What Does DSP Stand for in Advertising?

DSP stands for demand-side platform, an important technology used in digital advertising. A DSP is a platform that allows advertisers and agencies to buy advertising inventory from a range of publishers and ad exchanges in an automated way.
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Some key things to know about DSPs in advertising:

  • Automates Media Buying: DSPs use sophisticated software algorithms and data to automate the media buying process across exchanges, allowing more efficient and targeted ad purchases than manual media buying.
  • Access to Inventory: DSPs provide access to a large pool of digital advertising inventory in real-time across websites, mobile apps, and more. This includes reserved, non-reserved, and private marketplace inventory.
  • Advanced Targeting: DSPs allow advertisers to target precise audiences across channels using various data points like demographics, interests, behaviors, location, and more. This level of targeting at scale was not possible before DSPs.
  • Measurement & Optimization: DSPs use robust analytics capabilities to measure campaigns and optimize them by tweaking targeting to improve performance over time. This enables continuously improved returns on ad spend.
  • Supports Most Ad Formats: DSPs support display, video, mobile, native ads, and more —virtually every common digital advertising format.

So in short, demand-side platforms are integral to modern digital advertising campaigns, providing software for automating and optimizing large-scale media buying, advanced targeting, and in-depth analytics across a wide range of inventory sources and ad formats. The automation DSPs enable is essential for cost-efficient and powerful ad campaigns.