Who is winning the never-ending turf war between DSPs and SSPs?

Publishers face mounting pressure as AI disrupts traditional traffic sources. Amanda Martin, Chief Revenue Officer at Mediavine, explains how the largest independent ad management firm helps publishers navigate programmatic complexity and declining search visibility. She discusses implementing crawler blocking technology through Cloudflare, developing diversified traffic acquisition strategies beyond Google Search dependency, and creating network-scale negotiating power with AI companies for content licensing deals. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55% to 65% open rate.

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  Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

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  Typical life span of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.

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  If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's a host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  I'm Benjamin Shapiro and joining me today is Amanda Martin, the Chief Revenue Officer at Mediavite, the largest independent ad management firm in the U.S. that helps publishers maximize revenue through advanced monetization and data solutions. And today, Amanda will reveal which strategies are actually working for publishers and how to future-proof your monetization stack in 2025. Who is winning the never-ending turf war between DSPs and SSPs?

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  Depends on the day and the headline, but I think ultimately it's going to be brands' affinity of what path they choose and what relationship they value the most. I think in a perfect world, neither one wins over the other, that there's a balance of both. But I definitely think the SSP market is commoditized and that not all will win. My concern is that will the DSPs take out the advocates of the publishers? And so. We have an arm in both fights. And I would say that directness is going to win in the end. And I think DSPs and SSPs alike will win in that battle.

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  All right, so it's always confusing to me to define what the DSPs and the SSPs do. There's the supply side and you're saying that's been commoditized. So there's not a huge difference between who you're selling your ad inventory through. You didn't say that the buy side was commoditized. Who are the players and what are some of the differences between them on the DSP side?

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  Well, on the DSP side, you have obviously the incumbent, which is Google. You have the successful independent, which is the Trade Desk. You have the challenger, which is Amazon. And I would say I wouldn't bet against Amazon in any race. And then you have kind of some of the longstanding, the yahoos of the world. You have the basis, you have the viants, and then you have the niche DSPs, which is actually something that's expanding rather than retracting. Instead of them saying, oh, there's a fight with five clear, you know, front runners. There's actually been a lot of development in niche vertical specific DSPs, where the buying is very specific to the vertical of advertiser they serve,

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  which is actually a nice expansion for us to see. Because publishers getting revenue from more than a few sources is a safer space for us.

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  Give me some examples of niche DSPs.

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  If you look at the buying pattern of like a PulsePoint, which is an SSP slash DSP experience, you're going to see a ton of pharma come through. You're going to see a ton of specific vertical spend. If you look at a viant, you're going to see a lot of local, regional, independent agency spend come through those pipes. So spend you're not competing for necessarily somewhere else. And then the reality is that no buyer is only buying in one seat. And so you have a lot of revenue coming from four to five to 10 DSPs all at the same time. So it definitely diversifies where you're getting your paycheck.

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  All right, that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Amanda Martin, the Chief Revenue Officer at Mediavine. If you'd like to contact Amanda, you can find a link to her LinkedIn profile in our show notes or on martechpod.com, or you can visit her company's website, which is mediavine.com. If you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or visit us on YouTube, and we'll be back in your feed next week. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the Martech Podcast, an I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit ihereverything.com.