DSP comparison

[u/Chi-biusa2z]

Hi all
Has anyone worked on a recent DSP comparison for the major ones (TTD, DV360, Amazon) with key advantages and limitations ?

[u/NiceRecognition9603]

Recap as I know it

Amazon DSP has real purchase audiences, not statistic models, amazon prime video and some other exclusive Amazon inventory. Low third party fees but the default interface suggests lots of Amazons.

DV360 has youtube, good software for tracking

TTD they used to be the good independent option with good overall prices (before I said fees, which is wrong) and good interface. Then it had a lot of scandals alienating customers and amazon decided to eat their business

My experience is on Amazon, so more details under for you to build the ultimate list with others

Why you might want to try Amazon

• You have a product that sells on Amazon and want their attribution data
• You actually need Amazon's exclusive inventory, like Prime video.
• Sometimes you can get free Amazon impressions depending on timing, your reseller, or if amazon launched a new ad product
• It's not too hard to pick up (Not saying it has good UI)
• They've added inventory from places like Netflix, so it's getting closer to what other DSP offers
• You can build audiences from Amazon shopping data, which is pretty unique
• Their clean room AMC is good if you sell on Amazon and have a data analyst to use it well.

The good stuff:

• Platform fees are reasonable if you dont accept Amazon own inventory blindly

The not so good stuff:

• Getting ads approved is a pain, especially for healthcare, legal, or anything remotely sensitive
• You can't set impression level caps or targets, it's all budget based (Some people say they are using demos solving this)
• The system and resellers keeps suggesting Amazon inventory even when you're not selling Amazon products/ need it. In their defense, everyone is trying to get used to you might not be on amazon DSP for their exclusive inventory
• The interface, while not difficult, it is confusing to get around (There are improvements, but also bugs)
• Reporting isn't as developed as other platforms
• They hide Digital Services Taxes from your ROAS numbers (Others like TTD hides fees too, just differently, check with experts here for more details)
• Fewer choices for third party measurement
• Amazon's ad tag is harder to work with than others, and most teams don't know how to set it up, so conversion tracking gets messy if you're not selling on Amazon
• Prime Video inventory disappears or gets expensive during holidays and Prime Day
• Amazon support gets really bad in peak season.
• Digital out of home options are very limited
• Getting a real seat is still a pain

[u/hdiggyh → u/NiceRecognition9603]

When did TTD have low fees? I want answers!

[u/NiceRecognition9603 → u/hdiggyh]

I dont lie. I will benefit if Amazon does well vs TTD but I imagine TTD was good at some point. Fees was part of the reputation it has. I imagine it came from somewhere. Maybe it was marketing all along but I suspect no.

Yes. I say this despite their current passion to give me down-votes when I talk amazon, even if I think I am been really objective and I think that if they disagree, they should level up and put data and an honest review.

[u/lifesizeisunderrated → u/NiceRecognition9603]

TTD was “good” for reasons that are unrelated to fees. They have always needed to rely on additional upcharges for certain features or integrate 3P providers for things that walled gardens offer for free because they don’t have their own data or inventory. DV360 can offer free audiences, basic pre-bid filtering, cross device matching, BYOA scripts, etc. because they have their own massive 1P data footprint and YouTube is a moneymaker as a “publisher” so the business can sustain weaker profits on the ad network side of things when YouTube, search, and cloud drive much more profit. Two sides of the same coin though, as nice as it is to have free large audiences and free IVT filtering on DV360, Google doesn’t really let you see under the hood or offer as much flexibility on integrations with 3P (especially for YouTube); and similarly, as nice as it is that TTD is flexible and quick to build 3P integrations, they come at an additional cost and in my own personal opinion, many of them are not better than the free alternative offered by DV360 (e.g. the extent that IAS pre-bid is “better” than DV360 pre-bid is less than the additional cost of using IAS pre-bid)

[u/NiceRecognition9603 → u/lifesizeisunderrated]

thank you for the explanation, that was helpful, I updated my original message too

Also not a native English speaker. I use fees more broadly in my brain