Digiday+ Research: Amazon has work to do as a DSP platform amid Google and TTD’s lead

Digiday’s survey found that Google’s DV360 platform dominates among members of the ad industry who use DSPs. Nearly two-thirds of ad industry pros said in early spring that they used Google DV360 in the past year. The Trade Desk followed close behind, though, with more than half of ad industry pros (56%) saying they used TTD’s DSP in the past year.

Amazon’s DSP came in a respectable third place, according to Digiday’s survey. But the gap between No. 2 TTD and No. 3 Amazon was significant as of March. One-third of ad industry pros (33%) told Digiday that they had used Amazon’s DSP in the past year.

About a quarter of respondents to Digiday’s survey (24%) said they’d used Xandr’s DSP in the past year, and Adobe rounded out the top five, with 20% of ad industry members saying they’d used its DSP. Some honorable mentions from the “other” category in Digiday’s survey were Viant, Nexxen, Yahoo and Beeswax.

It’s worth noting that, when survey respondents were forced to choose only one DSP to work with, Google’s dominance did falter. Thirty-nine percent of ad industry pros told Digiday they would choose Google DV360 if they could only choose one DSP — and the same percentage chose TTD. Meanwhile, just 5% said they would choose Amazon’s DSP if they could only choose one to work with.

But it’s also worth noting that survey respondents indicated Amazon has real potential to catch Google and TTD in the DSP arena. Sixty-one percent of respondents to Digiday’s survey said they agreed somewhat or strongly that the DSP space needs more competition for Google and TTD, specifically from Amazon. And 18% said they strongly agreed with this.

At the same time, nearly half of ad industry pros (48%) told Digiday they agreed somewhat or strongly that a new and improved Amazon DSP would be enough to get them to reconsider putting more of their programmatic ad spend there. Although, just 5% said they strongly agreed with this, with 43% saying they agreed somewhat.

Digiday’s survey also found that ad industry pros prioritize audience targeting capabilities the most when choosing the right DSP partner for them. (So Amazon, if you’re listening, that would be a good place to start on a new and improved DSP.)

After audience targeting, ad industry members consider their return on investment or return on ad spend when choosing a DSP, followed by the insights and recommendations they get after a campaign, a platform’s technology vision and roadmap, and, finally, data protection.