What is an SSP

Programmatic advertising undoubtedly helps businesses maximise profits and minimize costs. SSPs (Supply-side Platforms) are an integral part of programmatic. Essentially, SSPs allow publishers to sell their ad space for the highest price automatically. They’re the seller side equivalent of DSPs (Demand-side Platforms), which allows ad space buyers to find ad space. Together with ad networks, these three constitute the “architecture” of programmatic advertising. They allow for an automated bidding process for ad space as soon as a user opens a webpage or app.

What are the benefits of using an SSP?

Before programmatic advertising came along, the buying and selling of ads was done individually, space by space, directly to buyers. This was not a very efficient way of managing the process. Firstly, it’s a pretty labour-intensive way of doing things; secondly, there were lots of missed opportunities to sell ad space, simply because the publisher was unaware of demand for space, and their ad space was left unsold.

Using an SSP can unlock the value of all that dormant ad space and bring in more profit. Here are some of the other benefits of using an SSP

You get access to a large pool of advertisers

SSPs can connect publishers to many different ad networks and DSPs, meaning they’re in front of many more potential buyers. Getting in touch with multiple buyers would take a lot of time and resources without the automation provided by SSPs. In addition to this, SSPs allow publishers to set price floors to ensure their inventory isn’t sold below a given price. These price floors can be soft or hard and adjusted in real time. Publishers can also select preferred buyers so they have an element of control over whose ads appear on their inventory.

You can run analytics and make adjustments in real time

Another benefit of using SSPs is that publishers can measure data on who’s bidding, who’s buying and who’s paying for every bit of ad inventory. They also allow publishers to make adjustments to campaigns based on that data, even if the campaign is in progress. Publishers can also filter ads with targeting, and blacklist bidders they don’t want to sell to.

You can run everything from a single interface

If you’re connected to a lot of buyers manually, it can be difficult to manage everything simultaneously. An SSP will allow you to keep track of everything through one interface with all the important metrics like click-thru rate (CTR) and the total number of clicks generated on display inventory in one place.

Ultimately, as a publisher, using an SSP will allow you to embrace programmatic advertising and reap its benefits. So it really is a no-brainer: increase your ad revenue today with an SSP.