By Seb Joseph – January 9, 2025 –
For many marketers, programmatic marketing is a one-stop store: log into a demand-side platform (DSP), location your quotes and stop.
Mars Petcare, nevertheless, is doing things in a different way.
When it pertains to CTV, it's utilizing a supply-side platform– the tool publishers usually utilize to handle advertisement sales– to purchase advertisements straight, avoiding the typical DSP path completely.
“For over a year now, We've been combining our CTV advertisement costs into less partners in order to reduce cross partner frequency overlap and extend distinct reach,” stated Jonathan Tuttle, associate director of media for Mars Pet Nutrition North America.
In March, Mars put this technique to the test, purchasing unsold CTV stock outside the in advance trading window to promote Greenies animal deals with to non-brand purchasers. Rather of utilizing its go-to DSPs in Google Dv360 and The Trade Desk, Mars leaned on PubMatic, doing offers through programmatic ensured and personal markets.
The marketer's reasoning was simple: less advertisement tech intermediaries suggest less charges, leaving more of the spending plan for real advertisement positionings.
Get it right, and the cost savings might be significant. PubMatic links marketers straight with publishers, removing layers of intermediaries and using a more transparent cost structure. By contrast, DSPs normally do not have those direct connections and frequently run within a complex, multi-step community that stacks on innovation and deal charges– increasing expenses with every layer.
“The primary factor for doing this was monetary in nature: the test with PubMatic enabled us to prevent a lot of the in advance costs charged by the DSPs we generally utilize,” stated Tuttle, without exposing precise cost savings figures.
Those cost savings can build up. Take Google DV360, for example: its charges normally balance around 13%. That indicates for each $100 invested, $13 goes to Google, leaving just $87 for acquiring impressions. Include on charges for third-party information, measurement and confirmation and the expenses climb up even greater.
By avoiding its own variation of these expenses, Mars Petcare reallocated 8% more of its budget plan to real media positionings– more cash in publishers' pockets.
“Doing it in this manner [buying from a SSP] was where we were going to gather a great deal of the cost savings, in addition to ideally media performances also,” stated Tuttle.
The outcomes promoted themselves. Mars exceeded its sales lift objective by 20% and blew previous incremental sales targets by 126%.
In spite of the success, Mars Petcare isn't wanting to change DSPs with SSPs totally. Rather, it prepares to utilize SSPs for purchasing CTV advertisements in particular situations where the monetary and functional effectiveness make good sense. According to Tuttle, DSPs still provide important benefits: volume based discount rates, tiered rates, more comprehensive stock swimming pools and advanced targeting abilities– among others. At scale these advantages frequently surpass the in advance cost savings from direct SSP purchasing.
