.png)
Selecting the best ad inventory monetization partners can be a complex challenge for publishers. With more than 30 existing Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs), how do you pick the right partners? And what should be the right number of SSP partners to work with? An even more difficult question, knowing that all SSPs don’t have the same strengths and weaknesses. In this article, you will find 5 things to consider when evaluating your SSP partnerships, which could prevent you from wasting time testing tens of them, in addition to exposing your company to some potential missed revenue opportunities.
5 Important Criteria to Consider when Evaluating Your Next SSP
Some SSPs might be strong monetization partners on some specific formats, others will be efficient in specific markets, etc.
A good SSP partner can be indicated by several key qualities. These include:
- Innovation
- Strong revenue generation capabilities
- Quality Standards
- Ad Experience & Performance
- Transparency
By taking these factors into consideration, publishers can select an SSP partner that helps them increase revenue and enhance the overall ad experience for their users
1. Innovation:
The ad industry is moving fast, really fast. As a publisher you want to be surrounded by visionary ad tech partners with strong innovation capabilities, aligned with the industry trends to help maintain your position at the forefront of change. Innovation for SSPs can come in many different forms, which include sustainability, curation and addressability solutions.
Sustainability
Did you know that 1 million ad impressions = 1 metric ton of CO2e which is equivalent to 1 round trip flight from Boston to London? Most people do not realize how much CO2e the internet generates, and it is now time to take steps towards decarbonizing the programmatic supply chain. Sustainability is no longer optional, but necessary.
Brands, agencies, publishers, trading desks, etc. are establishing sustainability goals to create a cleaner media ecosystem and decarbonize digital advertising. When selecting an SSP partner, it is important that they have solutions to begin working towards sustainability goals together.
For example, Sharethrough was the first SSP to offer advertisers the ability to run ads with net-zero carbon emissions through GreenPMPsTM where over 6k brands are actively running their campaigns. Sharethrough is transparently sharing progress of carbon emissions compensated at greenpmp.io.
Read More: How GreenPMPs™ Avoided 100M Grams Of CO₂e In Only A Few Months — Sharethrough
Additionally, through membership in Ad Net Zero, Sharethrough is committed towards becoming a carbon neutral company by 2030. Sharethrough is helping educate and set standards for the industry to reduce overall carbon emissions and organizing educational events like the industry’s first Green Media Summit.
Addressability
We all know by now that addressability is a major topic of conversation. With the eventual depreciation of 3rd-party cookies, publishers should look to SSPs that can help them make the most of their 1st-party data while remaining privacy-compliant. SSPs can help publishers by bundling their audience data into specific Seller-Defined Audiences (SDA) to help publishers draw in more advertisers looking to reach their target audiences.
Additionally, Universal Identifiers (UID), such as The Trade Desk’s UID2 or LiveRamp’s RampID, are also an option for publishers to combat diminishing addressability.
For example, Sharethrough’s identity services aim to increase your monetization capabilities as well, through better audience match rates and incremental revenue opportunities towards your inventory supply. Simply put, advertisers are able to map their target audiences against those universal identifiers when activating programmatic campaigns, even in the instance where there is no active ID integration on your media properties, such as LiveRamp.
Curation
Publishers can further scale their offerings with SSPs that curate their inventory into high-performing PMPs. These custom-built packages enable publishers to generate revenue from brands and advertisers they may not have otherwise.
For example, Sharethrough’s Gaming audience package is curated using a mix of cohort and contextual targeting to include sites relevant to gamers. Furthermore, when coupled with Sharethrough’s ad enhancements, publishers can keep viewers on their site for longer, opening up possibilities for more advertising opportunities.
2. Strong Revenue Generation Capabilities:
In order for a publisher to thrive, they should look to partners that can monetize their inventory and are capable of generating healthy revenue. There’s many ways that SSPs can do this for publishers, such as bringing in premium demand through direct connections while optimized by AI to maximize revenue.
Premium Demand
Working with SSP partners that have strong and long-term relationships with brands, agencies and DSPs can help publishers generate incremental revenue. To validate the strength of these relationships, publishers can look at the percentage of revenue generated through PMPs vs open exchange and whether the SSP has a preferred partner status with any agency partners.
Direct Connections
Directness with both DSPs and publishers is a crucial consideration when selecting an SSP partner. Strong direct connections with top DSPs can help improve performance, increase the ease of demand-side execution, reduce the risk of inflated CPMs, and ensure that publishers get the best possible returns on their ad inventory.
AI-powered Optimization
While the capabilities of AI improve daily, smart SSPs developed their own algorithms to help maximize revenue for publishers. For example, Sharethrough’s SmartSuite AI algorithm analyzes supply and demand to improve efficiency and eliminate additional accrued costs, helping publishers to maximize their revenue without sacrificing quality.
3. Quality Standards:
As a Publisher, you hold yourself to a high standard in terms of quality, and want to work with SSP’s that are also held to that same standard. However, how do you know if an SSP can protect you from malvertising, where bad actors can covertly insert viruses and other harmful code into legitimate ad creatives?
Today, there are a ton of trusted 3rd party verification partners that provide quality measurement solutions for SSPs. SSPs that verify they can provide a quality, brand safe environment is not something that should be overlooked.
For example, Sharethrough was ranked #1 by Confiant with the highest security rate among other SSPs.
.webp)
4. Ad Experience & Performance:
We all know that advertisers are looking to work with publishers that will generate strong campaign performance, as well as optimal user experience. Your role as a publisher is to optimize your ad placements so they generate optimal view & engagement rates for brands, while respecting the users in their browsing experience.
Some SSPs are well equipped to help publishers drive optimal ad performance and user experience through various methods, such as ad enhancements or attention measurement. Ultimately, better ad experience for users drives higher revenue for publishers.
Ad Enhancements
Sharethrough is constantly researching how ad enhancements can provide a more desirable experience for users for all formats and all channels. Through our extensive research, we’ve discovered several ways to enhance ads for better performance, without any additional lift to publishers or advertisers.
For example, to improve the CTR of display ads, Sharethrough’s Enhanced Display places the ad copy in the headline space. The result is a CTR that’s 7x higher than the industry average.
Attention Measurement
As digital dollars are flowing towards CTV, measurement metrics are adapting and the spotlight is back on attention. Attention measurement is important for all ad formats and ad environments in order to make sure the humans on the other end are not only present, but receptive.
Additionally, Sharethrough developed ad enhancements that are specifically designed to improve attention and comprehension. For example, our Dynamic Video Captions can increase comprehension by 56%.
Meanwhile, our new CTV enhancements, can increase attention by up to 52% when featuring useful content within the ad.
5. Transparency:
SSP transparency is another important factor to consider. By choosing monetization partners that are financially healthy, publishers can ensure that they get paid on time and avoid any payment-related issues.
In order for publishers & SSPs to have a strong working relationship, operating with transparency and open communication is crucial. Providing publishers with detailed insights and data to make informed decisions about their ad strategy is important.
When Publishers partner with Sharethrough, they have access to a full suite of reporting metrics which gives them the ability to track the account performance and set up their own blocking preferences with PubMaestro.
The Smart Choice
The process of selecting SSPs to access your inventory can be complicated but you can make an informed decision by evaluating an SSPs' ability to innovate and stay ahead of the curve, revenue generating capabilities, their quality standards, whether an SSP can provide a better, holistic ad experience while improving performance, and finally, how transparent they are in their operations. By prioritizing these 5 steps, publishers can evaluate the most pressing topics that are likely to drive the most fruitful results for both the bottom line and your readers.
Contact us to learn more about how Sharethrough can help or to get started.
Selecting the best ad inventory monetization partners can be a complex challenge for publishers. With more than 30 existing Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs), how do you pick the right partners? And what should be the right number of SSP partners to work with? An even more difficult question, knowing that all SSPs don’t have the same strengths and weaknesses. In this article, you will find 5 things to consider when evaluating your SSP partnerships, which could prevent you from wasting time testing tens of them, in addition to exposing your company to some potential missed revenue opportunities.
5 Important Criteria to Consider when Evaluating Your Next SSP
Some SSPs might be strong monetization partners on some specific formats, others will be efficient in specific markets, etc.
A good SSP partner can be indicated by several key qualities. These include:
- Innovation
- Strong revenue generation capabilities
- Quality Standards
- Ad Experience & Performance
- Transparency
By taking these factors into consideration, publishers can select an SSP partner that helps them increase revenue and enhance the overall ad experience for their users
1. Innovation:
The ad industry is moving fast, really fast. As a publisher you want to be surrounded by visionary ad tech partners with strong innovation capabilities, aligned with the industry trends to help maintain your position at the forefront of change. Innovation for SSPs can come in many different forms, which include sustainability, curation and addressability solutions.
Sustainability
Did you know that 1 million ad impressions = 1 metric ton of CO2e which is equivalent to 1 round trip flight from Boston to London? Most people do not realize how much CO2e the internet generates, and it is now time to take steps towards decarbonizing the programmatic supply chain. Sustainability is no longer optional, but necessary.
Brands, agencies, publishers, trading desks, etc. are establishing sustainability goals to create a cleaner media ecosystem and decarbonize digital advertising. When selecting an SSP partner, it is important that they have solutions to begin working towards sustainability goals together.
For example, Sharethrough was the first SSP to offer advertisers the ability to run ads with net-zero carbon emissions through GreenPMPsTM where over 6k brands are actively running their campaigns. Sharethrough is transparently sharing progress of carbon emissions compensated at greenpmp.io.
Read More: How GreenPMPs™ Avoided 100M Grams Of CO₂e In Only A Few Months — Sharethrough
Additionally, through membership in Ad Net Zero, Sharethrough is committed towards becoming a carbon neutral company by 2030. Sharethrough is helping educate and set standards for the industry to reduce overall carbon emissions and organizing educational events like the industry’s first Green Media Summit.
Addressability
We all know by now that addressability is a major topic of conversation. With the eventual depreciation of 3rd-party cookies, publishers should look to SSPs that can help them make the most of their 1st-party data while remaining privacy-compliant. SSPs can help publishers by bundling their audience data into specific Seller-Defined Audiences (SDA) to help publishers draw in more advertisers looking to reach their target audiences.
Additionally, Universal Identifiers (UID), such as The Trade Desk’s UID2 or LiveRamp’s RampID, are also an option for publishers to combat diminishing addressability.
For example, Sharethrough’s identity services aim to increase your monetization capabilities as well, through better audience match rates and incremental revenue opportunities towards your inventory supply. Simply put, advertisers are able to map their target audiences against those universal identifiers when activating programmatic campaigns, even in the instance where there is no active ID integration on your media properties, such as LiveRamp.
Curation
Publishers can further scale their offerings with SSPs that curate their inventory into high-performing PMPs. These custom-built packages enable publishers to generate revenue from brands and advertisers they may not have otherwise.
For example, Sharethrough’s Gaming audience package is curated using a mix of cohort and contextual targeting to include sites relevant to gamers. Furthermore, when coupled with Sharethrough’s ad enhancements, publishers can keep viewers on their site for longer, opening up possibilities for more advertising opportunities.
2. Strong Revenue Generation Capabilities:
In order for a publisher to thrive, they should look to partners that can monetize their inventory and are capable of generating healthy revenue. There’s many ways that SSPs can do this for publishers, such as bringing in premium demand through direct connections while optimized by AI to maximize revenue.
Premium Demand
Working with SSP partners that have strong and long-term relationships with brands, agencies and DSPs can help publishers generate incremental revenue. To validate the strength of these relationships, publishers can look at the percentage of revenue generated through PMPs vs open exchange and whether the SSP has a preferred partner status with any agency partners.
Direct Connections
Directness with both DSPs and publishers is a crucial consideration when selecting an SSP partner. Strong direct connections with top DSPs can help improve performance, increase the ease of demand-side execution, reduce the risk of inflated CPMs, and ensure that publishers get the best possible returns on their ad inventory.
AI-powered Optimization
While the capabilities of AI improve daily, smart SSPs developed their own algorithms to help maximize revenue for publishers. For example, Sharethrough’s SmartSuite AI algorithm analyzes supply and demand to improve efficiency and eliminate additional accrued costs, helping publishers to maximize their revenue without sacrificing quality.
3. Quality Standards:
As a Publisher, you hold yourself to a high standard in terms of quality, and want to work with SSP’s that are also held to that same standard. However, how do you know if an SSP can protect you from malvertising, where bad actors can covertly insert viruses and other harmful code into legitimate ad creatives?
Today, there are a ton of trusted 3rd party verification partners that provide quality measurement solutions for SSPs. SSPs that verify they can provide a quality, brand safe environment is not something that should be overlooked.
For example, Sharethrough was ranked #1 by Confiant with the highest security rate among other SSPs.
4. Ad Experience & Performance:
We all know that advertisers are looking to work with publishers that will generate strong campaign performance, as well as optimal user experience. Your role as a publisher is to optimize your ad placements so they generate optimal view & engagement rates for brands, while respecting the users in their browsing experience.
Some SSPs are well equipped to help publishers drive optimal ad performance and user experience through various methods, such as ad enhancements or attention measurement. Ultimately, better ad experience for users drives higher revenue for publishers.
Ad Enhancements
Sharethrough is constantly researching how ad enhancements can provide a more desirable experience for users for all formats and all channels. Through our extensive research, we’ve discovered several ways to enhance ads for better performance, without any additional lift to publishers or advertisers.
For example, to improve the CTR of display ads, Sharethrough’s Enhanced Display places the ad copy in the headline space. The result is a CTR that’s 7x higher than the industry average.
Attention Measurement
As digital dollars are flowing towards CTV, measurement metrics are adapting and the spotlight is back on attention. Attention measurement is important for all ad formats and ad environments in order to make sure the humans on the other end are not only present, but receptive.
Additionally, Sharethrough developed ad enhancements that are specifically designed to improve attention and comprehension. For example, our Dynamic Video Captions can increase comprehension by 56%.
Meanwhile, our new CTV enhancements, can increase attention by up to 52% when featuring useful content within the ad.
5. Transparency:
SSP transparency is another important factor to consider. By choosing monetization partners that are financially healthy, publishers can ensure that they get paid on time and avoid any payment-related issues.
In order for publishers & SSPs to have a strong working relationship, operating with transparency and open communication is crucial. Providing publishers with detailed insights and data to make informed decisions about their ad strategy is important.
When Publishers partner with Sharethrough, they have access to a full suite of reporting metrics which gives them the ability to track the account performance and set up their own blocking preferences with PubMaestro.
The Smart Choice
The process of selecting SSPs to access your inventory can be complicated but you can make an informed decision by evaluating an SSPs' ability to innovate and stay ahead of the curve, revenue generating capabilities, their quality standards, whether an SSP can provide a better, holistic ad experience while improving performance, and finally, how transparent they are in their operations. By prioritizing these 5 steps, publishers can evaluate the most pressing topics that are likely to drive the most fruitful results for both the bottom line and your readers.
Contact us to learn more about how Sharethrough can help or to get started.
Behind Headlines: 180 Seconds in Ad Tech is a short 3-minute podcast exploring the news in the digital advertising industry. Ad tech is a fast-growing industry with many updates happening daily. As it can be hard for most to keep up with the latest news, the Sharethrough team wanted to create an audio series compiling notable mentions each week.
Selecting the best ad inventory monetization partners can be a complex challenge for publishers. With more than 30 existing Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs), how do you pick the right partners? And what should be the right number of SSP partners to work with? An even more difficult question, knowing that all SSPs don’t have the same strengths and weaknesses. In this article, you will find 5 things to consider when evaluating your SSP partnerships, which could prevent you from wasting time testing tens of them, in addition to exposing your company to some potential missed revenue opportunities.
5 Important Criteria to Consider when Evaluating Your Next SSP
Some SSPs might be strong monetization partners on some specific formats, others will be efficient in specific markets, etc.
A good SSP partner can be indicated by several key qualities. These include:
- Innovation
- Strong revenue generation capabilities
- Quality Standards
- Ad Experience & Performance
- Transparency
By taking these factors into consideration, publishers can select an SSP partner that helps them increase revenue and enhance the overall ad experience for their users
1. Innovation:
The ad industry is moving fast, really fast. As a publisher you want to be surrounded by visionary ad tech partners with strong innovation capabilities, aligned with the industry trends to help maintain your position at the forefront of change. Innovation for SSPs can come in many different forms, which include sustainability, curation and addressability solutions.
Sustainability
Did you know that 1 million ad impressions = 1 metric ton of CO2e which is equivalent to 1 round trip flight from Boston to London? Most people do not realize how much CO2e the internet generates, and it is now time to take steps towards decarbonizing the programmatic supply chain. Sustainability is no longer optional, but necessary.
Brands, agencies, publishers, trading desks, etc. are establishing sustainability goals to create a cleaner media ecosystem and decarbonize digital advertising. When selecting an SSP partner, it is important that they have solutions to begin working towards sustainability goals together.
For example, Sharethrough was the first SSP to offer advertisers the ability to run ads with net-zero carbon emissions through GreenPMPsTM where over 6k brands are actively running their campaigns. Sharethrough is transparently sharing progress of carbon emissions compensated at greenpmp.io.
Read More: How GreenPMPs™ Avoided 100M Grams Of CO₂e In Only A Few Months — Sharethrough
Additionally, through membership in Ad Net Zero, Sharethrough is committed towards becoming a carbon neutral company by 2030. Sharethrough is helping educate and set standards for the industry to reduce overall carbon emissions and organizing educational events like the industry’s first Green Media Summit.
Addressability
We all know by now that addressability is a major topic of conversation. With the eventual depreciation of 3rd-party cookies, publishers should look to SSPs that can help them make the most of their 1st-party data while remaining privacy-compliant. SSPs can help publishers by bundling their audience data into specific Seller-Defined Audiences (SDA) to help publishers draw in more advertisers looking to reach their target audiences.
Additionally, Universal Identifiers (UID), such as The Trade Desk’s UID2 or LiveRamp’s RampID, are also an option for publishers to combat diminishing addressability.
For example, Sharethrough’s identity services aim to increase your monetization capabilities as well, through better audience match rates and incremental revenue opportunities towards your inventory supply. Simply put, advertisers are able to map their target audiences against those universal identifiers when activating programmatic campaigns, even in the instance where there is no active ID integration on your media properties, such as LiveRamp.
Curation
Publishers can further scale their offerings with SSPs that curate their inventory into high-performing PMPs. These custom-built packages enable publishers to generate revenue from brands and advertisers they may not have otherwise.
For example, Sharethrough’s Gaming audience package is curated using a mix of cohort and contextual targeting to include sites relevant to gamers. Furthermore, when coupled with Sharethrough’s ad enhancements, publishers can keep viewers on their site for longer, opening up possibilities for more advertising opportunities.
2. Strong Revenue Generation Capabilities:
In order for a publisher to thrive, they should look to partners that can monetize their inventory and are capable of generating healthy revenue. There’s many ways that SSPs can do this for publishers, such as bringing in premium demand through direct connections while optimized by AI to maximize revenue.
Premium Demand
Working with SSP partners that have strong and long-term relationships with brands, agencies and DSPs can help publishers generate incremental revenue. To validate the strength of these relationships, publishers can look at the percentage of revenue generated through PMPs vs open exchange and whether the SSP has a preferred partner status with any agency partners.
Direct Connections
Directness with both DSPs and publishers is a crucial consideration when selecting an SSP partner. Strong direct connections with top DSPs can help improve performance, increase the ease of demand-side execution, reduce the risk of inflated CPMs, and ensure that publishers get the best possible returns on their ad inventory.
AI-powered Optimization
While the capabilities of AI improve daily, smart SSPs developed their own algorithms to help maximize revenue for publishers. For example, Sharethrough’s SmartSuite AI algorithm analyzes supply and demand to improve efficiency and eliminate additional accrued costs, helping publishers to maximize their revenue without sacrificing quality.
3. Quality Standards:
As a Publisher, you hold yourself to a high standard in terms of quality, and want to work with SSP’s that are also held to that same standard. However, how do you know if an SSP can protect you from malvertising, where bad actors can covertly insert viruses and other harmful code into legitimate ad creatives?
Today, there are a ton of trusted 3rd party verification partners that provide quality measurement solutions for SSPs. SSPs that verify they can provide a quality, brand safe environment is not something that should be overlooked.
For example, Sharethrough was ranked #1 by Confiant with the highest security rate among other SSPs.
4. Ad Experience & Performance:
We all know that advertisers are looking to work with publishers that will generate strong campaign performance, as well as optimal user experience. Your role as a publisher is to optimize your ad placements so they generate optimal view & engagement rates for brands, while respecting the users in their browsing experience.
Some SSPs are well equipped to help publishers drive optimal ad performance and user experience through various methods, such as ad enhancements or attention measurement. Ultimately, better ad experience for users drives higher revenue for publishers.
Ad Enhancements
Sharethrough is constantly researching how ad enhancements can provide a more desirable experience for users for all formats and all channels. Through our extensive research, we’ve discovered several ways to enhance ads for better performance, without any additional lift to publishers or advertisers.
For example, to improve the CTR of display ads, Sharethrough’s Enhanced Display places the ad copy in the headline space. The result is a CTR that’s 7x higher than the industry average.
Attention Measurement
As digital dollars are flowing towards CTV, measurement metrics are adapting and the spotlight is back on attention. Attention measurement is important for all ad formats and ad environments in order to make sure the humans on the other end are not only present, but receptive.
Additionally, Sharethrough developed ad enhancements that are specifically designed to improve attention and comprehension. For example, our Dynamic Video Captions can increase comprehension by 56%.
Meanwhile, our new CTV enhancements, can increase attention by up to 52% when featuring useful content within the ad.
5. Transparency:
SSP transparency is another important factor to consider. By choosing monetization partners that are financially healthy, publishers can ensure that they get paid on time and avoid any payment-related issues.
In order for publishers & SSPs to have a strong working relationship, operating with transparency and open communication is crucial. Providing publishers with detailed insights and data to make informed decisions about their ad strategy is important.
When Publishers partner with Sharethrough, they have access to a full suite of reporting metrics which gives them the ability to track the account performance and set up their own blocking preferences with PubMaestro.
The Smart Choice
The process of selecting SSPs to access your inventory can be complicated but you can make an informed decision by evaluating an SSPs' ability to innovate and stay ahead of the curve, revenue generating capabilities, their quality standards, whether an SSP can provide a better, holistic ad experience while improving performance, and finally, how transparent they are in their operations. By prioritizing these 5 steps, publishers can evaluate the most pressing topics that are likely to drive the most fruitful results for both the bottom line and your readers.
Contact us to learn more about how Sharethrough can help or to get started.
Founded in 2015, Calibrate is a yearly conference for new engineering managers hosted by seasoned engineering managers. The experience level of the speakers ranges from newcomers all the way through senior engineering leaders with over twenty years of experience in the field. Each speaker is greatly concerned about the craft of engineering management. Organized and hosted by Sharethrough, it was conducted yearly in September, from 2015-2019 in San Francisco, California.
Stay Up-to-Date—
Subscribe to our newsletter and receive cutting-edge digital advertising insights, including our weekly Behind Headlines episodes, delivered right to your inbox.
.png)
