Mars Petcare's Innovative Strategy: Directly Buying CTV Ads Through SSPs!

For most advertisers, programmatic advertising is a one-stop shop: log into a demand-side platform (DSP), place your bids, and call it a day. However, Mars Petcare is doing things differently.

When it comes to Connected TV (CTV), they're using a supply-side platform (SSP) — the tool that publishers typically use to manage ad sales — to buy ads directly, completely bypassing the usual DSP route.

“For over a year now, we’ve been consolidating our CTV ad spending into fewer partners to mitigate cross-partner frequency overlap and extend unique reach,” said Jonathan Tuttle, associate director of media for Mars Pet Nutrition North America.

In March, Mars tested this strategy by acquiring unsold CTV inventory outside the upfront trading window to promote Greenies pet treats to non-brand buyers. Instead of relying on their go-to DSPs like Google DV360 and The Trade Desk, they turned to PubMatic, executing deals through programmatic guaranteed and private marketplaces.

The rationale was straightforward: fewer ad tech middlemen mean fewer fees, allowing more of the budget for actual ad placements. The potential savings are substantial. PubMatic connects advertisers directly with publishers, eliminating layers of intermediaries and offering a more transparent fee structure compared to traditional DSPs, which typically operate within a complex, multi-step ecosystem that adds technology and transaction fees.

“The main reason for doing this was financial in nature: the test with PubMatic allowed us to circumvent many of the upfront fees charged by the DSPs we traditionally use,” said Tuttle.

For instance, Google DV360 fees typically average around 13%. This means that for every $100 spent, $13 goes to Google, leaving only $87 for purchasing impressions. By avoiding these costs, Mars Petcare reallocated 8% more of its budget to actual media placements, benefiting publishers directly.

The results were impressive: Mars exceeded its sales lift goal by 20% and surpassed incremental sales targets by 126%. Despite this success, Mars Petcare does not plan to replace DSPs entirely; rather, they intend to use SSPs for specific scenarios where financial and operational efficiencies are beneficial.

“We get incremental benefits from partnerships with some DSPs, and we have to take all those variables into account,” Tuttle added.

Looking forward, Tuttle aims to explore more instances where PubMatic and similar SSPs can replace DSPs for ad buying — initially for Mars Petcare but potentially for the broader Mars business as well.

Whether other advertisers will follow this path remains to be seen. However, if SSPs continue to attract more ad dollars, DSPs may face increasing pressure to innovate and offer more competitive pricing.

“Yes, this helps reduce fees by cutting out the middleman and only paying one party,” noted Davide Rosamilia, vp of product at alternative identity provider ID5. “If more brands shift to this approach, we’ll also see DSPs wanting to reclaim their share of the pie.”

For now, DSPs can rest easy as their value proposition remains intact. But with advertisers like Mars Petcare testing this innovative approach, the landscape may change over time. Kyle Dozeman, chief revenue officer of Americas at PubMatic, remarked, “Our publisher partners see increased monetization as more money is spent on their inventory, and our advertisers see the kind of remarkable sales lift Mars did without the additional spend.”