Online media, regardless of platform, is heavily reliant on programmatic buying and selling. American spending on programmatic advertising was just $7 billion in 2013. In 2015, it is estimated to be $15 billion and is projected to be $30 billion by 2020. It is imperative to understand the glossary, grammar, and syntax of programmatic ad technology to reap maximum benefits in the coming days. Let us have a quick look.

Advertisers: People or company who want their advertisements to appear on publishers’ properties. They will buy advertisement real estate and pay a price for it. Advertisers require an adware solution to help them promote their products and services at relevant publisher’s add page securely.

Publishers: People or company who own properties like websites, TV channels, mobile apps etc. On these properties they sell spaces where advertisements can be published.

Media Agencies: People or company who create and handle advertising content for its clients. Agencies may buy ad inventory (1) either directly from a publisher, (2) from an Ad Network, or (3) from the Ad Exchange.

Data Suppliers: Data Suppliers collect, compile, and sell online and offline consumer data. Data collected by these suppliers include geographic information, household income, lifestyle preferences, and shopping behavior. Data Suppliers sell their information to Data Management Platforms (DMPs).

Data Management Platform (DMP) / Audience Management Platform (AMP): An online platform that collects, catalogues, stores, and packages consumer data it receives from various data sources. Through database integration, DMPs make this information available to advertisers, publishers, and other ad technology stakeholders. They use this packaged consumer data to target audiences and optimize campaign performance.

Demand Side Platform (DSP): An online platform that helps advertisers to buy display advertising on ad exchanges, ad networks, and other available inventory sources in an intelligent automated manner. They process data (mostly from DMP/AMP) to optimize campaign performance and access analytics of campaign performance.

Supply Side Platform (SSP): Technology platform is where the publisher sets the price, target-audience type and other variables for its ad inventory. This helps to sell easily on multiple ad exchanges and networks. The SSP’s job is to optimize selling price, maintain quality of advertisements, and reach out to suitable buyers.

Ad Exchange: A technology platform that facilitates the programmatic buying and selling of ad inventories, making the process more efficient. SSPs sell their inventories on the exchange and DSPs buy inventories available on the exchange. An Ad Exchange can add inventories by accessing multiple SSPs, while an SSP can gain inventories with access to multiple publishers.

Ad Network: A company that has exclusive rights to sell the inventories of particular publishers. Ad Networks normally buy inventory from publishers, package it based on target audience, and then resell to advertisers at a higher price. Often times, a company that owns a very large network of publishers will create its own Ad Exchange.

Ad Server: An online platform that hosts and serves advertisements. It provides reporting and campaign analytics too. An Ad Server hosts the ad units, and then acts as a delivery system in tandem with DSPs and SSPs, displaying the correct ad when a user visits a publisher’s website.

We hope this glossary of jargons helps you get familiar with the new world of advertising. However, none of these are water-tight compartments. Occasionally, they interchange and assume additional roles. Moreover, programmatic advertising is an emerging area in a state of high flux. There are many more elements that are part of this intricate interplay.

Author Bio:
Preethi vagadia is a senior business architect worked in marketing department with top notch companies and has over 8 years of experience in content management solution, advertising technology, ad server software. She has also worked in several process improvement projects involving multi-national teams for global customers in warranty management and mortgage.