What is an Advertiser?
Quick Definition: An Advertiser is a company, brand, or individual that pays to promote its products or services to a target audience. In the performance marketing ecosystem, their primary goal is to drive actions (like installs or sales) by creating compelling offers for publishers to run on their apps and websites.
An Introduction to the Advertiser
The advertiser is the demand side of the advertising equation. They have a marketing budget and a desire to reach potential customers wherever they may be, which, increasingly, is within mobile apps and on websites. Advertisers are the fuel for the entire ad tech industry; their spending is what creates the revenue that supports free apps and content for users.
An advertiser’s role involves several key responsibilities:
- Defining Objectives: Determining the goal of a campaign (e.g., increase brand awareness, acquire new users, drive Q3 sales).
- Setting Budgets: Allocating funds for ad spend.
- Structuring Offers and Creatives: Designing the ad itself (the creative) and defining the terms of the offer. This includes the user action required (e.g., install an app, reach Level 5) and the payout for a successful conversion. The complete portfolio of these campaigns is known as the advertiser’s Offer Program.
- Identifying the Target Audience: Specifying the demographic, geographic, and behavioral characteristics of the ideal customer.
- Measuring Performance: Analyzing data to calculate Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and optimize future campaigns.
Advertisers can range from a small indie game studio trying to get its first 1,000 users to a global brand like Nike or Coca-Cola launching a new product.
The Advertiser’s Toolkit
To achieve their goals, advertisers work with a variety of partners and platforms:
- They create an Offer Program, which is the portfolio of all their advertising campaigns or “offers” that they make available to publishers and partners.
- They partner with Ad Publishers to gain access to their audience.
- They use Ad Networks or Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) to purchase ad space efficiently and at scale.
- They rely on Ad Tracking and analytics platforms to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.
Why the “Advertiser” Role is Important
- Drives Revenue: Advertiser spending is the primary revenue source for the majority of the digital media and mobile app economy.
- Fuels Competition: The competition among advertisers for ad space helps establish its market value, ensuring publishers get fair prices for their inventory.
- Informs Users: At its best, advertising connects users with products and services that are genuinely useful or interesting to them.
Related Terms
- Ad Publisher: The entity that advertisers pay to display their ads. The advertiser is the buyer, the publisher is the seller.
- Demand-Side Platform (DSP): A key technology platform used by advertisers to automate the purchasing of ad inventory.
- Campaign Management: The process of planning, executing, and optimizing an advertiser’s ad campaign.
