A DSP or Demand Side Platform is a web server based software system that allows brands, agencies, app developers that buy advertising inventory from publishers to manage multiple Ad Exchange and Data Exchange accounts through a single unified interface. Essentially, with a DSP advertising solution, advertisers can bid on ads (banners, video, native and other types) and optimize ad performance based on eCPC (stands for effective Cost Per Click) and eCPM (stands for effective Cost Per Mile) Key Performance Indicators.
The value of the best DSP platforms lies in its transparency, the capacity to empower advertisers to manage lots of ads, bid real-time, track and optimize ads performance. With a DSP platform, and a mobile DSP in particular, they can buy mobile ad inventory across a wide range of publishers, through a single interface. Advertisers can see the market rate for every impression they buy, control which exchanges they want to buy across and how much they want to bid.
Demand Side Platform as a part of online advertising system
Source: Mobidea blog
In Q1, 2020 leading US online advertisers spent $763 million combined, with Disney leading the pack – spent at the beginning of this year $245 million, Amazon.com – $80 million and Procter & Gamble – $71 million.
Given the above-mentioned value of DSPs, it’s a small wonder that the digital advertising space is seeing a fierce competition among top players. The following table brings up a picture for the actual demand on the top DSP advertising platforms.
Percentage for advertisers intention to buy on leading DSP programmatic solutions
| Company name | Category Average | % Point Change from Prior Wave | |
| 1 | DoubleClick Bid Manager | 41 | – |
| 2 | Amazon Advertising | 39 | – |
| 3 | Sizmek | 34 | -4 |
| 4 | Oath DSP | 34 | -4 |
| 5 | Adobe Media Optimizer DSP | 34 | -5 |
| 6 | theTradeDesk | 32 | – |
| 7 | MediaMath | 32 | -4 |
| 8 | Adobe Advertising Cloud | 31 | – |
| 9 | AppNexus | 29 | – |
| 10 | DataXu | 27 | -4 |
Source: AdvertisingPerceptions.com
If you ever felt like you couldn’t quite answer yourself a question – what is a DSP, you are not alone. The next table is here to demonstrate the level of confusion among advertisers when it comes to what Demand Side Platform to choose to spend their advertising budget with. As you can see, unfortunately, less than one of four advertisers knows exactly what a DSP is and hence has a hard time choosing the right platform to work with.
Widespread confusion over platforms and their services
Source: AdvertisingPerceptions.com
Once we’ve addressed a confusion among advertisers, let’s talk a bit about various kinds of Demand Side Platforms.
Mobile DSPs are the next step in the evolution of advertising networks, they are designed to tackle many challenges of mobile advertising. These are include precise targeting and the need to deliver a message that is relevant to users and does not ruin their experience of using a mobile app or visiting a website. Recent advances in technology mean that mobile DSPs, can now track smartphone and tablet models, operating systems, screen size, location and more. The past couple years have seen a huge shift towards mobile programmatic buying, as advertisers begin to reap the rewards of sophisticated targeting and measurement capabilities.
Another special case for demand side platforms is a Video DSP. For the last several years video has been the fastest growing medium for advertising, with companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok are leading the field. This grow led to development of multiple ad formats to meet requirements of both desktop and mobile platforms. Vertical video ads on Snapchat are radically different from pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll video ads on Google’s YouTube.
How to choose a DSP Advertising platform
Not sure where to start? When choosing a DSP there are some key questions to consider: how many inventory sources does it access? Does that include app and mobile web inventory or both? A larger reach gives you the best chance of finding the most effective impressions. Which third-party data integrations does it offer? What targeting criteria is available? The success of programmatic campaigns depend largely on the strength of data available to target audiences. Finally, how sophisticated are its algorithms? The most effective automatic optimization will win the most bids at the most competitive prices.
To help you to make an informative decision on choosing the right DSP for desktop and mobile ad campaigns, we’ve gone through variety of DSP advertising platforms and picked the best ones for you. So here is the list of Top DSPs for 2020 and their key features.
List of mobile demand side platforms (DSPs) and bidders
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 400 | $192m+ | 25k | 4m+ |
Founded in 2011, AdColony was created by mobile developers, for mobile developers and has grown into one of the largest mobile advertising and monetization platforms in the world with a reach of more than 1.5 billion users globally. AdColony is known for its exclusive Instant-Play™ HD video, Aurora™ HD Interactive video, and playable technologies, its global performance advertising expertise, its programmatic marketplace, and its extensive ad SDK footprint in the top apps worldwide.
- Mobile platforms: Android, IOS
- Campaign types: CPM
- Ad formats supported: Rich Media, Video
- Targeting: Demographic
- Key markets: US
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 500-1000 | +100M$ | 1.5k+ | 2.5m+ |
Smadex is the mobile-first programmatic DSP engineered for growth.
We are a technology company led by engineering and data science, focused on uprising the global mobile programmatic landscape through our ad tech solutions.
Using a combination of our own programmatic advertising technology, machine learning, and first-party data, we have over a decade partnering with apps, brands and performance marketers to achieve their growth goals.
We take transparency very seriously. To guarantee our fully transparent platform remains that way, Smadex programmatic partners with the leading third-party platforms to provide innovative solutions and independent measurement at the very core of our service.
Learn more about Smadex
SmartyAds DSP is a programmatic-buying platform for advertisers who search for safe, supreme-quality push traffic that converts in higher ROI, instant user engagement and retention.
Pricing & Features:
- Push traffic for all screen types & sizes that translates in 200-400% higher ROI & conversions.
- Easy to segment and personalize push creatives.
- The broadest network of premium push traffic publishers and SSP partners (MoPub, MobFox, PubNative) with tested and localized landings across all geos and verticals.
- In-app traffic from more than 1000 top-rated apps with push traffic for iOS & Android.
- 30+ targeting options for geomarketing push campaigns Including geo-targeting, GPS, language, etc.)
- Frequency capping, dayparting and sparring to fine-tune push advertising experience.
- Comprehensive, easy-to-grasp statistics with an in-deep performance overview.
- Third-party impression analytics tags support, API.
- Rapid and easy campaign set up and creative approval.
- Flexible CPM pricing model.
Appreciate is a mobile app marketing platform running sixty billion daily auctions and enabling marketers to take control of their programmatic ecosystem. In addition to extremely granular targeting, buyers have unconditional transparency at the exchange
Learn more about Appreciate
Splicky is the new Demand Side Platform (DSP) for the mobile channel using proprietary Real-Time Advertising (RTA) technology. Their technology makes it simple to buy mobile ad impressions and clicks within mobile sites and apps – in real-time. Using just one platform, you have immediate access to all global mobile inventory which uses Real-Time Bidding (RTB) technology. Within a matter of minutes, your mobile ad campaigns can be displayed on a Cost Per Impression (CPM) and Cost Per Click (CPC) basis. Our platform allows you to target on individual Mobile Sites and Apps, giving you total control at campaign management-level. Our detailed analysis gives you full insights on campaign performance enabling you to maximize your ROI.
- Easy to use interface with a self-serve platform and real-time analytics
- Worldwide reach across a transparent publisher set
- Wide range of targeting options including Geo+hyper location and support for mobile retargeting
- Range of formats supported including banners, interstitials, rich media & video
Criteo Dynamic Retargeting is an online retargeting platform for the ad solution from Criteo – one of the leading commerce marketing companies, founded in Paris, France. It went a long way from being a small start-up to the company with 2,700 employees in 30 offices around the globe and 1,2 billion ads served in 2017 alone. The platform is used by more than 18,000 marketers all over the globe that rely on displaying their video and display ads on publisher’s premium mobile, tablet and desktop ad inventory. Criteo Dynamic Retargeting platform helps brands to re-engage 90% of their target audience and increase their ROI up to 13 times.
- Mobile platforms: Android, IOS,
- Campaign types: CPC, CPM,
- Ad formats supported: Banners, Video
- Targeting: Custom
- Key Markets: Global
InMobi is the largest independent mobile ad network with global reach in markets including the UK, Europe, US, South Africa and India. InMobi offers advertisers to reach over 1,5 billion mobile users across more than 32,000 mobile properties to choose from. With InMobile mobile ad network, advertisers can launch brand engagement, user acquisition or remarking ad campaigns. Acquisition of a mobile rich media company Sprout allows InMobi to offer premium mobile ads as well as a huge volume of other inventory. Advertisers include leading brands such as Ford and Levis.
- Mobile platforms: Android, iOS, Mobile Web
- Campaign types: CPC, CPI
- Ad formats supported: Banner, Native, Video, Interstitial, Rich Media
- Targeting: carrier, channel, country, device, operator, os, time
- Key Markets: Europe, India, Japan, Kenya, South Africa, UK, United States
Centro is advertising technology company, founded in 2001 in Chicago, US. Centro offers a DSP solution for both advertisers and publishers, as a hosted solution or a white label software. In 2016 the company got the IAB Sales Excellence Award.
- Highlights: single dashboard to plan, run and analyze programmatic, direct, search and social media ad campaigns, storing data for all internal and external communications for an ad campaign, workflow automation, biz intelligence
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: n/a
- Tagline: Redefine Your Digital Media Buying
| Founded | Employees | Social | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 11-50 | 3k+ |
Bidease is a mobile DSP platform for mobile marketers. Its built on a foundation of proprietary programmatic advertising technology, Machine Learning, and first party data. Bidease team optimizes campaigns across all major mobile formats for desired post-install behaviors at no risk to its clients’ bottom line.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android, Mobile Web
- Campaign types: CPI, CPA, CPM
- Ad formats supported: Banners, Interstitial, Native, Rewarded Video, Video
- Targeting: Carrier, Device, Gender, Geo, Interests, IP, OS
- Key Markets: global
Amazon DSP
Reach your audiences at scale wherever they are—on Amazon sites and across the web.
Amazon DSP, formerly known as AAP or Amazon Advertising Platform, is a Demand Side Platform from Amazon Inc. It’s part of its digital advertising platform. There are several features that set this platform aside from the rest in the industry. For starters, it uses exclusive Amazon audiences to reach highly targeted audience on and off Amazon. With Amazon DSP, advertisers can programmatically reach audiences both on Amazon sites and apps as well as through its publishing partners and third-party exchanges.
Learn more about Amazon DSP
Xandr is online advertising platform from AT&T. Leveraging multi-generational legacy of AT&T, the company provides a premium platform for advertisers and publishers looking to reach specific audiences at scale in brand-safe environments all through a powerful, unified platform. What gives Xandr a competitive advantage is a combination of data insights, premium content, powerful technology, and scaled direct-to-consumer distribution.
Learn more about Xandr
Jampp unlocks programmatic advertising to drive incremental performance.
A demand-side platform (DSP) at heart, Jampp leverages unique contextual and behavioral signals to deliver customers and in-app purchases through programmatic user acquisition and retargeting.
We simplify programmatic growth for some of the biggest names in mobile.
Learn more about Jampp
Adobe Advertising Cloud is a global cross-channel advertising platform from Adobe for brands and agencies to plan, buy, measure and optimize their ad campaigns. As an independent demand-side platform (DSP), Adobe Media Optimizer provides brand marketers with integration with the world’s best targeting, reporting and inventory partners. The major feature that sets it apart from other DSP platforms is that its programmatic sophistication allows marketers to run ad campaigns across digital screens, TV and out-of-home channels with a single dashboard.
- Highlights: programmatic ad campaigns capabilities that cover desktop, mobile, TV and offline out-of-home channels on a single platform and on a big scale
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: n/a
- Tagline: One demand-side platform to rule them all.
Doubleclick Bid Manager is part of Google’s Display & Video 360 advertising solution. It is a Demand Side Platform for agencies, trading desks and advertisers to get access to ad exchanges with a wide range of exclusive video, display and mobile inventory from Google. Its targeting capabilities are defined by more than 100 ad exchanges and approximately 1 billion websites, opportunity to run ads across, desktop, mobile and tablet, multiple bidding strategies support and more.
- Highlights: connects to 100+ ad exchanges, allows to run ads across mobile, desktop and tablet, allows to buy brand-safe inventory for YouTube and TV ads programmatically through Google Partner Select, DBM’s premium video marketplace
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: Performance: Global, iOS & Android: All Categories: Power Ranking #2 (2019)
Bucksense is the programmatic platform for digital marketers, launched in 2012 in Madrid, Spain. The company’s DSP solution operates across five channels – Display, Native, Video, Mobile and Desktop. With Bucksense, marketers ad campaigns data is collected and analyzed every hour, as well as a bidding strategy is being automatically updated.
- Highlights: provides access to more than 18 ad exchanges, retargeting, hyper targeting, multiple device and format optimization, Native Video format supply, proprietary Responsive Ad units, Rewarded Video self-serve early adopter, connects from 18 to 70+ ad exchanges, PMP deals, serves 350 agencies
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: n/a
- Tagline: In-house marketing, done right.
| Founded | Employees | Social | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 11-50 | 2k+ |
Spotad is a performance-based Demand-Side-Marketing-
Key Features
- Performance driven
- Mobile experts
- Utilize data for better targeting and optimization
- Using self-developed ML model
- Full control of the creative assets for a better user engagement. From the Ad Design to the Ad Serving
Fiksu is a global DSP providing advertisers access to the highest quality audiences on mobile and CTV.
By combining the industry’s largest proprietary datasets with powerful optimization and segmentation tools, Fiksu DSP lets performance-driven marketers target and engage specific audiences that are most likely to spend time and money in their apps.
Fiksu is headquartered in Boston, MA with offices in London, New York and San Francisco.
Learn more about Fiksu
Applift is an ad network for mobile apps which covers all stages of monetization for your application, from the “trading desk” in its SDK to its publisher network and its knowledge base of insights, white papers, case-studies and e-books. Over 500 publishers work with Applift including Zynga, King, Lyft and GoodGame Studios among others.
Applift’s proprietary API offers high levels of customisation on which adverts display in your app, and how: its own algorithms, live optimisation, granular marketing and lifetime optimisation options are all included in one single platform. It also partners with YouTube, giving access to even more advertising options.
- Vast knowledge-base available
- Also offers fraud-detection and LTV optimisation services
- Over 80 million actions per month and 5000 media partners.
Learn more about Applift
Crimtan is an intelligent display and lifecycle marketing company. One of the tools in its Intelligent Display Marketing Hub is DSP that connects advertisers with multiple ad exchanges to run ad campaigns. Crimtan’s proprietary Architect™ technology allows advertisers to predict how an ad campaign will perform. On top of that ad tech platform, Crimtan team has two decades of experience under their belt that enables it to create connected media strategies for clients that are more focused, relevant, responsive and effective.
- Highlights: Architect™ tech solution, among they clients are Loreal, McDonalds, Samsung, Visa, Subway
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: n/a
- Tagline: Improving marketing efficiency through more effective display advertising
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 51-200 |
Pocketmath is the world’s fastest self-serve mobile advertising platform for buying programmatic real-time bidding inventory, launched in 2011. With a headquarter in Singapore, Pocketmath operates on a global scale. The company’s mobile DSP offers extensive targeting options including location, device, cherry-pick apps, audience, competitor app targeting, retargeting, demographic, wifi/carrier, and time of day scheduling.
Learn more about Pocketmath
Appnext is one of the largest independent app discovery platforms, offering the only recommendation engine on the market, which encompasses both in-app and on-device discovery. Appnext discovery platform powers 4B daily app recommendations via over 20 interactions along users’ daily mobile journey.
Through its direct partnerships with top OEMs, operators and app developers, Appnext creates a discovery experience in over 10,000 mobile touchpoints. Powered by proprietary AI technology, Appnext ‘Timeline’ predicts the type of apps users are likely to utilize next and recommends which ones to install. Appnext’s recommendations are helping app marketers reach more engaged users and get their apps discovered, used and re-used.
As of June 2020, Appnext is part of the Affle group. Affle (India) Limited trades on the Indian stock exchanges (BSE: 542752 & NSE: AFFLE).
- Mobile platforms: Android
- Campaign types: CPI, CPC
- Ad formats supported: Premium on-device Placements, Interstitial, Native Ads, Rewarded videos,
- Targeting: City, Device Model, Time of day, OS, Placements
- Key Markets: Global
Adform is a Denmark-based advertising technology company. Its DSP solution provides advertisers with targeting and retargeting options to reach specific audience with all industry standard ad formats across all screens – desktop, mobile and tablet. Among its partners are AppNexus, Bid Switch, Teams, Pubmatic, OpenX, Oath, Rubicon.
- Highlights: sophisticated bidding options, cross-device targeting, dealt-time algorithmic ad campaign optimization.
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: n/a
- Tagline: Activate the Full Potential of Digital Advertising
Liftoff is Cost-Per-Action optimized mobile user acquisition platform for app marketers. It provides CPI campaigns optimization via tracking post-install events for apps. It also provides retargeting features to bring mobile users back to a specific app and lookalike features to connect mobile apps with users similar to people who already use these apps.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android, Mobile Web
- Campaign types: CPI, CPA
- Ad formats supported: Custom
- Targeting: lookalike, retargeting,
- Key Markets: Global
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 11-50 |
Targetoo is an Amsterdam based programmatic mobile advertising company, founded in 2012. Its self-serve mobile DSP solution serves advertisers from more than 120 countries, it provides access to 34 ad exchanges, sophisticated targeting features and effective fraud control.
Learn more about Targetoo
theTradedesk is one of the largest Demand Side Platforms on the market. Being a pioneer of a real-time bidding advertising technology, the company empowers ad buyers with one of the most advances set of bid capabilities on the market, as well as full-funnel attribution, and detailed reporting that illustrates the consumer journey from initial impression to conversion. Among its clients are ad networks that are looking for a tech partner to provide new services in RTB, data owners looking to take advantage of the information they’ve accumulated, agency trading desks, to the most sophisticated buyers in RTB.
- Highlights: pioneer in RTB tech, best bidding capabilities in the industry
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: n/a
- Tagline: We’re Transforming Media For The Benefit Of Humankind
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 100 | $3m+ | 19k | 50,000+ |
mobusi, part of Fibonad group, is a Technology Media Company with a mobile-first and performance mindset empowering both Advertisers and Publishers to reach and exceed their high demanding targets. The platform obtains over 5 million leads per month worldwide. We maximize revenue obtained by our media partners thanks to our global coverage and optimization algorithms. In House Technology, own DSP and advanced antifraud system, Monetization Solutions, exclusive offers and premium traffic. A Mediation platform.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android
- Campaign types: CPM, CPC, CPI, CPA
- Ad formats supported: Interstitial, Banner, Video
- Targeting: country, carrier, OS, device, browser, wifi / mobile connectivity
- Key Markets: Global
| Founded | Employees | Social | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 100-125 | 12k+ |
Stack is an end-to-end SaaS-based solution (by the team behind Appodeal’s award winning ad monetization platform) that scales mobile app business growth and drive profit by synthesizing User Acquisition, Ad Monetization and Business Intelligence.
Stack is an independent ad tech market player that strives to clear the way for publishers and advertisers to collaborate directly. In an industry known for being opaque, Stack aims to increase transparency and empower mobile app businesses with the technology and data they need to thrive in a highly competitive landscape.
Learn more about Stack
StackAdapt is a Toronto, Canada-based programmatic native advertising platform that provides both self-serve and hosted DSP solution for advertisers. Among platform’s distinctive features its easy-to-use interface, Machine Leaning algorithms that power its efficiency, real-time campaign optimization, intent-based targeting and retargeting capabilities, state-of-the-art fraud detection, transparent user data & inventory, award-winning customer support and no monthly minimums.
- Highlights: native advertising, advanced targeting & retargeting capabilities, Machine Learning algorithms
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: n/a
- Tagline: The #1 programmatic native advertising platform
Smaato is a mobile advertising and app monetization platform. It features mobile-first ad network and ad server solution for publishers and app developers. Smaato hosts the largest independent mobile ad exchange with global reach. For advertisers it offers Smaato Demand Platform with advanced traffic optimization features, for publishers Smaato Publishers Platform that allows them to achieve high fill rates and yield high eCPMs.
- Mobile platforms: Android, IOS, Mobile, Windows Phone
- Campaign types: CPC
- Ad formats supported: Banners
- Targeting: country, publisher, app, ad format, device, connection type, GPS data, device ID
- Key Markets: Germany, global
Adikteev is the leading app re-engagement platform for performance-driven marketers.
We help the world’s top-spending app publishers increase retention, reacquire churned users and drive incremental revenue. App publishers in gaming, eCommerce, on-demand, services and entertainment rely on us to deliver made-to-measure strategies, creatives and algorithms.
By combining science and creativity, we deliver best-in-class playable and interactive ads paired with top retargeting tech. We believe in creating a unique strategy for each client based on data to provide measurable and transparent results that increase user LTV and fuel business growth.
Adikteev is #10 among Inc. Magazine’s Top 5000 fastest growing companies and ranked in the top retargeting partners of the world for two consecutive years by AppsFlyer Performance Index
Adelphic is a one of the leading people-based cross-channel demand-side platforms. It provides an enterprise-ready self-service software solution for agencies, brands and other large media buyers to make meaningful engagements with consumers across all devices and formats. The company’s platform is fully RTB-enabled and delivers global scale through access to all leading inventory providers. Adelphic’s technology overcomes the limitations of user identification across all digital devices, yielding rich, nuanced portraits of real people, instead of cookies. Adelphic is owned by Viant, a subsidiary of Time Inc. (NYSE:TIME).
- Highlights: the only subscription based DSP on the market, Viant’s people-based device graph powered by our 1st party data, ML
- Featured in an Index: n/a
Amobee is a premium mobile ad network and technology company, offering a wide range of advertising/monetization solutions for advertisers, developers/publishers and organizations. Its DSP supplies advertisers with a single dashboard to plan, execute and analyze audience-first ad campaigns. It allows to reach audiences across video, mobile, display, social and TV ad channels.
- Highlights: seamless omnichannel ad campaigns, precise targeting, built-in reporting and analysis.
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: n/a
- Tagline:Advertising solutions for the converging world
Veziron Media DSP is a Demand Side Platform, formerly known as Oauth DSP, for advertisers to programmatically monitor, create and manage ad campaigns. The platform offers advertisers Native, Mobile, Video, Branded Content and Premium Integrations formats to launch ad campaigns.
- Highlights: 1 billion people reach, 200 daily cross-channel datapoint, unto 48% conversion increase thanks to ML algorithms
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: Southeast Asia/Up & Comers #5 (2018)
- Tagline: Connecting global brands to captivated audiences