Media buyers attending Digiday’s Programmatic Marketing Summit last month expressed a desire to evaluate their DSP partnerships and explore opportunities to shift more spend to more favorable, i.e., transparent, platforms that better align with client needs.

Many wanted to explore the impact of trends, such as the rise of Amazon’s DSP on the ad tech market (particularly its potential to undercut market leaders, including The Trade Desk and Google’s DV 360), so fervently that a virtual follow-up session was called for. 

Below are direct quotes from media agency participants of a virtual town hall conducted under Chatham House Rule on June 6, where discussions included the risk-reward analysis of market leaders, as well as the potential (much-needed) consolidation in the DSP market. 

Why Microsoft is closing Xandr’s DSP

Microsoft Advertising’s pending closure of its Xandr DSP has arguably been one of the top ad tech stories of 2025, offering expansion opportunities for smaller players as the software giant recalibrates its broader media offering. Townhall participants shared insights on how Microsoft Advertising’s flagship relationship with Netflix may have hindered its ad tech ambitions more than it helped. 

“I spoke with somebody at Xandr recently, and they told me the whole initiative was a massive fail for a variety of reasons,” noted one participant, observing how many advertisers felt Netflix inventory was “nascent and expensive,” resulting in low take-up at launch. 

“There were also a lot of issues for those that did activate, and that ultimately reflected most negatively on Xandr, not on Netflix,” added the source, noting how many holdouts were waiting on the streaming service to “get cheaper” and offer more measurement capabilities. “Xandr took the brunt of the frustration, so ultimately, it was a big loss for them.” 

The rise of Amazon Ads is healthy, but ultimately scary 

A more subtle narrative in recent years has been the steady rise of Amazon’s DSP, with the e-commerce giant now ranked as the third-largest DSP behind Google and The Trade Desk. 

According to participants, Amazon’s zero-fee supply-side platform services for publishers is a big competitive advantage, particularly as it hones in on The Trade Desk’s number two slot in the marketplace, even if it is “still a bit stuck together with gum and glue.”  

 “They haven’t really marketed their open market capabilities, and they’re still trying to work it out, but they give you the Amazon Marketing Cloud data to play with,” said the source, who compared this offering to Google’s DV 360. “That data is always going to be more accurate as it’s declared first-party data compared to these third-party additions you have to sync with things like UID2.”    

Separate participants noted how Amazon Ads “is still a work in progress.” Still, it does have the resources to scale quickly once it organizes its operational issues. However, many are wary of creating “another Google,” i.e., an inflexible behemoth that knows advertisers really can’t afford to omit it from ad campaigns. “Amazon is not on our side,” observed one source. “They’re only in it for themselves, and they absolutely will squeeze everyone out as much as they possibly can eventually, when the time is right.”    

Market-leader Google lags in customer satisfaction 

The extent of customer dissatisfaction with Google was underlined in evidence aired in last year’s antitrust trial. While much testimony came from the industry’s sell-side, participants in the virtual town hall demonstrated it was mirrored on the buy-side. 

“You don’t get lots of support unless you’re spending millions and millions and millions of dollars a month,” said one source, “even if you spend $100 million on Google, they still send you help center articles when you raise a support issue.” 

Several participants voiced their hope that Amazon’s professed customer obsession (in its consumer-focused business) will be mirrored in its pursuit of the number one spot on Madison Avenue, as a means of differentiating itself from Google. 

One participant noted the perceived lack of customer support for advertisers, claiming, “Google expired that whole [support] team a couple of years ago, now, you have to go through the resellers for support or email tickets to some place – God knows where – and it never works. When you do reach someone, they just read the same articles in the help center and repeat them back to you.” 

However, in many cases, media buyers will put up with the pain because Google has the inventory that performs. Still, some are monitoring the developments in its ad tech antitrust proceedings, as a potential divestiture could alter this tolerance. “If they have to severe DV 360, that could really shake up the DSP market, because if it gets cut off from Google data, then what’s its real value?” asked one exec.  

The Trade Desk is the most sophisticated, but those prices… 

Town hall participants at last month’s summit Town Hall labeled The Trade Desk as “the Spirit Airlines of the DSP world,” balking at its spiraling list of campaign charges. 

“I think The Trade Desk is still the most sophisticated DSP out there as far as the toolset, but the thing is they nickel and dime you on using any piece of the tools they have,” said one source, comparing it with Amzon’s offering, calling it “the most bare-bones DSP out there.” 

Separately, an additional participant described the ongoing Kokai rollout, which was recently burnished with the commencement of its Deal Desk experimentation, as “a nightmare,” adding that documentation for its API is often hard to find. “At least with Google’s API, you know what you’re getting, you know where it’s going to break, and what the issues are,” added the source. “But with The Trade Desk, it’s something different every day.”

Another participant went on to vent their frustration with the fee structure. “It’s the lack of transparency, or investigative math you need to do in order to understand the fees,” they noted. “They go out of their way to make it challenging to understand the total cost.“  

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