What is a Demand Side Platform? (DSP)

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What is a DSP?

Demand Side Platforms: What you need to know.

What is a Demand Side Platform?

A demand side platform, or more simply known as a DSP is a platform that enables buyers of online advertising inventory to purchase across multiple exchanges from one UI. DSP’s are the third major bucket in the Lumascape that see the initial brand dollar before it finally reaches the publisher. Agency trading desks dump advertising money into DSP’s to spread across multiple exchanges which house ad networks. The largest demand side platforms today are MediaMath, Invite Media, Turn, DataXU, Efficient Frontier, and The Trade Desk with many others competing for the almighty brand dollars that everyone wants their piece of before it hits the publisher.

List of DSPs

Accordant MediaAccordant Media
Adaptly Small LogoAdaptly
Adelphic Small LogoAdelphic
AdForm Small LogoAdForm
AdGear Small LogoAdgear
AdPerium Small LogoAdperium
AdReady Small LogoAdReady
AppNexus Small LogoAppNexus
Brightroll Small LogoBrightRoll
Cadreon Small LogoCadreon
Chango Small LogoChango
DataXu Small LogoDataXu
DoubleClick Small LogoDoubleclick
Fiksu LogoFiksu
LiveIntent Small LogoLiveIntent
MediaMath Small LogoMediaMath
Conversant Small LogoConversant
NetMining Small LogoNetMining
OwnerIQ Small LogoOwnerIQ
Quantcast Small LogoQuantcast
ReactX Small LogoReactX
Rocket Fuel Small LogoRocket Fuel
Rubicon Project Small LogoRubicon
Simpli.fi Small LogoSimpli.fi
Sitescout Small LogoSitescout
Smart Ad Server Small LogoSmart Ad Server
Sociomantic Labs Small LogoSociomantic Labs
Sojern Small LogoSojern
Tapad Small LogoTapad
TayKey Small LogoTaykey
Turn Small LogoTurn
Weborama Small LogoWeborama
Xertive Media Small LogoXertive
YBrant Small LogoYbrant Digital

What is a Demand Side Platform (DSP)

DSP’s and Advertiser Budgets

Demand Side platforms are very powerful because they allow advertisers to optimize their budgets effectively and target multiple user bases, demographics, regions and all tiers of inventory in real time. DSP’s are the lifeblood of programmatic ad exchanges as they power the ecosystem by spreading brand dollars across hundreds of thousands of publishers.

Buyers who utilize DSP’s tend to not put all their eggs in one basket by buying across most of the major exchanges and never spending too much money on the same inventory. It is very important for buyers who are purchasing digital advertising inventory to be weary of fraud traffic and always have full domain transparency as to what they are buying on. Brand advertisers look for a mix of performance, view-ability and branding when running their advertising campaigns. They do not want to bombard the same users with the same advertisements but rather prefer to hit a large of audience as with the initial advertising campaigns and optimize accordingly.

The LumaScape is ever-evolving and always in flux as companies pivot with the trends of the industry. It key to understand the purpose of each part of the LumaScape to have a successful career in digital advertising.