The Search Guys vs. Display Performance Marketing

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In my recent article I wrote about bid management tools and technology. Somehow, it stirred up the conversation that given bid management expertise; are the search guys the right people to understand the demand-side platform (DSP) and get on to the digital bandwagon. What are the real differences?

Search bid management has evolved over the last five to seven years and now we are left with a handful of third-party tools that allow you to do that - since search engines brought the optimization technology into the existing platform.

DSP on the other side is an evolved self-serve digital ad network, which is giving the power to decide the dollar value of every ad the advertiser wants to show. While there are different kinds of inventory involved, the underlying bidding/optimizing principal remains the same minus the quality score factor. The DSP world only revolves around performance and spending power.

Below is a quick comparison of how search marketing differs from DSP:

While there are a lot of similarities as compared to what happens in paid search marketing, anyone can actually manage demand-side platforms who has a sound sense of business logic and could make quick decisions and is hands-on. The market is currently very hot to be considered as evolved; but we will see a sea of DSPs flooding the market and somewhere down the line they will consolidate.

You can use the search guys to help build the initial offering since they are closer to real-time bidding than anyone else in the digital work force. But remember, DSPs are a much different playing field than plain old paid search marketing.