Programmatic advertising is advertising conducted using software; it increases its efficiency and generated revenues by automating the process of connecting publishers inventory with advertisers needs to reach a specific audience.
It includes both real-time bidding when advertisers bid for impressions in mobile or desktop publishers inventory and buying ad impressions in advance from specific publishers. Over time programmatic advertising is replacing all aspects where manual intervention was necessary.
How programmatic mobile advertising works
Source: Cardinal Digital Marketing
Programmatic mobile advertising benefits
In the world of programmatic advertising, SSPs help to support mobile publishers and their inventories by selling their space through an ad exchange. DSPs, (Demand Side Platforms), on the other side, find the best ad inventory and the highest bidder wins that space – this could be on a website or inside a mobile app.
The key benefit of SSPs, other than giving mobile publishers more control over their inventory, is that they can achieve a high fill rate, so mobile ad space that could be used isn’t wasted. In theory, everyone wins in this setup, with advertisers also getting quality inventory for their campaigns.
Programmatic advertising benefits include:
- Sells mobile ad impressions for the highest price possible
- Connects to a considerable variety of different mobile advertisers
- Mobile publishers can set their prices and have more control over their space
Below we’ve listed the best mobile programmatic networks so you can get up and running without fuss.
List of programmatic 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
Xandr is online advertising platform from AT&T. Leveraging multi-generational legacy of AT&T, the company provides a premium platform for advertisers and publishers looking to reach specific audiences at scale in brand-safe environments all through a powerful, unified platform. What gives Xandr a competitive advantage is a combination of data insights, premium content, powerful technology, and scaled direct-to-consumer distribution.
Learn more about Xandr
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
StackAdapt
The self-serve programmatic advertising platform used by exceptional digital marketers
| 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.
Splicky is the new Demand Side Platform (DSP) for the mobile channel using proprietary Real-Time Advertising (RTA) technology. Their technology makes it simple to buy mobile ad impressions and clicks within mobile sites and apps – in real-time. Using just one platform, you have immediate access to all global mobile inventory which uses Real-Time Bidding (RTB) technology. Within a matter of minutes, your mobile ad campaigns can be displayed on a Cost Per Impression (CPM) and Cost Per Click (CPC) basis. Our platform allows you to target on individual Mobile Sites and Apps, giving you total control at campaign management-level. Our detailed analysis gives you full insights on campaign performance enabling you to maximize your ROI.
- Easy to use interface with a self-serve platform and real-time analytics
- Worldwide reach across a transparent publisher set
- Wide range of targeting options including Geo+hyper location and support for mobile retargeting
- Range of formats supported including banners, interstitials, rich media & video
Sovrn is an advertising technology company that provides Meridian solution – an ad server for publishers. The company’s mission is to help publishers to increase their revenue, get insights for their audience and comprehensive reporting on their ad campaigns, as well as acquire more knowledge about effective monetization. Meridian ad server provides a suite of advertising tools for display, mobile and video advertising.
- Key Features: header bidding, VPAID and VAST video support, OnScroll InView ads, integration with all major advertising buyer worldwide
- Tagline: Insights, audience access and advertising solutions that publishers can profit from.
- Platforms: iOS, Android, Web
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | - | - | - | - |
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
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 101 - 200 |
Remerge is an independent demand-side-platform (DSP) that helps performance marketers drive revenue and retention from high-value app users with programmatic in-app ads. Remerge pioneered mobile app retargeting back in 2014.
Learn more about Remerge
PubMatic delivers superior revenue to publishers by being an SSP of choice for agencies and advertisers. With our leading programmatic mobile advertising platform, publishers and app developers can leverage the open exchange as well as advanced deal models to maximize their monetization and gain access to brand budgets.
- Mobile platforms: Android, IOS
- Campaign types: CPA, CPC, CPI, CPL, CPM
- Ad formats supported: Banners, In-App, Interstitial, Native, Rewarded Video, Rich Media, Video
- Targeting: Publisher, Geo, Audience Segment, Ad Format, Platform, Domain / App, Viewability
- Key markets: Global
Liftoff is Cost-Per-Action optimized mobile user acquisition platform for app marketers. It provides CPI campaigns optimization via tracking post-install events for apps. It also provides retargeting features to bring mobile users back to a specific app and lookalike features to connect mobile apps with users similar to people who already use these apps.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android, Mobile Web
- Campaign types: CPI, CPA
- Ad formats supported: Custom
- Targeting: lookalike, retargeting,
- Key Markets: Global
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 51-200 | - | - | - |
Jampp unlocks programmatic advertising to drive incremental performance. A demand-side platform (DSP) at heart, Jampp leverages unique contextual and behavioral signals to deliver customers and in-app purchases through programmatic user acquisition and retargeting. We simplify programmatic growth for some of the biggest names in mobile.
- Services: User Acquisition, App retargeting, Lift measurement, Geolocated ads, Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO), Dynamic Product Ads, Predictive Bidding
- Tagline: Unlock new growth
Learn more about Jampp
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | - | - | - | - |
Infillion translates location data into intent, conversion, and insight for marketers trying to reach consumers and businesses wanting to improve their customers’ lives. Using its own hardware and software, Infillion enables brands and media agencies to maximize campaign efficiency and humanize messaging for consumers.
Highlights include the following:
- Location-based marketing
- Identity-based platform
- Geofencing
- Beacons
- Footfall attribution
- Foot Traffic Analytics
- Custom Audiences
HilltopAds
One of the best CPM ad networks for publishers and advertisers from all over the world.
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 10-50 |
HilltopAds is one of the best CPM ad networks for publishers and advertisers from all over the world. HilltopAds is a UK-based CPC/CPM advertising network launched in 2013. The unique feature of HilltopAds is traffic segmentation by QUALITY and ACTIVITY of users.
Learn more about HilltopAds
Doubleclick Bid Manager is part of Google’s Display & Video 360 advertising solution. It is a Demand Side Platform for agencies, trading desks and advertisers to get access to ad exchanges with a wide range of exclusive video, display and mobile inventory from Google. Its targeting capabilities are defined by more than 100 ad exchanges and approximately 1 billion websites, opportunity to run ads across, desktop, mobile and tablet, multiple bidding strategies support and more.
- Highlights: connects to 100+ ad exchanges, allows to run ads across mobile, desktop and tablet, allows to buy brand-safe inventory for YouTube and TV ads programmatically through Google Partner Select, DBM’s premium video marketplace
- AppsFlyer Performance Index: Performance: Global, iOS & Android: All Categories: Power Ranking #2 (2019)
Google Ad Manager (formerly known as DoubleClick for Publishers) is an ad server from Google for web and mobile app publishers. It supports video (from TV to short-form ad in apps), native and custom ad formats, provides unified control panel for multiple ad sources, powerful insights and brand safety.
Learn more about Google Ad Manager