. Publishers get more opportunities for auctions, integrations, and time-outs configurations.
However, being a relatively new technology, server-side header bidding is not always the best method to use. There are environments and privacy signals where client-side bidding performs better when it comes to accessing browser identifiers. Server-side solutions may also face some challenges as far as identity matching techniques and additional infrastructure used are concerned.
A hybrid approach may be better. It enables publishers to use traditional client-side bidding along with server-side header bidding through Prebid’s server-side adapter.
How to Choose the Best SSP for Your Business
When looking for the best SSP, it is important to go beyond advertised CPMs to choose the right platform that is suitable for the publisher’s inventory, technical setup, and know-how for long-term monetization.
To make the right choice, pay attention to:
- Quality of demand: Investigate the ability of the platform to provide relevant and competitive demand as opposed to just many buyers.
- Integration flexibility: Select a platform that allows for OpenRTB, Prebid and connection server-to-server, and other possible formats used by the publisher’s properties.
- Latency and reliability: Analyze auction responses, timeout, uptime, and its impact on the delivery of ads.
- Transparency of revenue: Ask for reports that provide gross value of bids minus fees, fill rate, and resulting revenue of the publisher.
- Quality of ads and compliance with regulation: Make sure to check the creative controls, prevention of fraud, ads.txt and sellers.json, SupplyChain Object, and policies in the area of human privacy.
- Reporting capability: Make sure that the platform has a capacity to report on the specifics of performances by placements, formats, devices, countries, and partners.
The best way to evaluate platforms is through controlled testing using similar traffic segments for measuring net revenue in relation to traffic.
Programmatic SSPs and Video Ad Serving Platforms
Video inventory involves additional technical specifications that differ from banner advertising inventory. Video ads are based on several factors such as player type, creative requirements, playback history, and other signals which are exclusive to video ads.
Expert publishers need to evaluate video ad serving platforms when choosing their requirements, including the capacity of these platforms to support both instream and outstream placements as well as their VAST capabilities and ability to integrate messages.
Gamoshi supports display ads and video formats — both instream and outstream ones as well as rewarded video format, mobile inventory, web inventory, and TV inventory. The company provides integration through OpenRTB, Prebid Client, Prebid Server, Prebid SDK, as well as VAST 2–4.
The main conclusion is that it is necessary to deal with video specifics separately from display advertising. What works perfectly for banners may not function the same way in case of streaming ads or in-app videos.
Frequently Asked Questions
1.What does SSP stand for in programmatic advertising?
SSP denotes Supply-Side Platform. It is an advertising technology that allows publishers to oversee, sell, and enhance their online inventory through automated bidding procedures.
2.Is server-side header bidding better than client-side header bidding?
Not always knowable. Server-side header bidding enables reducing the browser’s workload and managing all auctions in one place, while client-side header bidding gives more access to certain signals from the browser. Hybrid solutions allow combining the strengths of both technologies.
3.Can an SSP support video advertising?
Certainly. An impressive number of SSPs use video inventory with existing integrations such as VAST.
