Fundamentally, independent adtech is a knowledge economy where your success rests on your data expertise and deep understanding of traffic. However, adequate results are impossible without the right tools — platforms with optimization, reporting, and the wealth of integrations to connect to various partners.
Choosing the right provider is critical when building your own ad ecosystem. There are different white label ad exchange solutions out there. Often it is hard to tell if a platform is a solid offer that will promptly deliver results or a half-made solution that will require months of tweaking.
Twelve years in building adtech SaaS products trained my eyes to separate the wheat from the chaff. To that end, I prepared five tips to keep in mind when shopping for a tech stack for your business.
Don’t juggle knives, use a swiss-army knife
It is true that different ad formats perform better on different platforms. Video and CTV, which recently got traction, perform poorly on the majority of platforms. Working with multiple platforms is sometimes unavoidable, but I would recommend that you leave one or two. When you have more platforms in rotation, it takes a burdening amount of time to consolidate reports, check discrepancies, etc. When choosing a universal platform, make sure it supports all the existing:
- formats (banner, video, audio, native, rich media)
- channels (in-app, CTV, web desktop, and mobile)
- integrations (oRTB 2.4 and later, header bidding, vast tags VAST2VAST, VAST2RTB)
- Not required, but strongly recommended — SDK for iOS and Android
It is important to remember when choosing a tech stack, you are not on the market for a demand-supply partner. One partner can act in both roles, so the technology should be judged based on its convenience and functionality.
Choose a system with real-time statistics
Often adtech players don’t use the full potential of their existing stack because they don’t understand it. They try the stack, don’t get the desired income, think that the platform is to blame, and move on to the next one. I would advise you to go through the reports, identify the reasons for the low performance, communicate with partners about these reasons, and fix them. To do this, you need to choose a platform with super-detailed reporting:
- Incoming and Outgoing traffic reports: reports with the possibility of multi-level nesting that allows receiving detailed statistics (on DSPs, SSPs, Endpoints, Geos, Ad Types, Formats, Environments, Platforms) along with various KPIs (Requests, Bids, Rejected Bids, Imps, Revenue, Timeouts, No bids, Win Bids, Lost Bids, Average Floor, etc.)
- Creative performance report with domain stats and content categories to monitor DSP partner advertising campaigns: analyze which creatives have a demand for traffic, what are the average prices of each of them, determine the targeting of campaigns and then based on this information, optimize outbound traffic to save server costs and provide more relevant traffic to partners.
Choose a provider with a backbone
Many vendors on the market launch their white label ad exchanges while being loosely related to this particular field. In contrast to developing DSPs, bidders or attribution software, designing a white label ad exchange requires an entirely different set of skills.
A good white label provider has a track record of connecting various DSPs and SSPs through different integrations and mechanics. This process requires relentless testing and a wealth of prior experience to make it smooth for white label adopters.
To make sure that you won’t spend months on adjustments and going back and forth with the support team, check the list of companies that are already working on the technology. Such a vendor will have all the supporting infrastructure, such as data centers — the backbone for you to rely on when deploying your ad platform. Ad exchanges, or SSPs, are critical nodes of programmatic infrastructure that work with high volumes of international traffic and usually compatible with global data protection laws, so you wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Scrutinize anti-fraud capabilities
When choosing a white label ad exchange, be sure to examine its anti-fraud capabilities. What kind of validators does it use to scan creatives before sending them to publishers? Do any anti-fraud vendors check bid requests before allowing them into auction?
A good solution usually has both internal anti-fraud capabilities, as well as external integrations with third-party vendors, for things such as creatives validation and traffic scanning. Built-in traffic quality partnerships ensure a comprehensive attribution picture and detect any outliers or suspicious activity. Another good antifraud feature to have is prebid blocklists, a collection of compromised parties, vendors, and platforms. Solutions that utilize prebid blocklists can detect and stop fake traffic before it enters the auction.
Have all the programmatic tools at your disposal
New forms of programmatic guaranteed deals and private marketplaces are taking hold of the market. In this arrangement, inventory does not enter the open marketplace and is instead offered to a selected group of advertisers in a private auction. This media trading method is ideal for premium publishers that gather data-rich user segments, niche content resources with exclusive audiences, and trusted media with the brand-safe inventory.
Not all of the solutions can support private marketplaces and some need to have the Deal IDs capabilities.
To sum up
When choosing a solution and comparing the prices, contrast the set of features, the speed of the servers, the array of available integrations, and the completeness of reports.
One stack for all media trading needs would be a more cost-effective approach than juggling multiple platforms and battling discrepancies and fragmented reporting. Full transparency and control are absolute must-haves. To use your traffic and data expertise to the fullest, you need a solution with deep reporting capabilities.
Many vendors make over promises about seamless integrations, while they are not actually backed by the experience of connecting demand/supply partners. Choose a vendor that already has SSP/ad exchange working on its technology. This way, you can be sure that the technology is well-oiled and tested.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elena Podshuveit
Elena Podshuveit is the Chief Products Officer at Admixer. She has more than 15 years of experience in managing digital projects. Since 2016 she has been responsible for the Admixer SaaS product line. Elena’s portfolio includes successful startups, projects for top advertisers (Philips, Nestle, Ferrero Rocher, Kimberly-Clark, Danone, Sanofi), SaaS solutions, launches of online portals, and mobile applications. Elena consulted large publishing houses on the digitalization and monetization of their assets.