Digital advertising has reached a point in time where technology ownership is now just as valuable as a media strategy. Over the last ten years alone, programmatic buying platforms have enabled advertisers to automate the purchase of advertising across multiple platforms such as websites, mobile apps, and streaming services. However, as the digital advertising ecosystem becomes increasingly complex, a large number of agencies are finding it difficult to determine how much control they actually possess over the technology that supports their campaigns.
As a result of this new perspective, a growing number of agencies are showing interest in implementing the white-label DSP model. Using this model, agencies are now able to create their own branded programmatic environments independent of third-party solutions while leveraging an established technology core to do so. This approach is changing the way in which businesses are interacting with and participating in the programmatic advertising marketplace, as they now have greater influence over campaign workflows, reporting systems, and optimization strategies.
The Programmatic Market Is Becoming Infrastructure‑Driven
The initial objective of programmatic advertising was to create an efficient way for advertisers to quickly purchase inventory from many different publishers. This was accomplished using Demand-Side Platforms (DSP) to automate the bidding process and the management of the campaign.
Today, programmatic advertising has changed dramatically, as media buyers now need to determine how to use digital ad spend data effectively in order to measure the success of their campaigns through data-quality metrics, algorithmic optimization, and measurement across multiple channels or devices. Because of the increasing complexity of managing this type of data, agencies will be evaluating the flexibility of their underlying technology more often.
The flexibility provided by a white-label DSP allows companies to create and customize a unique programmatic workflow while still being able to leverage sophisticated bidding technology that is provided and supported by an experienced supplier.
Why Agencies Are Moving Toward Custom Programmatic Environments
Advertisers often use several agency partners that support marketing campaigns using different targeting methods, have dissimilar reporting needs, and comply with separate compliance standards. Conventional advertising technology platforms have difficulty servicing all of these unique needs and characteristics because they impose a rigid workflow on all advertisers.
Incorporating a white-label DSP allows the agency to have its own advertising platform that is customized for its operational needs. The agency can create the specifications for how client reports will appear in their dashboard, how the data source they choose will be pulled and used within the DSP, and how their campaign management processes will work.
All of this customization can be very beneficial to agencies, as they can establish themselves in a highly cluttered market, where there are several other agencies that are using the same off-the-shelf advertising technology platforms.
The Technology Layer Behind White Label Platforms
The success of a working white-label DSP is due to an extensive technological infrastructure supporting it, including the functioning of a real-time bidding engine that can very rapidly evaluate thousands of signals when deciding on whether to move forward with purchasing an impression through a bid process.
Many of these systems use real-time bidding to connect with other technology applications and provide analytics tools to facilitate programmatic advertising campaigns across various channels by ad agencies in a stable technical environment.
An extremely high-investment project may not be a viable option for all companies since building this type of infrastructure on their own requires significant investment and resources. Therefore, it is common for companies/advertisers to partner with specialized technology companies that can deliver the core or foundational technologies enabling these types of platforms to leverage existing infrastructures to meet their programmatic advertising initiatives.
Companies Enabling Flexible Programmatic Infrastructure
A whole bunch of ad-tech companies have come together to develop a platform of technology that creates a customized programmatic environment for agencies and advertisers. They do not manage or run the campaigns themselves but rather provide the technology that agencies utilize in bringing their campaigns to market.
In discussions regarding white label DSP solutions such as Gamoshi, the underlying bid and integration architecture enables companies to become actively involved in the technology involved with digital advertising.
What Agencies Look For When Evaluating the Best DSP Options
Agencies, even when considering customized platforms, continue to assess which systems have effective features. These are the leading DSP-level capabilities currently available.
Several operational characteristics typically inform that decision:
- Strong integration with ad exchanges and supply partners
- Reliable real-time bidding engine, which can handle high amounts of traffic
- Customized audience targeting using multiple data sets
- Transparent reporting, which shows advertisers how they acquire impressions
- Technical infrastructures that meet the changing needs of evolving privacy regulations
In cases where any of the above characteristics are present, agencies can build scalable programmatic operations with an increasing degree of control over campaign strategy.
The Future of White Label Advertising Technology
Changes to advertising structure are occurring. Changes to regulations regarding privacy will become more stringent and will require changes to the way browsers operate. In addition, the increasing use of connected television will present new opportunities for advertisers as advertising systems adapt to meet the needs of those formats as well.
Agencies can now leverage a white-label DSP model to provide them with the ability to create a custom user interface for their campaigns while taking advantage of an existing affiliate network to execute programmatic advertising.
Organizations developing skills in managing both the commercial and technical aspects of purchasing media will provide themselves with a critical advantage in utilizing programmatic technologies to their fullest extent as the process of purchasing media is evolving at a rapid pace.
Conclusion
In digital advertising, the increasing acceptance of the DSP white label strategy exemplifies the evolution of the industry. More agencies are seeking additional customization and control of the source of the technology behind their programmatic campaigns and are less willing to rely on programmatic tools.
Using flexible models like DSP white label platforms, APIs, and DSP infrastructure provided by Gamoshi, agencies can create their range of programmatic environments through the use of technology that will have similar capabilities to today’s best DSP solutions.
