Software that allows advertisers to buy digital ad inventory programmatically across multiple ad exchanges and publishers from a single platform, using automated bidding.
Why it matters
A DSP is the practical tool through which most programmatic advertising actually happens — understanding which DSP a media plan runs through affects what inventory, targeting options, and reporting are available.
In a sentence
"We consolidated our display buying into a single DSP to get a clearer, unified view of performance across every publisher."
Related terms
- Antonyms: SSP (Supply-Side Platform) — the counterpart platform used by publishers to sell their ad inventory, sitting on the opposite side of the same transaction.
- Often confused with: Ad network (a DSP gives an advertiser programmatic access across many exchanges and publishers with granular bidding control; an ad network is typically a more curated, pre-packaged set of publisher inventory sold at a less granular level).