It’s not enough to integrate to exchanges only
Hanging out for Happy Hour on Friday, I heard something that bears repeating:
It’s not enough for DSPs to integrate only to Exchanges and other sources of remnant inventory. This seems like an obvious statement, but you would be shocked at how many DSP value propositions essentially assume that the entire inventory world consists solely of remnant and non-guaranteed.
Folks, the waves of Exchange adulation continue – and it is justified – but there’s a reason that guaranteed inventory is still going strong. If your DSP plans to optimize only against a secondary set of inventory, then prepare for a rude shock when you match up results against a DSP that can optimize against both premium and non-premium inventory.
The question is if guaranteed inventory will be available through a automated buy. There is no reason why exchanges won’t be able to sell futures at some point to enable automated buys of guaranteed inventory. On the other hand much of the value of a dsp goes away if you have to buy buckets on inventory ahead of time without knowing what is in it.
Will the major publishers enable automated buying of first call inventory? Hmmm.. maybe. I’m skeptical.
And I would change one word of your last sentence:
“…much of the value of *rtb* goes away if you buy [...] inventory ahead of time.”
in my mind, dsp’s are (will be/should be) so much more than rtb.