DSP vs GDN

Programmatic Advertising via a Demand Side Platform (DSP) is now a significant part of digital media plans. Investment on Programmatic Advertising via a DSPs competes against that on Google Display Network (GDN). This article explores situations in which one or the other should be used.

Differences Between GDN and a DSP

Targeting Options: Most options are available in both – target specific day parts, cap frequency, split into multiple campaign line items, target by devices, target by context etc. There is one big difference –
- DSPs enable targeting by 3rd party data providers such as Nielsen’s eXelate, Acxiom etc. that GDN doesn’t have.
- GDN on, the other hand, presumably uses information gathered by Google Search to drive it’s targeting.
Data Management Platform (DMP): A DSP enables mixing of advertiser’s 1st party data with 3rd party data to optimise campaigns via it’s DMP. This enables higher ROI as compared to GDN.
Scale: DSPs have access to nearly 3X the scale of ad impressions as compared to GDN. They’re connected to multiple Ad Exchanges including Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange, Rubicon Project and Pubmatic. GDN, on the other hand, only has Google’s AdSense (which is also accessible by DSPs through DoubleClick Ad Exchange).

Based on the above –

Performance at Scale: DSP delivers higher ROI at scale because it has access more inventory in front of target audience e.g. re-targeted visitors or core 3rd party segment members.
Large Spend: If the size of the campaign is small or the digital advertising program is just starting, GDN is best. This reduces the complexity of digital marketing i.e. things like attribution can be simply managed.