Self-Serve advertising networks provide advertisers with digital platforms to launch and optimize ad campaigns, get comprehensive reporting and reach different audiences via multiple targeting options.
One of the latest examples of big Self-Serve platforms is Snapchat Ad Manager, just like Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads or Google AdWords, it provides advertisers with the best-in-class advertising platform to reach mobile audiences in scale. There is a clear trend in digital advertising; all ad platforms are moving towards Self-Serve to increase their efficiency and to reach their target audiences.
In this directory, we’ve aggregated for you the best self-service ad platforms.
Self serve advertising platform example
Source: TikTok For Business
Self serve advertising platform benefits
Self serve advertising platforms have been growing in popularity for years, but the convenience factor they provide is more important than ever in the modern world.
Essentially, advertisers can place their own ads, giving them extra control over ad sales, maximising their campaign effectiveness and more. Advertisers know their target audience better than anyone else, so the control given to them helps to minimise spend and maximise ROI.
Self serve advertising platform benefits include:
- Advertisers get 24/7 access to the platform
- They enable advertisers to save time and money, both of which can be limited
- The platforms can be a good testing ground for later projects
Below we’ve listed the best self serve advertising platforms so you can get up and running without fuss.
List of self service ad platforms
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 51-200 |
Zoomd is dedicated to helping advertisers and publishers achieve their key performance indicators (KPIs) through a patented, performance-based advertising platform. The Company’s User Acquisition platform unifies more than 600 media sources under one dashboard including Google, TikTok, Samsung premium inventory and much more.
- Business Models – Choose your preferred business model CPC/CPI/CPO/CPE/CPA
- Fraud – Detection as part of the platform, adding you an extra layer of safety
- Measurement – integrated to all major 3rd party mobile measurement solutions
- Cost-efficiency – Save countless resources by managing all campaigns under one screen
- Data Play – Enjoy machine decisions based on more than 500Million data points a day
Veziron Media DSP is a Demand Side Platform, formerly known as Oauth DSP, for advertisers to programmatically monitor, create and manage ad campaigns. The platform offers advertisers Native, Mobile, Video, Branded Content and Premium Integrations formats to launch ad campaigns.
- Highlights: 1 billion people reach, 200 daily cross-channel datapoint, unto 48% conversion increase thanks to ML algorithms
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: Southeast Asia/Up & Comers #5 (2018)
- Tagline: Connecting global brands to captivated audiences
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 3,900 | 3,000m | 57m | 4,000+ |
Twitter Ads is the Twitter advertising platform that allows app marketers to drive traffic to their apps from both on Twitter and off Twitter channels. In terms of targeting options and reach its rivals are only Facebook and Google. Twitter ads support deep linking technology that allows app marketers to link an ad to a specific part of a mobile app content.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android
- Campaign types: CPI, CPC, CPM
- Ad formats supported: auto-generated ads with creatives an app has on the App Store.
- Targeting: mobile OS, OS version, device (iPhone / iPad), location, gender, age, mobile connection type
- Key markets: global
TikTok is a short-form video app that has yet to launch official ad units for brands. With that said, its increasing popularity has put it on the radar for big brands eager to use the platform to advertise. Influencer campaigns on TikTok have been used by brands such as Universal Pictures, but TikTok is not currently involved with all of them.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android
- Campaign types: CPI
- Ad formats supported: Custom
- Targeting: Custom
- Key markets: UK, USA
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 11-50 |
Targetoo is an Amsterdam based programmatic mobile advertising company, founded in 2012. Its self-serve mobile DSP solution serves advertisers from more than 120 countries, it provides access to 34 ad exchanges, sophisticated targeting features and effective fraud control.
Learn more about Targetoo
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 101 - 200 |
Start.io is a mobile advertising company. It provides a self-serve platform for advertisers to quickly build and launch ad campaigns, controlling audience, creatives and budget aspects of their campaigns. Among features that sets it aside from other ad networks are uniquely designed animated and interactive ads, data-enhanced targeting, using data derived from over 300,000 mobile apps and native ad units.
- Mobile platforms: Android, iOS
- Campaign types: CPA, CPC, CPI, CPM
- Ad formats supported: App Icon, Full Page Ads, InApp Ads, Interstitial, Video
- Targeting: App, Carrier, Competitors, Connection Type, Device, Gender, Geo, OS
- Key Markets: Global
| Founded | Employees | Social | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 100-125 | 12k+ |
Stack is an end-to-end SaaS-based solution (by the team behind Appodeal’s award winning ad monetization platform) that scales mobile app business growth and drive profit by synthesizing User Acquisition, Ad Monetization and Business Intelligence.
Stack is an independent ad tech market player that strives to clear the way for publishers and advertisers to collaborate directly. In an industry known for being opaque, Stack aims to increase transparency and empower mobile app businesses with the technology and data they need to thrive in a highly competitive landscape.
Learn more about Stack
Spotx is the leading global video advertising platform that enables media owners and publishers to monetize premium content across desktop, mobile and connected TV devices. SpotX ad server features programmatic infrastructure, data enablement, and monetization solutions for OTT, outstream, and addressable TV. It gives media owners and publishers the control, transparency, and actionable insights needed to understand buyer behavior, manage access and pricing, and maximize revenue.
With best-in-class tech purpose-built for video, SpotX’s holistic, brand-safe solution is employed by some of the largest media owners and publishers in the world including fuboTV, Microsoft Casual Games, Newsy, Samba TV, Sling TV, Vudu and partners with a variety of different companies within the digital video ecosystem including comScore, DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science, JW Player, MediaMath, MOAT, Nielsen, Oracle, and more.
- Key Features: works with OTT, addressable TV
- Tagline: Online Video Advertising Platform
- Platforms: iOS, Android and Mobile Web.
| Founded | Employees | Social | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 11-50 | 2k+ |
Spotad is a performance-based Demand-Side-Marketing-
Key Features
- Performance driven
- Mobile experts
- Utilize data for better targeting and optimization
- Using self-developed ML model
- Full control of the creative assets for a better user engagement. From the Ad Design to the Ad Serving
Snapchat Ads is the Snap Inc. advertising platform that allows businesses to advertise on the platform with Snap’s unique ad formats and reach Millennials audience that has developed a high level of trust with the platform. Snapchat has 238 million daily active users that open the app 30 times a day on average and spend 30+ minutes with the app. Snap has partnered with multiple companies to better connect advertisers with snapchatters communities.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android
- Campaign types: CPI, CPC
- Ad formats supported: Snap Ads, Filters, Lenses
- Targeting: 300 audiences based on data derived from what content snapchatters watch, buy and post on the platform, demographics, lookalike audiences.
- Key markets: global, the Basic plan is US only.
SmartyAds DSP is a programmatic-buying platform for advertisers who search for safe, supreme-quality push traffic that converts in higher ROI, instant user engagement and retention.
Pricing & Features:
- Push traffic for all screen types & sizes that translates in 200-400% higher ROI & conversions.
- Easy to segment and personalize push creatives.
- The broadest network of premium push traffic publishers and SSP partners (MoPub, MobFox, PubNative) with tested and localized landings across all geos and verticals.
- In-app traffic from more than 1000 top-rated apps with push traffic for iOS & Android.
- 30+ targeting options for geomarketing push campaigns Including geo-targeting, GPS, language, etc.)
- Frequency capping, dayparting and sparring to fine-tune push advertising experience.
- Comprehensive, easy-to-grasp statistics with an in-deep performance overview.
- Third-party impression analytics tags support, API.
- Rapid and easy campaign set up and creative approval.
- Flexible CPM pricing model.
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 500-1000 | +100M$ | 1.5k+ | 2.5m+ |
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | - | - | - | - |
Smaato’s digital ad tech platform is a completely omnichannel, self-serve monetization solution and free ad server all in one. Smaato gives publishers unparalleled controls to make monetization simple. Publishers can bring their first-party data and manage all inventory in one place. Marketers get access to the highest-quality inventory so they can reach audiences around the world and on any device. Headquartered in San Francisco, Smaato is part of Verve Group, a Media and Games Invest (MGI) company, with additional offices in Hamburg, New York, Beijing, and Singapore.
- Mobile platforms: Android, IOS, Mobile, Windows Phone
- Campaign types: CPC
- Ad formats supported: Banners
- Targeting: country, publisher, app, ad format, device, connection type, GPS data, device ID
- Key Markets: Germany, global
Sizmek is the world’s largest independent ad server company founded in 1999. Its AI-powered platform helps advertisers to gain insights within their data across the 5 key dimensions of predictive marketing—campaigns, consumers, context, creative, and cost. Sizmek provides resources at a global scale and allow advertisers to combine dynamic creative, coupled with predictive AI – to deliver impressions that deliver high ROI.
Artificial Intelligence algorithms are also applied by Sizmek to help advertisers to plan, buy, execute, and measure campaigns with laser-precision. The company was acquired by Amazon, Inc. in March, 2019.
- Key features include omnichannel marketing – mobile, display, rich media, video, social and AI.
- Powered by Amazon’s AWS platform
- Liquid domain-level intelligence tech (Adhesion, Billboard, Deluxe Banner, Deluxe Expandable, Expandable Banner and more) to pair domains with specific ad formats
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 101 - 200 |
Reddit Ads is an advertising platform from Reddit. It allows advertisers to reach specific audiences on the platform, either as self-service or via managed service. With Reddit Ads brands can tap into one of the biggest online communities that has extremely diverse set of interests.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android
- Campaign types: CPA
- Ad formats supported: Social
- Targeting: Custom
- Key markets: UK, USA
Promoted App Pins is a mobile app advertising platform from Pinterest. It allows app marketers to generate installs via pins. Pins associated with iOS or Android apps have an app icon and install button attached to them for mobile users to tap on and download an app. Among Pinterest mobile measuring partners are Adjust, AppsFlyer, Kochava, TUNE and Apsalar.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone
- Campaign types: CPA
- Ad formats supported: App Icon
- Targeting: Custom
- Key markets: Global
| Employees | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 190.000 |