DSP isolation
06 Jan 2019 » AAM
I once encountered a concerning situation with an agency, which required immediate action. If you are using agencies for your display advertising campaigns and you have recently acquired a license for AAM, then this post is for you.
Let’s start with the problem. Some agencies, especially if they are lazy or do not have a good organisation, have one single account with each DSP they work with. All the clients they work for, share these DSP accounts. This solution makes it very simple for the agency to manage the DSPs. However, I have very serious concerns with this approach:
- All clients of the agency share the same data. Nothing prevents an agency employees from, mistakenly, using a segment from a different client. Or, even worse, an unethical agency could sell your audiences to another customer (maybe your competitor), without your knowledge.
- If, in the future, you want to use a different agency, you will not be able to reuse the existing setup. Remember that the data should be yours.
It becomes even more serious when you start using a DMP like Adobe Audience Manager. You are spending an important amount of money in the license and you do not want your rich segments being used by someone else.
My recommendations
I recommend you take the following actions, for each of the agencies you work with.
- Request written confirmation that all your DSP accounts are isolated. In other words, you are the only company using that DSP account.
- If the agency refuses to provide this confirmation, cancel immediately the contract you have with them. There are many good, honest and transparent agencies in the market.
- If the DSP accounts are shared among all the clients of the agency, request an account only for you, for all DSPs. This is what I mean by DSP isolation.
- Do not set any destinations in AAM until you have confirmation that the DSP account is only for you. Only then get your Adobe contact to create the destination.
- Take control of the DSP account. I know this will add a bit of burden on your side, but remember it is yours. Besides, if you later decide to switch agencies, you can carry all the existing campaigns.
If you are an agency and still have one account per DSP, it goes without saying that you should start creating one account per customer per DSP and migrate all campaigns to the correct account. You should keep your clients informed during the whole process, clearly explaining why you are doing it. This move will show your commitments towards privacy and security, increasing the perceived quality of your agency.
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