As consumers move more and more of their daily tasks and lives to mobile devices, mobile marketing can offer increasing opportunities to engage and retain your brand’s customers.

How can a brand take advantage of mobile marketing?

By partnering with a mobile marketing platform, also known as a demand-side platform (DSP), to serve their ads across the mobile ecosystem.

In this blog, we cover what a DSP is and why brands need one to compete in today’s omnichannel marketplace.

What is a DSP?

A demand-side platform (DSP) is a system that lets marketers buy digital advertising inventory across a multitude of ad exchanges from a single interface. To run efficient in-app ad campaigns, DSPs leverage the following tools and technologies.

First party data

DSPs provide advertisers with large amounts of anonymized data about an ad’s performance in the context in which it was served. Depending on the DSP’s specialization, this data might be more sector-specific (such as game apps). The quantity of a DSP’s data drives the quality of its targeting. Given DSPs’ integration of multiple exchanges and inventories, they often have a larger volume of data at their disposal. As privacy-compliant data has become increasingly valuable since the deprecation of the IDFA, this is one benefit of partnering with a demand-side platform.

Real-time bidding (RTB)

DSPs leverage automated, real-time bidding (RTB) technology to serve ads efficiently. RTB standardizes and automates the buying and selling of ads between media buyers and sellers. An RTB process, which includes bidding on a piece of inventory and competing in an automated auction, takes less than 200 milliseconds (quite literally faster than the blink of an eye, which takes approximately 300 milliseconds). By partnering with a demand-side platform, advertisers can unlock scale through the streamlined process of RTB.

Algorithmic buying

Many DSPs have built algorithms that use data to iterate the bidding and decision-making process of serving ads. These algorithms get more precise as more data is fed into them and more accurate as they learn over time. For advertisers, working with a DSP that has a long history in mobile — and, therefore, more accurate bidding — can help them tap into the power of in-app ad campaigns.

The value of working with a DSP

Why should brands work with mobile DSPs? Because today’s mobile marketplace is multifaceted and changing. From Apple’s deprecation of the IDFA to a fluctuating global economy, the challenges facing app marketers today are more complex than ever. Partnering with a trusted demand-side platform can support app marketers as they juggle KPIs, economic pressures and a shifting marketplace.

Creative Support

Since the deprecation of the IDFA, ad creatives have become a key lever of control for advertisers to improve their campaign performance. Many DSPs offer in-house creative services, support, and testing.

At YouAppi, we offer custom mobile creative design solutions to our clients in our Appi Studio. This is a free service that we provide to our partners with their mobile channel marketing campaign set-up regardless of their overall budget. Along with providing overall design services, Appi Studios also offers simple editing support and reformatting — such as assistance adapting retargeting creatives from UA campaigns.

Machine learning and model testing 

As mentioned above, DSPs use algorithmic buying to enhance the decision-making process of serving ads to the right user in the right place at the right time. As part of this capability, DSPs can also build robust machine learning models that optimize campaigns to target other high-quality users. For example, a game app might collect level-reached data and other indicators of when a player is likely to make a purchase and pass it to their demand-side platform partner to better target and predict which users are likely to become paying players. Competitive DSPs will be able to build and test these models successfully even after Apple’s IDFA changes using contextual signals.

As a longtime leader in the mobile space, YouAppi has built machine learning models that have been iterated over time based on historical first party data. We’ve also built these models to be non-reliant on the demographic data provided by device IDs. These models are continuously tested and enhanced — with privacy-compliant signals — to keep up with new user adoptions and trends.

Transparency and reporting

Given the vast amount of performance data they have available, DSPs can provide marketers with invaluable reporting about the ads and channels that engage their target audience. A trusted demand-side platform will ensure these reports are frequent, easy-to-understand, and transparently communicate effective buying strategies.

At YouAppi, we offer partners a comprehensive dashboard of their campaigns’ performance that’s updated in real time. We also provide support by providing a dedicated account team to each of our partners. Our account managers regularly make recommendations on how to improve campaign performance and unlock scale.

Takeaways

By partnering with a mobile DSP, brands can access a wide variety of in-app ad inventories and tap into the power of mobile channel marketing.

A demand-side platform (DSP) lets marketers buy digital advertising inventory across a multitude of ad exchanges from a single interface through the following technologies:

  • First party data: Given DSPs’ integration of multiple exchanges and inventories, they can provide brands with large amount of anonymized data on their campaigns.
  • Real time bidding: DSPs is leverage automated, real-time bidding (RTB) technology to serve ads efficiently.
  • Algorithmic buying: Demand-side platform use algorithms to iterate the bidding and decision-making process of serving ads.

Why should brands work with mobile DSPs?

  • Creative services. Since the deprecation of the IDFA, ad creatives have become a key lever of performance. Many DSPs offer in-house creative services, support, and testing.
  • Machine learning and model testing.  DSPs can build robust machine learning models that optimize campaigns to target other high-quality users.
  • Transparency and reporting. DSPs can provide marketers with invaluable reporting about the ads and channels that are engaging their target audience.

Looking for a mobile marketing partner?

From campaign management to machine learning models, YouAppi can help your brand unlock and scale mobile channels. Schedule a meeting with our team for support planning your brand’s mobile marketing strategy in Q4 2022 and beyond.