Demand Side Platform Consolidation

Demand Side Platforms really took off in 2010.  If you are in the advertising industry then you have undoubtedly heard of DSPs.  These networks are similar to the traditional “supply-side” ad networks where publishers supply impressions for resale to agencies where the demand resides. The demand side is driven from the large media agencies and technology providers in part because buying online display for agencies involves way too many suppliers and is unprofitable which is why ad networks had a good run at growing margins and scale for many years.

The technologies involved vary but basically come down to to having the ability to provide a single system that connects to multiple ad exchanges, campaign management tools for bidding optimization, integrate reporting, and advanced analysis for targeting. 

I have written before about how there are way too many suppliers in the advertising supply
chain in this post and this post. 

This recent post in TechCrunch around Google's increasingly large influence in this space really interested me.  With some reports of DSPs making up over 50% of the overall $8 billion in US display advertising, Google could end up consolidating many of the players in the supply chain.