The Ad Exchange
Ad Exchange is a form of display advertisement that evolved as a result of some shortcomings from its predecessor, the Ad networks. It’s worth discussing some of these ad network related issues that led to the evolution of display advertisement leading in to the emergence of the ad exchange. They are as follows;
There were little impressions per site as far as most of the ad networks were concerned. This means that when you use ad networks for advertisement, you are not sure of where your ads are going to run. Secondly, there is lack of price transparency whenever the ad networks are used. There is a possibility that a marketer will be able to get appeased with a screen grab belonging to his ads as they appear in premium positions. The marketer feels so much appeased but he is oblivious of any masquerade as the ad network goes with a big margin. Lastly, most of the ad networks lack relevance and are therefore quite inferior.
Ad exchange came up as a result of the evolution of display advertisement with the intention of coming up with better tools. Ad exchanges do address the lacunae that I have stated before. They are good for the facilitation of bidder buying together with the selling of the display ad inventory arising from multiple networks. The ad exchange allows real time bidding on the display advert impressions just as soon as it has become available via the ad networks. This approach is driven by technology as opposed to its predecessor approaches of negotiating prices on the media inventories.
The use of ad exchange means that publishers are able to auction their inventory to whoever emerges as the highest bidder via a single interface. Buyers: media agencies, advertisers and intermediaries- on the other hand are now able to take advantage of those capabilities being targeted because ad exchange gregariously aggregates inventories from so many publishers in one place. This gives them exponentially more reach compared to any other single ad network could. The ad is also very transparent as far as pricing and positioning is concerned, making you the winner.
Enter the DSP …
Though ad exchanges are so good, there is still need for a “”bidder” which interfaces together with RTB API evaluating every impression to the advantage of the buyer. Such a Savvy bidder is referred to as Demand Side Platform (DSP). Ad exchange dsp is designed to use the RTB API not only from one ad exchange but can also use RTB APIs from more ad exchanges for accessing inventory hence making buying decisions. Buyers are able to make transparent and automated media buying from multiple ad exchanges whenever they use DSP.
The following are offered by ad exchange DSP;
- Better management of workflow: DSPs streamlines ad operations with apps which simplify workflow.
- De-duplicated Reach: media buyers need to consider consolidation to one buying system for optimal management of reach (Breadth) as well as frequency (Depth)
- Contextual targeting
