Supply path optimization (SPO) is more than just a buzzword in today’s media buying landscape; it’s a way for media buyers to streamline the buying process by removing middlemen, resulting in more transparent ad placements through trusted partnerships.
Investing in a smarter SPO strategy has many benefits including allocating more money towards working media dollars, minimizing wasted impressions, creating transparency and control, reducing rendering errors and faster troubleshooting. A poor SPO strategy can lead to unnecessary costs and lower return on your ad spend. For advertisers wondering how to assess the effectiveness of their SPO strategy, there are five key questions to consider.
There are added fees at each point in the programmatic supply path based on different vendors and their offerings. Some are worth it and some are not based on value add. There are two key points that can help you evaluate the value vendors provide; the first is if the vendor can unlock value incrementally by either offering new, scalable inventory sources or unique services that you aren't able to find anywhere else. And the second is whether or not the vendor can establish a preferred partnership with you to reward incremental spend.
Do they operationalize efficiencies within the programmatic workflow? Do they provide direct, transparent inventory? Do they help you avoid unnecessary hops in the process? These are the key questions to consider around their integrations with DSPs.
For example, Connatix is directly integrated with the top DSPs including The Trade Desk and (most recently) Google's Display & Video 360, providing advertisers with a more direct path to premium inventory.
Advertisers should consider PMP, Managed Service, Programmatic Guaranteed, Programmatic Direct, Pub Direct, etc. and look for a partner that can support the transaction or deal types you require.
Advertisers should seek partners with access to premium publisher inventory. To do this, they must ensure their partners have the cleanest supply path. Start by asking your DSP for supply chain reporting and review your partners’ sellers to understand where the inventory is sourced from. You can utilize a specification like sellers.json which provides a mechanism to enable buyers to discover the entities that are either direct sellers of or intermediaries in the selling of digital advertising.
Seek our partners who have established relationships with alternative ID providers and in-house, innovative contextual solutions like Deep Contextual, that provide multimedia analysis for both page and video context.