Best Data Management Platforms (DMPs) For Publishers

Publishers struggle to pick the right data management provider as it involves analyzing a lot of factors. Starting from features to pricing to comparison to suitability, you might need to crunch more numbers. That’s why we’ve composed the list of the best data management platforms (DMPs) for your reference. 

Here’s what we all know. The digital advertising ecosystem heavily relies on data to provide users with personalized and engaging ad experience.

Here’s what we don’t know. With an increasing number of internet users, online businesses and, IoT devices, there has been a huge amount of data flowing all around the network from multiple sources. It’s almost impossible for any publishers or adtech vendors to make sense of the data without a dedicated platform.

In fact, the need to centralize valuable data is becoming an important and critical success factor. And, that’s where Data Management Platforms (DMP) comes in.

Table of Contents

• What is a DMP?
• Best Data Management Platforms
  I)   Adobe Audience Manager
  II)  Lotame
  III) Oracle BlueKai
  IV)  Salesforce
  V)   Liveramp
• The Way Forward

What is a DMP?

Data Management Platform (DMP) is a technology platform that gathers data from various sources to categorize and segment them into different data groups that can be utilized to achieve a particular business objective. In our case, serving personalized ads to the users. 

In general, DMP collects three types of data:

• First-Party Data: This is the data that is directly collected from a user or a consumer. The major sources of first-party data include CRM systems, subscriptions, newsletter sign-ups, and analytic tools (web & mobile). 
• Second Party Data: The data which is gathered by companies through a partnership agreement, is termed second-party data. Sources include audience information through forms filled in first-party data and other ad-serving data.
• Third-Party Data: It is the data pulled together from different sources and sold to agencies for analytics and audience targeting. 

For all the participants of the digital network – publishers, marketers, and advertising agencies; optimizing the data through DMPs can assist in managing online campaigns, increasing conversion rates, creating personalized campaign content for the target audience, and improving ROIs.

Best Data Management Platforms (DMPs)

Although there are myriads of DMPs in the industry, only a few providers hold the majority of the market. However, that doesn’t mean the majority is the best. That’s why we took the time and analyze a list of DMPs and filtered out the top DMPs for you. If you know any other DMPs that should be included in the list, let us know in the comments.

1. Adobe Audience Manager

Adobe Audience Manager is arguably the strongest DMP for publishers. From customer intelligence to personalization, the suite offers everything a media publisher needs to improve their campaign ROI and user experience.

You can combine all your first-, second-, and third-party data to generate sensible audience profiles. Each profile depicts consumer habits and who they are. As a publisher that’s what you need to deliver personalized ad experience and content recommendations.

Pros:

• A right tool for those who want to integrate mountains of data silos from different sources and channels.
• It offers a complete view of the customer journey in one place.
• It, indeed, improves the effectiveness of the ad campaigns and let editors deliver the right content.

Cons:

• Costly and not suitable for mid-sized publishers.
• Complex and tricky implementation hinders an average person to get the most out of the platform. Besides, training could take time and first-hand experience is necessary to navigate the platform.

2. Lotame

One of the most flexible and powerful DMPs used by digital agencies, publishers and, advertisers to achieve maximum connection with the audience. Unlike other platforms, Lotame is an independent data management platform that caters to medium and large enterprise businesses. Lotame provides audience data analytics, insights, and reporting to consumers across all devices. As it is a flexible platform, it can be easily integrated with any other enterprise software or new technologies.

Pros:

• Lotame serves publishers with higher campaign values.
• It can be used to target only the niche and small audience segment that returns maximum sales.
• Omnichannel data consolidation and digestible insights.

Cons:

• It needs more transparency and quality regarding where the advertising data is placed.
• If a publisher decides to work on an off-property campaign, the management of resources will be difficult.

3. Oracle BlueKai

Regarded as the world’s largest third-party data aggregation tool, Oracle Bluekai allows marketers and advertisers to work in tandem with multiple partners across the web, mobile, email, offline as well as online channels. BlueKai’s audience data marketplace provides consumers with data attributes that comprise details such as past purchases, interests, qualified geographies, and brands. BlueKai also lets you plan and analyze campaigns by device.

Pros:

• Offers cross-selling opportunities across multiple business units.
• The platform powers website customization, dynamic creative optimization based on new target audience segments.
• Precisely fragmenting 1st party and 3rd party data, carefully analyzing and assessing prospects for better campaign targeting and retargeting.
• Better management of offline and online campaigns, by enabling personalized consumer engagement and thus, improving the marketing returns.

Cons:

• It is not possible to apply complex rules while creating a target audience segment.
• Slow issue-resolving time.
• Given a large amount of database, it is difficult to sort the required data.

4. Salesforce DMP (formerly Krux)

Salesforce DMP aims to offer all sorts of services you probably need. However, you need to have a significant number of unique users or sizeable audience data to see a better ROI. As per the claim, the platform combines datasets and helps you to derive insights through segmentation and analysis.

It is worth noting that the Salesforce DMP has been predominantly used to collect all the data and retarget the readers based on the developed insights.

Pros:

• Service support is quick.
• It has tag features that can level up the way you retarget your readers.
• Analytics and CRM onboarding capabilities.

Cons:

• UI isn’t up to the bar and takes time to crunch the data.
• Limited reporting and data visualization abilities.

5. Liveramp

Liveramp is a platform that supplements ‘data management platforms’ through its identity-based solutions. It caters to agencies, brands, publishers, and even digital marketing platforms (other DMPs). It offers IdentityLink, a proprietary solution to publishers helping them to run people-based campaigns. Publishers can also monetize their data using the same platform securely. Besides, it spells out data insights that can be used by publishers to drive subscriptions and expand the audience base. 

Pros:

• Liveramp has the ability to act as a multi-purpose platform for publishers and any other adtech vendors. 
• People-based targeting ensures higher ROI for advertisers and in turn, increases the value of publishers’ inventories.
• It helps to identify the unknown audience data and connect offline CRM data with digital advertising platforms.
• It has a huge list of partners resulting in ease of implementation.

Cons:

• Less transparency and publishers have to rely on proprietary technology.
• Not suitable for medium publishers, mainly because of the high price tag. 
• Limited Customization and a lot of manual work are involved.

The Way Forward

The above-mentioned are notably the best Data Management Platforms available in the market. That being said, you can choose from a lot of options available based on your needs and business process. Though the major DMP market has been covered by Oracle, Lotame, Salesforce, etc. there are still other DMPs such as Accompany, Dstillery, standing a good chance among digital advertisers, agencies, and publishers.

We advise you to start with the aforementioned list and explore the other players before settling on a decision.

Last but not least, choose the DMP based on your industry, demographics, rules, and regulations based on the targeting locations and, type of integration planned for your system. For a more detailed guide on the evaluation of DMPs, get our guide.