Key Insights on Demand Side Platforms from the G2 Crowd Grid Report

How do you determine the best demand side platform?

That's not an easy question to answer. Demand side platforms, or DSPs, are digital campaign management product software that provide advertisers features for buying ad placements online in real time. Determining the best one depends on who you ask, what problem they want to solve with a DSP, and how they evaluate success. Asking an analyst – who is basing their answer off a strict set of criteria, reports, and data – might yield a different opinion than an internet user on platforms like Quora or Reddit.

In order to eliminate bias and opinion, the better question to ask is: How do you determine the best demand side platform that exceeds user needs and the needs of their digital buying teams? And to measure that accurately and objectively, reviews from actual users should be gathered in aggregate based on a certain set of criteria, like how many people are using the software and how successful they are.

According to Forrester, 80% of B-to-B buyers seek a referral from their network and 74% conduct half of their research online before making an offline purchase. One popular and trusted tool for online research in the programmatic space is G2 Crowd, a review site for business technology. Every year, G2 Crowd collects, aggregates, and analyzes user reviews to produce their G2 Crowd Grid Reports. The Grid is developed from a combination of robust data science algorithms that pull in data points from product reviews shared by G2 Crowd users and data aggregated from online sources and social networks. Users ranking and reviewing DSPs are basing their criteria off a number of factors, including DSP functionality and ease-of-use, quality of support, and DSP features, workflow capabilities, and platform integrations. The highly anticipated report plays a critical role in the procurement process of thousands of software buyers globally, who use the Grid to help them quickly select the best DSP products for their businesses and to find peers with similar experiences.

The latest Grid Report for Demand Side Platform Software was released this month, and the report ranked the top 11 demand side platforms. G2 Crowd ranked the industry DSPs based on two measures: market presence and satisfaction. In other words, the very questions we're trying to answer: how many people use the software and how successful are they?

Basis DSP is The Leader in Demand Side Platform Software

Based on the chart above, you'll see the leaders category is populated with software solutions and tech companies that exceed client happiness in both market presence and satisfaction. Though Basis has some company in the top right quadrant, it also has the highest G2 Score (74) among the competition. Not only that, but 100% of users rated it 4 or 5 stars, 94% of users believe it is headed in the right direction, and 90% of users said they would be likely to recommend the product.

Basis also scored the highest for quality of support and ease-of-use, in addition to meeting the highest satisfaction ratings in several other categories.

If you take a look at the Net Promoter Scores (NPS), no other DSP scored half as high as Basis. What's NPS? The concept, discussed in a 2003 Harvard Business Review article, is designed to highlight the link between profitable growth and customer loyalty. After two years of research, HBR determined that, for most industries, the best indicator of customer loyalty could be measured by asking people how likely they would be to recommend a particular company to a friend or relative. So, a company's NPS is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.

Why does this matter? When you invest in a software solution, it's important to know the product will be there for the long haul – with regular updates, consistent and quick support, and the stability to deliver on its promise of growing your business and driving revenue.

Impacting the Future

Without our customers using and loving Basis, we wouldn't be able to celebrate this win. Customer success is the driving force behind our product and our continued innovation:

Read more of user Alicia R's review on G2 Crowd.

G2 Crowd's report also gives us an objective and honest look at where we can improve, how the competition stacks up, and what the digital marketplace looks like. But it also benefits potential buyers, allowing them to crowdsource information and hear from industry peers on what works for them, what doesn't, and why.

If you are in the market for a media buying solution, we encourage you to closely scrutinize the methodology and results. Download the report to read in-depth, and contact us at info@centro.net to get a demo of Basis, the No. 1 demand side platform!