What is DSP in digital marketing? Is Google ads a DSP?

DSP (Demand Side Platform) is a programmatic buying platform that agencies/trade desks can utilize in order to buy Real-Time Bidding ad inventory. Depending on the product, a DSP has complex capabilities including but not limited to data onboarding through DMPs, bidding algorithms, targeting capabilities, etc. Major DSPs include: Adform, Criteo, DBM (DV360), Mediamath, RTB House and the Trade Desk.

The main DSP goal is to buy advertising at the best price and to show ads to users who exactly matches the needs of advertisers. DSP works with various advertising formats: video, banner, mobile, display, native, POP, Push, social.

Using DSP, advertisers can buy media from different publishers. Only users who match the brand’s needs are offered for consideration (geolocation or other important options for the brand are taken into account). The site owners, in turn, put up their offers on the SSP. After that, the DSP platform analyses all the options and outputs the most optimal ones. Impression bets are determined using RTB for milliseconds. Why do you need DSP?

To automate the process of choosing the perfect advertising space

Previously, the question of whether advertising space is suitable for advertising or not was decided by experts. Now the platform generates offers automatically in accordance with the requests it contains.

Saving financial and time resources

The bid for impressions is set and approved automatically in a split second, as soon as the “suitable” user has entered the site.

Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) is Google’s own advertising service which allows you to place search results for your website on a search engine results page by paying for them.

Technically Google Ads is a DSP. Its difference from most other DSPs is that Google sells exclusively its own inventory (while other DSPs make it possible to purchase traffic from various suppliers).