{"id":6932,"date":"2026-10-20T21:43:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T14:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adtek.agency\/glossary\/demand-side-platforms-dsp\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T21:43:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T14:43:22","slug":"demand-side-platforms-dsp","status":"publish","type":"mona_glossary","link":"https:\/\/adtek.agency\/en\/glossary\/demand-side-platforms-dsp\/","title":{"rendered":"Demand-side platform (DSP)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A DSP (demand-side platform) is software that lets advertisers and agencies buy impressions across many exchanges, SSPs and publishers at once from a single interface, with the price for each impression set automatically through real-time bidding.<\/p>\n<h2>What is a DSP?<\/h2>\n<p>The &#8220;demand side&#8221; is the side with the money that wants to buy ad space. Instead of dealing with each news site or app one by one, a buyer uses a DSP to connect once to a large pool of supply, set targeting, budget and frequency caps, and let the system place the bids.<\/p>\n<p>Google&#8217;s Display &amp; Video 360 (DV360) is a major DSP. Google describes DV360 as five integrated modules: Campaigns, Audiences, Creatives, Inventory and Insights, so a team can build creatives, manage audience data, buy inventory and optimize campaigns in one place (<a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/displayvideo\/answer\/9059464?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Display &amp; Video 360 Help, Overview, accessed October 2026<\/a>).<\/p>\n<h2>What a DSP does in a single auction<\/h2>\n<p>When an <a href=\"\/en\/glossary\/ad-exchange\/\">ad exchange<\/a> or SSP sends a bid request, the DSP has less than a second to respond. In that window it checks:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Whether the impression matches the targeting: country, device, domain or app, audience.<\/li>\n<li>How many times this person has already seen the ad, and whether they are still under the frequency cap.<\/li>\n<li>How much daily budget is left, and whether spend should speed up or slow down.<\/li>\n<li>What the impression is worth against the goal: a completed video view, a click or a conversion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If the impression is worth buying, the DSP sends a bid along with the ad creative. If not, it stays silent and the impression goes to someone else.<\/p>\n<h2>What changed for DSPs in 2025 and 2026<\/h2>\n<p>In April 2025, Google confirmed that Chrome would keep its current approach of letting users choose for themselves about third-party cookies, and would not roll out a separate prompt asking users (<a href=\"https:\/\/privacysandbox.google.com\/blog\/privacy-sandbox-next-steps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Privacy Sandbox, Next steps, April 2025<\/a>). In October 2025, Google announced it was retiring a set of Privacy Sandbox technologies because of low adoption, including Topics, Protected Audience and the Attribution Reporting API on both Chrome and Android (<a href=\"https:\/\/privacysandbox.google.com\/blog\/update-on-plans-for-privacy-sandbox-technologies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Privacy Sandbox, Update on plans, October 2025<\/a>). DSPs that had invested in Topics or Protected Audience targeting have to fall back on the cookies that remain, contextual signals and the advertiser&#8217;s first-party data.<\/p>\n<p>In the ad tech antitrust case, the September 2026 remedies ruling did not impose data-sharing or interoperability obligations on DV360. Those obligations mainly target AdX and DFP (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.techpolicy.press\/a-deep-dive-into-the-antitrust-remedies-that-spared-googles-ad-tech-business\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tech Policy Press, September 2026<\/a>).<\/p>\n<h2>DSP vs. Meta and TikTok Ads Manager<\/h2>\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th><\/th>\n<th>DSP<\/th>\n<th>Meta and TikTok Ads Manager<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Where ads appear<\/td>\n<td>Websites, apps and CTV from a large number of publishers<\/td>\n<td>Mostly on the platform itself and its partner network<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>How inventory is bought<\/td>\n<td>Auctions through exchanges, SSPs or private deals with publishers<\/td>\n<td>The platform&#8217;s own internal auction<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Typical users<\/td>\n<td>Agencies, brands with large display budgets<\/td>\n<td>Businesses of every size<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h2>Example (hypothetical)<\/h2>\n<p>A home appliance brand puts VND 200 million into display ads on online news sites for 4 weeks, buying through a DSP at an average <a href=\"\/en\/glossary\/cpm\/\">CPM<\/a> of VND 30,000. The impressions it can buy are 200,000,000 \/ 30,000 \u00d7 1,000, or about 6.67 million. With a frequency cap set so each person sees the ad 4 times on average, the campaign reaches about 1.67 million people. To reach more people on the same budget, you lower the frequency and accept that each person will remember the ad less.<\/p>\n<h2>FAQ<\/h2>\n<h3>What is the difference between a DSP and an SSP?<\/h3>\n<p>A DSP serves the buy side, and an <a href=\"\/en\/glossary\/supply-side-platform-ssp\/\">SSP<\/a> serves the sell side. The two meet on an exchange or through a direct connection, and each impression is priced in its own auction.<\/p>\n<h3>Do small and medium businesses need a DSP?<\/h3>\n<p>Most don&#8217;t yet. If the goal is sales or leads and most of the budget already sits on Meta, Google and TikTok, a DSP is only worth considering when you need coverage on news sites, apps or CTV with tighter control over placements.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to work out whether your display plan should run through a DSP or stay on the platforms you already use, the Adtek team can talk it through with you on the <a href=\"\/en\/contact\/\">contact page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A DSP (demand-side platform) is software that lets advertisers and agencies buy impressions across many exchanges, SSPs and publishers at once from a single interface, with the price for each impression set automatically through real-time bidding. What is a DSP? The &#8220;demand side&#8221; is the side with the money that wants to buy ad space. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_title":"Demand-Side Platform (DSP): What It Is and How It Works","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"What is a demand-side platform (DSP)? 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