The ad tech industry is experiencing a transformative shift. Media entities are navigating a challenging landscape characterized by declining profits and the continuing phaseout of third-party cookies. In these times, self-serve platforms are emerging as a compelling solution, offering significant benefits to both the buy-side and sell-side markets.

However, despite many advantages,  there are still a limited number of self-serve platforms available today and even fewer that provide complete independence from vendor support teams.

Navigating Profit Loss and Cookie Phaseout: A Publisher’s Path Forward

One primary reason publishers seek to regain control within their ad tech stack is the need to address declining profits. The traditional programmatic advertising model, which relies heavily on third-party cookies, is becoming unsustainable. Brand publishers are increasingly returning to direct campaigns, which often necessitates expanding their sales teams — overhead smaller publishers can’t afford.

Signal loss also pushes publishers to explore alternative revenue streams and monetization models. In this landscape, working with multiple intermediaries and not having a clear view of how the publisher’s data is collected and processed becomes especially unsustainable.

Taking Back Control: How Self-Serve Platforms Empower Publishers

Self-serve platforms offer a viable solution by not only enabling publishers to leverage their first-party data more effectively but also tools and capabilities to manage advertising campaigns in a privacy-compliant manner.

Operational efficiency is another critical factor in the success of any advertising campaign. Self-serve platforms streamline the ad buying and selling process, reducing the time and resources required to manage campaigns. Publishers can quickly set up, monitor, and adjust their Prebid configuration in real-time, leading to more effective and timely optimizations.

Fully automated publisher systems handle everything from inventory management to bid optimization to A/B testing, freeing up valuable time and resources.

Breaking Barriers: Self-Serve Solutions for Smaller Publishers

The ad tech industry is characterized by high entry barriers, particularly for smaller media entities. Top SSPs often have stringent minimum requirements not just in terms of traffic volume and geolocation, but also brand safety commitment and privacy integration, forcing smaller and regional publishers to work through agencies.

That’s what makes self-serve platforms so appealing. Publishers can often get around the minimum requirements and obtain direct SSPs while simultaneously working with resellers’ accounts. This allows them to manage both until they secure their own direct accounts.

Smaller media entities can leverage self-serve platforms to manage their ad campaigns independently and plug in their direct SSP accounts without the need for agency intermediaries, something that previously was only accessible to media with their own in-house Prebid.

The pay-as-you-go model, which many self-serve platforms operate on, benefits Tier 2 and Tier 3 publishers by offering a flexible, cost-effective solution that aligns with their often unpredictable traffic levels. A monthly fee often comes with access to a suite of advanced features and tools that might otherwise be out of reach for smaller publishers. However, a scalable, usage-based pricing model ensures that even publishers from less economically robust regions can leverage enterprise-grade technology without being burdened by unsustainable fees.

Why Ad Tech Vendors Are Embracing the Self-Serve Revolution

The trend that has become evident in the last couple of years is that initiatives like The Trade Desk’s OpenPath challenge SSPs’ traditional value propositions by altering the dynamics between the buy-side and sell-side.

The shift is clear: as supply path optimization wars intensify, SSPs are trying to differentiate and are moving towards a SaaS model, positioned as a necessary change to foster more meaningful, strategic, and economically viable partnerships.

Very simply, with ad tech entering the era of disintermediation, ad tech vendors are following suit.

Earlier this year, Setupad launched a fully automated self-serve platform for Prebid. Yieldbird introduced an all-in-one extension for GAM (essentially a self-serve interface). Hashtag Labs, PubWise, and Assertive Yield, to name a few, are all platforms offering exclusively Prebid-as-a-Service products. Not to mention the industry powerhouses Pubmatic’s OpenWrap and Magnite’s Demand Manager and other SSPs with their non-public self-serve offerings.

The Buy-Side Boom: Why Advertisers Are Going Self-Serve

It’s not much different. There’s a lot of demand from programmatic advertisers for self-service buying right now. Advertisers benefit from easy targeting, access to first-party data, and control over their campaigns. And it’s not a secret that advertisers often find their ads missing the target audience (especially SMEs), particularly with a loss of signal.

DSPs like AdLib and AdRoll rebranded themselves into “self-serve DSPs.” Infillion acquired MediaMath, officially admitting the reason for the purchase was to add self-service capabilities to its core business.

The buy-side self-serve industry is dominated by giants like The Trade Desk and DV360, but, just as on the sell side, the customization depth of these platforms varies. Moving towards the self-serve route isn’t just smart due to a growing interest in self-serve advertising, but also because of the wider trend that seeks to exclude DSPs from the supply chain.

Last year, both Magnite and Pubmatic cut out DSPs by launching ClearLine and Activate, respectively, products designed to give advertisers direct access to CTV and online video inventory.

Differentiating your offering comes with a lot of first-mover advantages. For example, accumulating vast amounts of data sooner than competitors is perhaps one of the most valuable for DSPs.

What’s Holding Back Ad Tech’s Self-Serve Evolution?

Although the trend is obvious, the majority of ad tech players still haven’t advanced their offerings or haven’t made it public.

Why? Building a robust platform requires significant upfront investment in technology and infrastructure. Transitioning existing customers to a self-serve model can be challenging, as it requires changing established workflows. Vendors are also afraid to sacrifice the existing revenue shares that bring great profits.

The readiness of the market to adopt a self-service model can significantly impact its success. And big publishers, to no one’s surprise, are very slow to change their ways.

However, with ad tech being as fragmented as it is now, it leaves few options but to advance and differentiate.

The complexity of the UI of the two behemoths in the self-serve space offered by Pubmatic and Magnite opens a lot of room for smaller ad tech vendors to differentiate and offer a compelling solution with flexible pricing. However, one area where you can’t compromise is technological capabilities.

The post How Self-Serve Platforms Are Revolutionizing Ad Tech and Empowering Publishers appeared first on AdMonsters.

In response to challenges posed by privacy regulations and AI-driven changes in search traffic, 71% of publishers plan to invest in new technologies. To sustain revenue growth, publishers are investing in AI-driven analytics, customer data management, and identity resolution. As one publisher noted, personalizing content and engaging audiences will be key in the coming year.

But, it’s not all smooth sailing. Publishers are grappling with significant challenges, including privacy regulations and changes in consumer behavior. These factors underscore the importance of diversifying revenue streams. With audience data, subscriptions, and licensing emerging as planned new streams, publishers are laying the groundwork for sustainable growth in an evolving digital ecosystem.

While the digital ad landscape faces headwinds, the coming year looks promising for publishers who are agile enough to navigate these challenges. Publishers who invest in direct deals, audience development tools, and diversified revenue streams are well-positioned to thrive in 2024 and beyond.

For more insights and a look at the full study results, visit the Publisher Pulse report page, and enter your information at the bottom to download your copy.

The post Publisher Pulse: Key Revenue Drivers and Strategic Shifts for 2024-2025 appeared first on AdMonsters.

The past few years have been tumultuous for publishers. The on-again/off-again deprecation of cookies, concerns over MFA sites making programmatic advertising risky, and the rise of generative AI search decimating referral traffic have all posed significant challenges. Despite these hurdles, publishers continue to innovate. As a result, the majority anticipate revenue growth in the coming year.

In July 2024, we surveyed and interviewed publishers to gain insights into their revenue outlook and identify their top opportunities for growth. This report summarizes our findings.

Of course, much has changed since our survey, including Google’s decision to forgo cookie deprecation for the foreseeable future. Still, what’s clear to us is that the talk of cookie deprecation has prompted them to rethink the way they do business and how they can generate revenue.

Key Findings: Direct Deals & Audience Data

• On the whole, revenue will grow. Most respondents (60%) anticipate revenue growth, with 19% expecting significant growth and 41% anticipating moderate growth.
•  2025 will be the year of the direct deal, with 68% of publishers saying it represents their best opportunity for revenue growth.
• Monetizing audience data (50%) and creating new products (46%) are also seen as significant opportunities for growth.
• Looking ahead, 33% plan to leverage audience data, and 23% each consider subscriptions and licensing/syndication as new revenue streams.
• To support these growth plans, 71% of respondents plan to invest in new tools or technologies to ramp up revenue.
• The most invested tools include audience segmentation (65%), identity resolution (50%), and AI-driven/advanced analytics platforms (40%).

Enter your info to download your copy below!

The post Ramping Up Your Revenue: Digital Publishers Reveal Key Growth Strategies appeared first on AdMonsters.