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For most advertisers, programmatic advertising is a one-stop solution: sign up for a demand-side platform (DSP), place your bids, and call it every day.
However, Mars Petcare does things differently.
As for CTV, it uses a supply-side platform — a tool publishers normally use to manage ad sales — to buy ads directly, skipping the usual DSP route entirely.
“For more than a year now, we’ve been consolidating our CTV ad spend into fewer partners to mitigate frequency overlap between partners and expand unique reach,” said Jonathan Tuttle, deputy director of media for Mars Pet Nutrition North America.
In March, Mars tested this strategy and collected unsold CTV inventory outside of the initial trade window to promote Greenies pet treats to off-brand buyers. But instead of using its go-to DSPs on Google Dv360 and The Trade Desk, Mars relied on PubMatic and traded through programmatic guaranteed and private marketplaces.
The advertiser’s logic was straightforward: fewer ad technology intermediaries mean fewer fees, leaving more budget for actual ad placements.
Get it right and the savings can be substantial. PubMatic connects advertisers directly with publishers, removing layers of middlemen and offering a more transparent fee structure. By comparison, DSPs typically lack these direct connections and often operate within a complex, multi-step ecosystem that centers around technology and transaction fees—adding costs at every layer.
“The main reason for doing this was financial in nature: the test with PubMatic allowed us to bypass a lot of the upfront DSP fees that we traditionally use,” Tuttle said, without disclosing exact savings figures.
These savings can add up. Take Google DV360 for example: its fees are usually around 13%. This means that for every $100 spent, $13 goes to Google, leaving only $87 to buy impressions. Add in fees for third-party data, measurement and verification, and the costs climb even higher.
By bypassing its own version of these costs, Mars Petcare reallocated 8% more of its budget to actual media placements – more money in publishers’ pockets.
“Do it like this [buying from a SSP] was where we were going to get a lot of savings, hopefully media efficiency as well,” Tuttle said.
The results spoke for themselves. Mars exceeded its goal of increasing sales by 20% and exceeded incremental sales goals by 126%.
Despite its success, Mars Petcare is not trying to completely replace DSP SSP. Instead, it plans to use SSP to buy CTV ads in specific scenarios where financial and operational efficiencies make sense. According to Tuttle, DSPs still offer major advantages: volume discounts, tiered pricing, broader inventory pools and advanced targeting capabilities—to name a few. At scale, these benefits often outweigh the upfront savings from purchasing an SSP outright.
“We’re getting incremental benefits from partnering with some of the DSPs, and we have to take all of those variables into account,” Tuttle said.
Going forward, Tuttle plans to explore more specific cases where PubMatic and similar SSPs can replace DS for ad buying. Initially for Mars Petcare, but eventually possibly for the wider Mars business.
Whether other advertisers will follow remains to be seen. However, if SSPs continue to attract additional advertising dollars, DSPs may face increasing pressure to innovate and offer more competitive pricing to regain their share of the pie.
“Yes, it helps reduce fees by cutting out the middleman and paying only one party,” said Davide Rosamilia, vice president of product at alternative identity provider ID5. “If more brands move to this approach, we will also see DSPs looking to reclaim their share of the pie.”
This response could include incorporating identity technology to improve BTV purchasing – something SSPs have already begun to do.
“It’s a virtuous cycle – SSPs who take this step forward will encourage DSPs to take similar steps,” he continued.
For now, DSPs can rest easy: their value proposition is secure. But with advertisers like Mars Petcare testing the waters, that may change over time.
“Our publisher partners are seeing higher monetization because more money is being spent on their inventory, and our advertisers are seeing a remarkable increase in sales that Mars has achieved without additional spend,” said Kyle Dozeman, Americas director of revenue at PubMatic. “It was an exciting case study showing how Activate puts control in the hands of the buyer to do what’s best for their campaign.”
