Programmatic advertising is always surrounded by big letters: DSP, DMP, RTB, SSP, and others. These terms seem familiar, but they often cause confusion. The sales chain in automated advertising is indeed multilayered: advertisers can use various technologies to buy ad impressions for the right audience with specific parameters, but the publisher does not see this from their side. For the publisher, the key partner in this chain is the SSP or the supply-side platform. Publishers! The SSP is your friend and comrade. Usually, they are just as interested in selling your inventory at a higher price, as their percentage depends on it.

What is an SSP?

Supply-Side Platform (SSP) is a technological platform specializing in working with advertising inventory. It allows website or app owners to sell their banner spaces through automated auctions. The SSP connects publishers with various ad networks, exchanges, and demand-side platforms (DSP), ensuring a continuous monetization process for their inventory.

How does an SSP work?

The SSP's work begins with integration into your website or app. Usually, this process involves installing a special code on your resource's pages, allowing the platform to collect information about visitors and conduct real-time auctions. When a user visits your site, the SSP launches an auction, collects the available information, and sends a bid request to connected DSPs, who then submit their bids (bid response) for the right to show the ad. While the process has many nuances, it generally looks like this. Typically, SSPs and DSPs communicate with each other via the Open RTB protocol.

SSPs usually allow publishers to set minimum prices for impressions, manage which advertisers or DSPs can participate in auctions, and block inappropriate ad categories. For example, if your site is geared towards a family audience, you can block ads for gambling or competitors. Thus, SSPs not only increase revenue but also protect the publisher's interests.

Moreover, SSPs provide publishers with access to detailed reports that help better understand user behavior (e.g., their response to ads), the effectiveness of various ad campaigns (i.e., your attractiveness to certain categories of advertisers), and pricing trends in the market. This data allows you to eliminate some forms of advertising and focus on key ones.

It may seem that you can connect all publishers and become rich. However, it's not that simple. SSPs are limited by QPS (Queries Per Second). What is QPS? These are limits on the number of ad requests the platform can process per second. These limits are important for maintaining the system's stability and performance, especially under high loads. If QPS exceeds the set limit, it can lead to delays in processing requests or even service denials. Therefore, SSPs must constantly optimize their inventory to avoid exceeding QPS.

Benefits of using SSPs for publishers

By 2024, the SSP market in Russia has become quite consolidated, with «Yandex» dominating almost all available inventory. Other SSPs in the market work with the same traffic, reselling it and competing for the same publishers. This creates a situation where the choice between SSPs becomes less significant, as most offer access to the same ad inventory. This concentration reduces diversity and competition in the market, making «Yandex» the key player in Russia's programmatic ecosystem. The overall situation for the industry remains challenging.

Currently, there are practically no alternatives to «Yandex SSP» for publishers. However, if we consider the overall situation, using SSPs offers publishers numerous opportunities for better monetization compared to refusing this technology. Let's look at the main advantages that SSPs can offer publishers.

1. Revenue Maximization. SSPs allow connecting to multiple ad networks, exchanges, and DSPs, significantly increasing competition for your inventory. With more auction participants, the price per impression can rise significantly.
2. Process Automation. Selling ad inventory used to be a labor-intensive process, requiring sales managers and lengthy negotiations with advertisers. If you still have direct advertisers, you know what I mean. SSPs automate this process, allowing you to focus on creating content and improving user experience.
3. Control over ad inventory. Managing ad inventory is easier with SSPs compared to your own AdServer. SSPs provide full control over advertisers and ad types on your site. You can set up the platform to block unwanted ad categories, set minimum prices for impressions, and manage ad frequency, helping to avoid overloading users with ads and improving the site's perception.
4. Cost Reduction. Maintaining your solution can be significantly more expensive than using SSP technologies, which are often better optimized. However, it's important to remember that this leads to dependency on third-party technologies.
5. Access to analytics and reporting. Developing your products for data collection and dashboards can be costly. SSPs usually provide access to extensive analytics, including information on the most effective ad campaigns, user categories that most frequently interact with ads, and the highest advertiser bids. These reports can be used for negotiations with direct advertisers, offering them verified benchmarks and more accurate and valuable data about your audience.
6. Support for various ad formats. Developing your ad formats can be very costly. SSPs allow you to work with various ad formats, such as banners, videos, native ads, and others, usually standardized for oRTB formats. This gives you the ability to choose the formats that best suit your audience and content. For example, if you see that video ads work best among your audience, you can focus on this format.

How to choose the right SSP?

It's a simple question. If you work in Russia, after Google's exit, you have no other options besides «Yandex».

Moreover, «Yandex» is constantly looking for new budgets. The company recently added a new format — In-Image, which was previously used in the Russian market only by AstraLab and Hybrid Vox.

Note, I'm not claiming that «Yandex» is doing anything wrong or anything like that. Their position is fully deserved, and the factors of recent years that further strengthened «Yandex's» positions are beyond their control. It happened as it happened.

And while «Yandex» dominates, there are still companies that could compete with them. My hope is for large corporations and their ability to buy something and combine it with their existing assets, but the chances are slim.

In the short term, it is unlikely that anyone will seriously threaten «Yandex's» position in the Russian SSP market. However, long-term competition could lead to the emergence of new players or alliances that could change the current situation. Perhaps, an external player might emerge.

On the other hand, the lack of competition will negatively impact the market, reducing competitiveness and innovation.

All hope is on advertisers and agencies

Despite the market's monopolization by «Yandex», there are positive aspects that can benefit both publishers and alternative SSPs. Advertisers usually do not limit themselves to working with just one platform and strive to diversify their advertising budgets using multiple DSPs. This means that even in a saturated market, there are opportunities for other SSPs that can offer unique conditions or access to specific audiences.

Moreover, the remaining SSPs in the market are actively working on expanding their publisher network and improving their offerings. They strive to attract publishers through flexibility, specialized services, and a personalized approach. As a result, even in the face of «Yandex's» dominance, market mechanisms remain that allow competition to continue developing.

Conclusion

In 2024, the Russian SSP market became monopolized by «Yandex», leaving publishers with limited choices for monetizing their inventory. This concentration creates several problems, including dependence on a monopoly and reduced competition. However, this does not mean that publishers are in a hopeless situation.

Publishers can still adapt and find ways to maximize their revenue. Working with «Yandex», it's important to use all the tools and analytics they provide while also exploring the possibilities of other SSPs, which should strive to offer something unique. Publishers should not be afraid to try something new; this will help them find additional revenue streams and support market development as a whole.

I am confident that the programmatic advertising market will remain active and offer new opportunities. Working on content, constantly optimizing the site, improving user experience, and experimenting with the ad stack will help publishers effectively monetize traffic. Adaptability and readiness to use all available tools will allow them to stay afloat.

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