A demand-side platform (DSP) is a type of software that allows advertisers to buy advertising with the help of automation. It combines various software solutions for advertisers or advertising agencies to automate the process of buying and selling ad impressions in real-time. The DSP platform has absorbed the features of the real-time bidding of the previous generation and has brought many new things to the advertising industry. The key features of a DSP include:

• Full-service: A management model in which the planning, launch, and optimization of an advertising campaign is carried out by specialists of the DSP platform.
• Self-service: A management model in which the planning, launch, and optimization of an advertising campaign is carried out by specialists of the agency/advertiser.
• Preferred deal: No auction, set CPM, non-guaranteed inventory.
• Programmatic guaranteed: No auction, set CPM, guaranteed inventory.
• Private marketplace (PMP): Real-time bidding, price floor, select group of advertisers.
• Open exchange buy: Real-time bidding, variable CPM, open to all advertisers.

The DSP automates the decision-making process on how much to bid for an ad in real-time. The DSP makes the ad-buying process significantly faster, cheaper, and more efficient. The most obvious way in which DSPs are important to mobile marketing also applies to automation in general: this process allows marketers to avoid spending time and energy on something that can be completed by an automated machine. DSPs help advertisers quickly set up campaigns and manage them with ease. Furthermore, the automated element of DSPs means that advertisers can easily scale their efforts on mobile. Previously, advertisers efforts to expand could be held back by physical constraints such as geographical location. DSPs allow advertisers to overcome this by allowing them to buy traffic with new publishers and in new locales with ease.