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Google Falls Behind in SSP Rankings

The story: Mid-November saw global research advisory company Forrester release its first SSP wave since 2014, delivering a surprising shake-up: Google has dropped to the challengers tier alongside OpenX . This ranking highlights the growing criticisms of Google in recent years -- particularly its lack of innovation, transparency, and support for industry standards. Mo Allibhai, a senior analyst at Forrester and lead author of the report, attributes this decline to Google’s reliance on its dominant market position. 

“It was hard to get publishers to say good things about [Google],” Allibhai told AdExchanger “Except for the free ad server and access to Google’s advertisers. Taking a cold, dispassionate look at where it would be as a standalone SSP, it’s looking bleak compared to where it once was.” 

The antitrust scrutiny of Google’s SSP practices, which tie its ad server to its exchange, further casts a shadow over its platform’s future viability. In contrast, Forrester praised Amazon Ads , Magnite , and PubMatic for their innovation in retail media and interoperability. Other strong performers in the report included Index Exchange , Equativ , and InMobi .

The takeaway: The decline of Google’s SSP serves as a reminder of the risks tied to over-reliance on dominant platforms, emphasizing the need for advertisers to diversify partnerships to avoid potential limitations or disruptions. Prioritizing SSPs that excel in curation, ID interoperability, and support for emerging channels like streaming audio and DOOH will be critical to staying competitive and future-proofing advertising strategies.

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Extra Industry Insights

Media buyers say programmatic spend on Spotify is increasing as the music streaming platform builds its own SSP:

• According to its Q3 earnings report on November 12, Spotify is on track to achieve its first profitable financial year, 16 years after its founding, with $4.2B in revenue. 
• This milestone comes after Spotify confirmed last month that it is piloting its own ad exchange, the Spotify Ad Exchange -- a move likely aimed at improving its ad margins. 
• Lindsey Freed , SVP of Media Investment at Basis Technologies , told Digiday that clients have increased their overall Spotify spend by 75% compared to 2023. 
• Spotify’s CEO and Co-Founder, Daniel Ek , emphasized to analysts that the platform’s ongoing focus remains “meeting marketers where they want to be met, and that is in the programmatic marketplace…” 

CVS Media Exchange (CMX) introduced the CMX Private Marketplace:

• This gives marketers a more direct way to access and roll out enhanced Sponsored Product campaigns, including access to 14- and 30-day lookback windows, which allows brands to see offline sales insights at the SKU level for a campaign. 
• According to CMX, this solution expands targeting capabilities to reach customers beyond a brand’s category — whether in-grid, within results or on product detail pages.
• Other new features include assistance building, monitoring, and optimizing campaigns so brands can launch even more quickly.

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