Last week, Forrester released its first SSP wave since 2014, and there’s a surprise.
The research firm ranked Google – whose sell-side ad tech platform is facing federal antitrust charges – as a mere challenger to Amazon, Magnite, PubMatic, Microsoft, InMobi, Index Exchange, Equativ and Adform.
OpenX was also listed as a challenger alongside Google.
So what happened?
Google’s downgrade
In the 2014 SSP wave, Forrester listed Google’s DoubleClick for Publishers as a leader in the category.
But Google Ad Manager (GAM) – its SSP successor that combines the DoubleClick ad server with the Google Ad Exchange – dropped all the way down to the bottom tier in this year’s report.
There’s been a lack of innovation on the SSP side of Google’s business and worsening transparency and media quality, Mo Allibhai, a senior analyst at Forrester and lead author of the report, told AdExchanger.
Because Google wasn’t a paid participant in the study, Forrester had to rely solely on publicly available information and interviews with publishers, Allibhai said.
And there’s been plenty of, uh, not-so-good news for Google this year.
During the DOJ’s antitrust trial against Google’s ad tech platform, many industry experts testified that Google’s SSP only enjoys mass adoption among publishers because they have no choice but to use it. The government is arguing that Google’s ad server is tied to its exchange, which publishers need to use to access Google Ads demand.
Publishers having to use its SSP by default disincentivizes Google from innovating, Allibhai said.
Google is also still tied to the “albatross of Privacy Sandbox” and hasn’t been able to create a viable targeting and attribution alternative to third-party cookies, he said. “That’s a hard spot to be in if you’re an SSP who can’t bring first-party data solutions to the table.”
Google also lost points for basic things like not maintaining a sellers.json file to help buyers distinguish between direct sellers and resellers, as well as its lack of support for header bidding, Allibhai said. And it was further dinged by reports about sketchy media quality and targeting ads to kids.
“It was hard to get publishers to say good things about [Google], except for the free ad server and access to Google’s advertisers,” Allibhai said.
Plus, the possibility that Google’s platform could be broken up by regulators compelled Forrester to evaluate the SSP in a new light.
“Taking a cold, dispassionate look at where it would be as a standalone SSP,” Allibhai said, “it’s looking bleak compared to where it once was.”
The leaders
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Forrester named Amazon Ads, Magnite and PubMatic as category leaders.
Amazon Ads impressed as a relative newcomer to the SSP market, Allibhai said, mainly due to its interoperability with alternative identifiers, its neutrality in the browser and platform wars and its endemic strength in the booming retail media vertical.
And since Amazon’s ad business is smaller than Google’s, it’s hungrier and more focused on innovation, Allibhai said. But its curation offering lacks maturity, which is the main knock against it.
Magnite, meanwhile, is described in the report as the “standard-bearer in the programmatic CTV ad space.”
Its main differentiator is SpringServe, the video ad server it acquired in 2021, and it also excels in curation, especially for video and CTV, Allibhai said.
But Magnite’s biggest negative, he said, is its reputation for late publisher payments and its continued use of sequential liability. If an upstream partner fails to honor its spending commitments, Magnite claws back revenue from its publishers.
Still, the split among SSPs that rely on sequential liability is “maybe 60/40, where it’s more common,” Allibhai said, so the practice isn’t a unique flaw of Magnite’s.
PubMatic, which Forrester named “last of the purebred SSPs” in 2014, was also listed as a leader in this year’s report. It ended up in a “photo finish” with Amazon and Magnite, Allibhai said.
PubMatic’s main strength is that it’s a publisher “Swiss army knife” with deep customer support, he said. It was also an early mover in sell-side curation.
Plus, PubMatic’s OpenWrap is among the most innovative header bidding products on the market, he said. He added that publishers cited OpenWrap and Amazon’s Transparent Ad Marketplace as more innovative on header bidding than even Prebid, which develops open-source header bidding tools.
But PubMatic’s main drawbacks are its lack of support for streaming audio and DOOH – so it seems the Swiss army knife is missing a few tools.
Strong performers
The next tier of SSPs included InMobi, Index Exchange, Equativ and Microsoft Advertising, which were deemed as strong performers.
InMobi’s has mobile advertising expertise and unique demand in Asian markets, Allibhai said, but it’s missing out on opportunities in mobile-friendly emerging channels, including CTV and digital audio.
Index Exchange has “competence across the board,” especially in curation, Allibhai said, noting that “there was nothing negative that anyone had to say about Index.” In fact, he pointed to Index’s strong performance in the study as proof that companies weren’t harmed by not being paid participants.
Index’s main negative, according to Allibhai, is its lack of an ad server. To be fair, not every SSP in Forrester’s top 10 has one. But offering an ad server has helped smaller SSPs like Magnite and Equativ compete against giants like Google and Amazon, which offer their own ad serving capabilities via GAM and Amazon Web Services, respectively. An ad server could bring Index to the next level, Allibhai said.
Speaking of Equativ, its origins as a video ad server, combined with its merger with Sharethrough this summer, helped it “punch above its weight class,” Allibhai said. Its approach to curation helped it excel in publisher service, he added, which is a “dying art in ad tech.” But Equativ’s investments on the DSP side and in server-side ad stitching have yet to bear fruit, he noted.
And Microsoft Advertising is coasting on its programmatic legacy and high-profile partnerships like its Netflix deal, but it feels stagnant, Allibhai said. “There’s a lot of inertia to overcome post-[Xandr] acquisition,” he said, and the company has perhaps prioritized improving Microsoft’s own business and recouping M&A costs rather than supporting third-party publishers.
The rest
Rounding out the wave was Adform, which stood alone in the contenders category, and OpenX, which joined Google in the challengers tier.
Adform’s “middling capabilities” in CTV, streaming audio and commerce media are “behind the curve for 2024,” according to the report, but it’s among the best SSPs for OOH publishers. It’s also differentiated by its commitment to data privacy and environmental sustainability, as well as its interoperability with alternative IDs, Allibhai said.
Alternative ID compatibility was also a strength for OpenX and its OpenAudience identity graph, Allibhai said. But, like Google, it saw a precipitous decline from strong performer in 2014 to the bottom.
In OpenX’s case, that decline was mainly due to a lack of publicly available information on the company, which did not participate in the wave and doesn’t seem to prioritize marketing its accomplishments, Allibhai said. As a result, Allibhai had the sense that OpenX hasn’t been striking partnerships with major agency holding companies at the same pace as its peers, which led him to ding the SSP for a lack of differentiated demand.
But an SSP’s value doesn’t only come from the unique demand it can deliver, as Forrester’s evaluation of Google demonstrates. And, with at least 80 DSPs integrated with each SSP that participated in the wave, we’re seeing SSPs innovate in other areas – like emerging channel support and ID interoperability – to pull ahead of the pack.
