The New SSP-Ad Server Paradigm in Streaming

Paige Bilins, Senior Vice President, Product Management

July 23, 2024 | 5 min read

To truly benefit from the growth of programmatic and data capabilities in CTV, media owners should examine how their ad-serving tech interacts with their SSPs. By tailoring those connections, media owners can provide buyers with the most transparent, efficient, and performant access to inventory while creating better ad experiences.

Thoughtfully Crafted Ad Experiences

The streaming ad experience relies on an ad decisioning engine that can create the most optimal ad placement. For a watcher, this means seeing relevant ads that align with their interests and the platform they're watching while not bombarding them with conflicting or repetitive messaging.

Meanwhile, buyers want access to the scaled audiences and streaming inventory with creative controls to ensure brand safety and avoid over-serving ads. Setting these controls in the ad server ensures all demand channels are considered, contributing to a more engaging ad experience.

Those ad server controls work in tandem with the SSP for the best outcomes. Efficiently communicating more information between the SSP and ad server will result in more optimal auction outcomes with reduced latency, enabling quicker ad decisioning across all demand.

This is especially important for live streaming, where diverse demand is needed to ensure a high-quality ad experience and the load on the technology is at its peak:

Our industry talks a lot about the right ad, time and target audience as the trifecta of successful ad delivery. We don't talk enough about what achieving that requires. For a sports-first live TV streaming service that aggregates over 400 channels, like Fubo, having a flexible and responsive tech stack is critical for finding the best mix of ads that maximize revenue, deliver a high quality viewer experience, and achieve marketers' goals. As a baseline, it requires an SSP with robust inventory and an ad server with real-time ad decisioning.

Jennifer Hess, VP, Global Ad Operations, Fubo

All this must be backed by real-time analytics and reporting workflows, empowering publishers with actionable insights to make fully informed decisions about what demand will perform, fuel optimizations such as dynamic floor pricing, and improve inventory management. Having an SSP and ad server in tight coordination allows these optimizations to be realized.

Access and Performance Advantages

The industry continues emphasizing supply-path optimization (SPO), reducing and optimizing hops in the supply chain to ensure that more ad budgets go toward working media. Tighter connections between the ad server and SSP can help here, creating more efficient processes that improve outcomes and boost monetization.

First and foremost, having greater access to premium inventory via shorter supply paths can lead to increased brand exposure and better campaign performance for advertisers. This also provides the best opportunity to ensure a seamless, TV-like ad experience that protects both buyer and seller. Better and quicker communication between the ad server and SSP reduces the risks of ad load latency and brings more diverse demand.

For advertisers who want to spend more on streaming, a higher standard for transparency is becoming non-negotiable. Greater visibility into the bidding process and supply source enables them to make more informed decisions about their ad spend. This transparency can lead to stronger relationships between advertisers and publishers and improved campaign performance.

The benefit of partnering with a unified ad server and SSP, like Magnite, is that it enhances workflow efficiency and provides better data for inventory management and strategy optimization for our clients. In my experience, these optimizations can only be realized when an SSP and ad server have a direct relationship.

Kelly McMahon, SVP of Global Operations at LG Ad Solutions

Enhanced Functionality and Innovation

An ad server integrated with an SSP also simplifies access to enhanced capabilities across audiences, reporting, forecasting, and performance. This makes it easier to implement, report on, and optimize CTV campaigns. It also creates a more streamlined approach to innovation across new ad formats (such as Tiles and pause ads), complex environments such as live streaming, diverse demand opportunities, and audience activations.

Example of a contextually relevant pause ad advertising a sports car when a car-related program has been paused.

Having a holistic approach to audience management across the ad server and SSP can be hugely beneficial, too. On the SSP side, there are options to control, curate, connect, and safeguard audience enablement data to increase the value of the impressions. Having deeper insights into the contextual relevance of ad breaks beyond channel and app can further improve the user experience and the impact of ads. Therefore, having an ad server with real-time data capabilities combined with an SSP with audience data and activation tools can maximize yields.

Aligning for Full Video Control

Since acquiring SpringServe, Magnite has kept the ad server demand-agnostic while pushing what is possible with a more integrated proposition, improving the user experience in CTV. For instance, in June 2024 SpringServe introduced deep linking, designed to streamline the user experience across its platform and Magnite Streaming. This enhancement enables clients who utilize both services to easily navigate from a deal displayed in SpringServe to its corresponding detailed view in Magnite Streaming, ensuring a more integrated and insightful user journey.

This evolving, integrated approach between the Magnite Streaming SSP and Springserve ad server allows us to deliver reach and audience, bring unique value for buyers, support controls for sellers, and power a more relevant advertising experience for consumers.

Tags: Ad server, Buyer, CTV, Publisher, SSP, Streaming