Programmatic advertising has become a go-to for most marketers for several reasons. The most important factor, of course, is automation. With programmatic advertising, you no longer have to negotiate with publishers or manage individual ad placements manually. Instead, you can rely on automated adtech to handle bidding and placement in real time.
As programmatic technology has become more dominant, so have different types of platforms, including self-serve demand-side platforms (DSPs). Using self-serve DSPs for your programmatic advertising campaigns gives you more control, efficiency, and transparency, all important for success.
This guide will explore the ins and outs of self-serve DSPs, including their key features, benefits, and how to leverage them to enhance your advertising efforts.
What Is a Self-Serve DSP?
A self-serve DSP is a type of demand-side platform, a technology that lets you purchase digital advertising inventory through automated processes. However, a self-serve DSP platform differs from a typical DSP by removing the “managed service” component, which involves account managers or advertising agencies handling the campaign. Instead, self-serve platforms let your in-house marketing team directly access the platform and manage every aspect of your programmatic advertising campaign.
Key Features and Functionalities
Self-serve DSPs have several features and functionalities that allow marketers to optimize and manage campaigns effectively. These include:
Audience Targeting Capabilities
Self-serve DSPs allow you to group your target audience into various groups based on criteria such as location, age, sex, interests, behavior, etc. Audience targeting is essential for any campaign because it lets you personalize aspects of your ad campaigns, such as messaging.
Campaign Management
Campaign management is essential for building, tracking, and optimizing your campaigns. Self-serve DSPs make this possible by providing user interfaces that let you view and manage your programmatic advertising campaigns easily. You can set up campaigns, allocate budgets, schedule ad runs, and make real-time adjustments as needed.
Real-Time Analytics
Analytics are an important component of programmatic advertising, especially in real time. This is crucial for optimization, either in real-time or after the campaign has ended. Self-serve platforms can offer several reporting and analytics options, such as click rates, ad impressions, conversion rates, and return on ad spend (ROAS).
Inventory Access
Access to premium inventory is crucial to reach your target audiences across different devices and channels. Self-serve DSPs make this possible by connecting you to various ad exchanges and supply-side platforms (SSPs). This way, your ads easily reach your target audience, wherever they may be active.
Creative Management
Instead of using a trial-and-error method to see what works and doesn’t, self-serve DSPs let you experiment with different creatives to find the most effective combinations. This functionality allows you to first upload, manage, and test various ad creatives, which is essential for enhancing your campaign’s effectiveness.
Budgeting Strategies
Budget management is crucial to ensure your allocated budget lasts until the end of the campaign and you use it effectively. That’s why self-serve advertising platforms provide budgeting options, such as lifetime budgets, daily budgets, and campaign pacing.
When Should Marketers Use a Self-Serve DSP?
Your company’s advertising needs are unique, so before you use a self-serve advertising platform, ensure that it’s the best option for you. To determine if a self-serve DSP is what’s best for your advertising needs, consider the following:
Limited Ad Budgets
Ad budgets go beyond the money you place on bidding. It can also include creative production, hiring an advertising agency to manage your ad campaign, purchasing digital tools, etc. Using a self-serve DSP can help you alleviate some of these expenses if you have a limited budget. For instance, if your ad budget can’t cover hiring costs for managed services, you can opt for a self-serve DSP platform.
Need for Transparency and Control
Transparency is crucial for marketing departments, especially when reporting how you utilized ad budgets. By using self-serve DSP platforms, you get much more control and insight over how you spend your budget, unlike when you leverage the services of an agency. This is made possible by features such as campaign management, real-time analytics, and budgeting strategies. You can control where your ads run and for how long, in line with your budget.
Self-serve gives those who need the utmost control over their campaigns the options they need. The ability to set and manage budgets and where they run are what makes self-serve DSPs attractive to those who carefully construct and monitor each campaign themselves.
Ability To Build Programmatic Skills
If your team is looking to build programmatic skills, self-serve DSP platforms are a strong option. These platforms contain several settings and configurations that let you interact with this type of advertising, such as working with multiple channels/platforms and how to optimize campaigns based on the channel and audience criteria.
Benefits of Using a Self-Serve DSP
Once you decide to use self-serve DSP platforms, there are several advantages your organization should expect to experience. But this depends on how well you choose the platform you’re using (more on this in the next section). These benefits include:
User-Friendly Interface
Self-serve DSP platforms provide user-friendly interfaces because they know that when you choose this route, you’ll be managing your campaigns yourself. As such, these platforms ensure that creating and setting up campaigns and navigating through the platform is easy and straightforward.
Trustworthy Automation
Automation being a key component in self-serve DSP platforms means you can trust how ad placement takes place. You don’t have to worry about the manual complexities of bidding and ad placements, as the platform’s algorithms handle these processes efficiently. The algorithms place your ads in the most optimal locations at the best possible times for maximum reach and effectiveness.
Complete Control Over Campaigns
Because self-serve platforms eliminate intermediaries like advertising agencies or managed services, you can control every aspect of your programmatic advertising campaign. You don’t have to go through the back and forth involved with intermediaries over what’s working and what isn’t. Moreover, you can make changes in real time, which is crucial for time-sensitive events. This level of control allows for precise adjustments and ensures that the campaign aligns perfectly with business objectives.
Cost-Effective Campaign Management
When you have complete control over your campaigns, it means you also have control over your budget. One of the major ways you end up saving on your campaigns is by removing the middleman. Doing this lets you allocate more of your ad budget to actual ad spend instead of hiring and service fees.
Additionally, because you have real-time insights into campaign performance, you adjust your ad spend accordingly—if a campaign’s performance is great, you can allocate more money, and if it’s poor, you can halt it altogether.
Opportunity To Build Programmatic Skills
Taking on a self-serve platform is essentially learning (new) skills, depending on whether this is your first rodeo or not. It might take a bit of time to get the hang of how these platforms work, but it is in trying and failing that you find ways to optimize your campaigns, ad spend, and final outcomes. This hands-on management of campaigns also allows you to gain valuable experience and insights into how programmatic advertising works and what the best strategies are for success.
How to Onboard the Right Self-Serve DSP
Just because a self-serve platform serves one organization well doesn’t mean it will do the same for yours—your organization has unique advertising needs and goals. As such, the best self-serve DSP platform for your business is the one that helps you meet these specific requirements and objectives. Here’s a step-by-step approach to selecting and onboarding the right programmatic platform:
Research the Available Platforms
First things first, start with conducting extensive research. While you may have an idea of the available self-serve DSP platforms in the market, research may help uncover so many more with other features. While Googling may be the first place you start your research, don’t limit yourself. There are plenty of places where you can find information about these platforms, including:
- Trade Shows and Conferences: Attending industry conferences and trade shows can help reveal self-serve platforms that you may not have come across on your web research and give you the opportunity to see live demos. Great examples of these events include AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O and DMEXCO.
- Networking: Engaging with other marketers and businesses who are in the same industry or line of work can help you choose the best platform. They can give you recommendations and first-hand experiences about a platform, which is crucial for making a decision.
Consider Budget and Features
Different platforms will vary in costs, mostly depending on the features they provide. Therefore, you must take extra consideration for the features you are paying for and if it makes sense for your budget. For instance, in relation to budget, consider factors such as:
- Minimum Spend Requirements: Some self-serve DSPs have minimum spend requirements, which refer to the least amount of money you must commit to spending on the platform over a given period, such as monthly or annually. These requirements can vary significantly between platforms so ensure you understand these before committing to a platform so you don’t exceed your budget.
- Pricing Models: This refers to how the self-serve DSP charges you and usually falls into three main categories: Cost Per Mille (CPM), Cost Per Click (CPC), and Cost Per Action/Acquisition (CPA). The CPM model lets the self-serve platform charge you based on the number of times it displays your ad, regardless of whether it’s clicked. With CPC, you pay only when someone clicks on your ad, while CPA charges you when a user completes a specific action, such as a sale, form submission, or download.
- Additional Fees: Self-serve DSP platforms may also charge you extra fees on top of the pricing models. These fees may include setup and onboarding, maintenance, and data fees, so do your due diligence in finding out if the platform charges any of these so you don’t end up with a hefty bill.
Request Demos and Trials
Even if a platform has great reviews and seems cost-effective, you may still need to try out the platform for a few days to see how it works. Trials and demos help you gauge the platform’s integration with your processes and if it can help you meet your campaign’s objectives. If the platform doesn’t offer trial periods, don’t shy away from asking for them—sometimes, vendors can make exceptions or offer limited trials if you express genuine interest.
Tips for Getting Started With a Self-Serve DSP
Once you select a self-serve DSP platform, it’s essential that you get started on the right foot so you can start to drive campaign performance and results. Here are some steps you can use to set up and run your campaigns on a self-serve DSP platform:
Define Campaign Goals and Objectives
This is the most important thing to ensure you use the self-serve DSP platform effectively. Your campaign goals dictate how much ad spend you need, which channels you need to focus your campaigns on, who your audience is—basically, every crucial aspect of your strategy.
When creating your campaign goal, the best way to ensure your goals make sense is to follow the SMART rule. Your objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For instance, instead of setting a vague goal like “increase website traffic,” you can leverage the SMART formula and create a goal such as “increase website traffic by 20 percent over the next three months. It’s also essential to align your campaign goals with the overall business objectives. To do this, you can liaise with business stakeholders like sales executives, employees in the finance department, top executives, etc.
Set Up Targeting Parameters
Targeting parameters refer to the criteria you use to group your audience. These include demographics, geographic, psychographic, behavioral, etc. They help you reach your target audience and place ads more efficiently. Therefore, this is a step you don’t want to skip. You can leverage automation tools to help segment your audience if you have a large user base, as the process can be long and tedious when conducted manually.
Create Ad Creatives and Assets
Once you know what your campaign goals are and have segmented your target users, you can now create the advertising content. This can take different forms, including display ads, written content, videos, reels, etc., depending on the channels you intend to place your ads. Some best practices you can incorporate when creating ad creatives and assets include:
- Create high-quality relevant content—images and videos—that capture your audience’s attention.
- Use a consistent brand style, such as the same color schemes, fonts, logos, and tones across all the channels.
- Write clear, concise, and compelling copy.
- Include clear CTAs that guide audiences to complete desired actions.
Launch and Monitor Campaigns
When it’s time to launch your campaign, put in place configurations and settings that will help you monitor its performance. To do this, leverage the real-time analytics functionality provided by your self-serve DSP to track key metrics such as impressions, clicks, conversions, and ROI.
Optimize and Iterate Based on Performance
A common best practice for campaign success is to monitor and adjust your campaigns in real time. This is important in optimizing your ad spend so that you don’t end up spending too much on a campaign that isn’t performing.
Additionally, at the end of the campaign, the insights you will have gathered from its performance can help you improve your next campaigns. Learn from mistakes and build upon the successes of the campaign.
Unlock the Advanced Capabilities of Admatx Self-Serve DSP
An accessible self-serve DSP can be a game changer in advertising, especially for independent agencies and challenger brands. If you’re looking for a platform that can help you drive growth for your business, consider Admatx from AUDIENCEX.
Our team developed Admatx in partnership with The Trade Desk to provide a platform that would expand access to programmatic technology and empower advertisers, regardless of budget, to deliver tangible performance in their campaigns. With seamless channel access throughout the open internet, our platform offers a user-friendly interface, fraud protection, transparent pricing, and real-time reporting. There are no minimum budget requirements on Admatx, and no long-term commitments or subscriptions. And, of course, if at any time you feel ready to scale into managed services, our agile team is always available to ensure a seamless transition.
If you’d like to learn more about Admatx, please reach out to schedule your free demo today. There is no commitment, and we’d love to explore what Admatx can do for you.