Everything You Know about DSP Has Changed

You might have tried DSP in the past and been disappointed in the results — high cost for a low return. But DSP has changed a lot in the past few years, and these changes have likely shifted the way DSP could perform for your brand.

If you’ve tried DSP and didn’t see the results you desired, you might consider trying again. While DSP certainly isn’t right for every brand, it can be an incredible asset to brands who are at the right stage in their advertising, especially with these new updates.

We chatted with Danielle Young, Senior DSP Manager at Blue Wheel, about how DSP has changed in the past few years — and what that could mean for your brand.

Third-Party Data

The addition of new third-party data from Oracle and LiveRamp drastically changed the DSP landscape. When DSP first launched, only a finite amount of data was available from Amazon,  which limited how precise you could be with your targeting. Now that Amazon has partnered with third-party companies to gain access to their data, brands have the ability to target more accurately. Large amounts of new and diverse in-market and lifestyle segments are the result of this addition.

“The addition of this third-party data has likely over tripled the amount of access we have to segments and allows us to target much more specific pools of users with how refined these new segments can be,” says Young. This allows for much more customization in your DSP advertising.

Audience Builder

Before July 2019, you would have to physically email Amazon support to ask for a segment to target for a specific ASIN. Amazon would also only provide segments for ASINs that you own — you couldn’t get a segment from a competitor’s ASIN. 

Now, however, you can use ASIN retargeting on any ASIN, regardless of whether you own it using the in-console Audience Builder. This update is incredibly beneficial to brands, as it allows you to market your products to people who are looking at competitor products similar to yours. You can also, of course, still target your own ASINs to re-engage with customers who have shown interest in or previously purchased your products, keeping your brand top of mind to consumers. “The addition of the Audience Builder tool in 2019 opened up a whole new world of retargeting possibilities and immensely improved the campaign build time,” says Young.

New Inventories

Every year since 2017, Amazon has been adding new inventories to their DSP platform. “When DSP started in 2016, there were a handful of available inventories, but now there’s much more,” says Young. “Each year they’ve rolled out new inventories available in the system.”

Now, companies that Amazon runs their ads through — such as Google or Adex — will provide new inventories for ads to be served on, giving brands a lot more opportunity to scale their DSP advertising across the web.

Young advises that this increase of available inventories is a gamechanger for DSP advertising: “If you ran DSP in the past where we weren’t able to scale, there is now so much more available in DSP that can allow you to scale more efficiently.”

Don’t let just anyone manage your DSP. Reach out to the experts at Blue Wheel by filling out the form below!