The pros and cons of the industry’s demand side platforms (DSPs) used to be something only media buyers cared about. Now, it’s a highly competitive patch being fought over by some of the largest companies in tech.The Trade Desk, the sector’s largest independent player, is under pressure from Amazon, while smaller providers like Yahoo, StackAdapt and Viant see an opportunity to grab a larger market share. As they compete to hold — or gain — ground, DSP providers are also working to integrate their dashboards and portals with agentic AI systems, ostensibly making investments easier to manage but taking more agency and power away from experienced media buyers at the same time.
Media buying teams aren’t shy of shopping around. “We need to be agnostic as much as possible,” said one buyer, who spoke to Digiday on condition of anonymity. But high corporate drama and AI worries don’t always dovetail with the needs and wants of buyers on the office floor. For the staffers tasked with choosing a DSP to suit a client’s brief, CPM rates, the ability to check log-level data or a platform’s streaming partnerships are more important.
Related Insights
Digiday spoke with 13 media buyers at large and small media agencies, who each exchanged anonymity for candor, for their perspectives on the DSPs they use each day. While our conversations covered a broad range of DSP providers including Viant, Basis, and MNTN, we’ve focused on the five key platforms that kept reappearing in agency DSP rosters: Google’s DV360, Amazon, The Trade Desk, Yahoo and StackAdapt.
