Breaking DMP & CDP

What is the difference between a DMP & a CDP?

• They are different by design.

• CDP: Mainly developed with the goal to achieve a 360-degree view of the customer, where multiple first-party data sources are combined to match IDs for segmentation purposes.

• DMP: Usually work with Third parties with profiles based on cookies activated in DSP or Ad-networks. Many vendors have started blending first-party data into these DMPs as well.

DMPs are more anonymous in nature as they work with cookies, which makes them more reliant on probabilistic identifiers. Also data needs to be matched before coming into a DMP in the case of Offline and Online data.

CDPs are more specific in nature as they work with first-party data. No form of matching is required to ingest data into a CDP.

Use cases for CDP: Newsletters, Email-automation, AdWords / Criteo custom audiences, Facebook custom audiences, Personalization onsite, Vouchers etc.

Use cases for DMP: Targeted Advertising, Lookalike modelling. 

Google Tech Stack - Simplified

What is Google's Ad-tech ecosystem?

Google Re-branded its products and as always Google is great with products and courses, but when it comes to naming products - its a different story :) 

So let's try and unpack the Google ecosystem below: [Starting from buy-side and moving towards sell side]

DoubleClick Campaign Manager is the third-party ad server that allows you to plan, execute and measure your display campaigns through DoubleClick. It is where advertisers make ad placements, create floodlight tags and push to Google Tag Manager (GTM), and complete trafficking tasks.

DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM) is the demand-side-platform (DSP) that allows you to reach your customers when and where it matters. The programmatic buying platform gives access to display inventory across ad exchanges to accurately bid, precisely target and effectively optimize your digital marketing campaigns. 

Display & Video 360 brings together features from DoubleClick Bid Manager, Campaign Manager, Studio, and Audience Center in a single product.

DV 360 combines DCM + DBM 
DCM was formerly known as DFA 

DoubleClick advertiser products (Buy side) and the Google Analytics 360 Suite under one brand: Google Marketing Platform.

Google Ads is the new name for Google AdWords 

Google Ads is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers pay to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, video content and generate mobile application installs within the Google ad network to web users. 

[Coming to the sell side now]

AdSense is Google individual Ad-network. Mainly for small & medium publishers. Ad-exchange is a bigger animal with thousands of networks. 

Google Ad Manager includes Google Ad server/SSP (formerly DFP) & their premium Ad exchange (previously AdX). Mainly for large publishers. 

• Double click for Publishers (DFP)
• Google Ad exchange

The Programmatic Waterfall

What are the components of the Programmatic waterfall?

Reserved Inventory is advertising space on a publisher’s site that is put aside for a specific advertiser for an agreed price.

Fixed Price is any arrangement where the buyer & seller agree on a flat price that the buyer pays rather than the highest bidder in an auction environment.

Automated Guaranteed: More like a direct sale. Inventory & pricing all decided and runs very similar to direct. Trafficking and RFP are automated.

Unreserved Fixed-Rate: This is biddable, yet at a fixed price for a more predictable inventory to help the advertiser. 

Invitation Only: Open for selected advertisers and the Publisher might choose to offer more value by way of transparency.

Open Auction: Open for all but the Publisher can create roadblocks by way of price floors and blocklist.

AD Network | AD Exchange | AD Server | Trading Desk

Which are the main platforms in the Ad-tech ecosystem? 

Ad Network

Emerged to solve the remnant inventory problem. They sold unsold inventory by bundling it into packages and made available to agencies at a discount. So basically companies that aggregate publisher ad space and sell it to advertisers.

Ad Exchange

Emerged to allow the advertiser to buy individual impressions (Not just remnant inventory)  in the auction-based market place. Customers could be targeted like never before.

Ad Server

Emerged as a technology to manage and run online advertising.

Trading desks

Sprung up to help advertisers navigate the complex programmatic media buying process. Specialists teams at agencies operate sophisticated DSPs, to help advertisers get their ads in front of the right customers, at the right time.

DSPs (Demand-side platforms)

Built for advertisers & agencies to plan & execute buys across several exchanges at once.

SSPs (Supply-side platforms)

Built for publishers to manage their advertising impression inventory and maximize revenue.

DMPs (Data management platforms)

Built as a data warehouse to store information on the audience and form segments.


A DSP is primarily used for programmatic buying, which means that there is no negotiation in pricing, but a real-time auction happens. DSP automates this process and it is easier to get started for small advertisers.