SSPs additionally see bid request knowledge from the writer facet—which incorporates parameters like consumer ID, machine kind, geolocation, and blocked classes. Any SSP, alternate, or reseller within the chain sees each request and response knowledge for the transactions they facilitate, besides in uncommon circumstances the place some knowledge is purposefully obfuscated.
All this knowledge provides SSPs the flexibility to make inferences a few given advertiser’s technique—notably the audiences they’re focusing on—based mostly on the bidstream knowledge it receives, in accordance with conversations with 9 completely different programmatic consultants.
A type of consultants, who oversees a well-liked SSP, stated that any SSP “might arguably reverse engineer the whole marketer’s technique for those who wished to.”
As an example, this exec stated, an SSP might verify possible viewers segments {that a} given advertiser is focusing on if it noticed the advertiser steadily bidding on placements for 18- to 24-year-olds out there for a brand new automotive. The identical could possibly be achieved for contextual placements by associating bids with URLs.
The U.S. Division of Justice made an analogous argument in its landmark antitrust case towards Google’s adtech enterprise, which resulted in a federal ruling that decided Google operated an unlawful monopoly over advert exchanges and advert servers. The federal government claimed in its criticism that “public sale knowledge, together with knowledge regarding bidding, obtainable impressions and gained impressions, allow advert tech merchandise to enhance their algorithms.” It additionally alleged that “an advert tech supplier that may see at scale who bids on stock and at what costs can create bidding methods to extra reliably win future auctions for comparable stock.”
Whereas this logic might apply to any SSP or advert alternate working open alternate auctions, Epsilon SSP stands out: It’s the one main SSP owned by an promoting holding firm. That makes Publicis the one company community with direct entry to advertisers’ marketing campaign knowledge within the programmatic ecosystem whereas concurrently competing for these advertisers’ enterprise. Some patrons see this twin position on each the purchase and promote sides as a possible battle of curiosity.
“No different holding firm has a majority or full possession over part of the ecosystem that everyone transacts and performs in,” an company media purchaser stated.
The corporate stated it retains its buy-side and sell-side operations separate.
“The buy-side can by no means see bid data acquired on the sell-side both in actual time or after the actual fact, due to technical and operational firewalls (together with completely different groups and engineering methods) which can be frequently audited by a 3rd get together,” a Publicis spokesperson stated. They added that “any shopper utilizing each its buy-side and sell-side providers does so in full transparency, with a number of and repeated guide opt-ins.”
When requested, the corporate declined to supply extra details about what sorts of firewalls are in place.
“This knowledge just isn’t logged or saved by Epsilon’s SSP. Even when it have been, it isn’t potential to make use of it to realize perception right into a marketing campaign’s technique or targets,” the Publicis spokesperson stated.
The chief of a special main SSP, talking on situation of anonymity, disputed that an SSP wouldn’t log or retailer bid knowledge, saying it’s “normal” observe for SSPs to retailer each bid request and bid response knowledge, because it’s “essential for observability, telemetry, troubleshooting.” In addition they stated that storing bid response knowledge is important for imposing advertiser blocklists and offering correct reporting for advertisers.
