Programmatic SSP Integration for Travel Commerce Platform

About the client

The client runs a travel commerce platform with over 12 million monthly visitors, mostly US-based travelers. They land on the platform to explore destinations, compare flights and hotels, and book trips. The client leverages a network of international airlines and hospitality brands that partner directly with the business.

Alongside bookings, advertising has become a meaningful revenue stream for the client. Travel brands and service providers buy placements across non-transactional pages. Advertiser interest rises during demand surges, which pushes the client to look for a more scalable ad setup.

Client challenges

The client runs ad campaigns through a third-party ad server and a specialized SSP focused on travel commerce inventory. Brand promotions require manual configuration, pacing, and tag management. During traffic surges, the setup limits auction competition, lowers fill rates, and leaves premium impressions unmonetized.

• Fragmented ad stack prevents centralized control and consistent campaign management.
• Manual processes slow campaign turnaround in busy travel periods.
• Sudden traffic spikes can cause ads to load slowly, frustrating advertisers and limiting exposure.
• Limited access to global buyers lowers competition for premium placements.
• Revenue potential drops when high-intent impressions go unsold.

Technologies Used

Goals

The client was looking for a new approach to keep up with seasonal load and growing advertiser demand. They wanted to tap into programmatic capabilities, using a custom-built SSP for travel experts as the foundation. Geomotiv partnered with the client to deliver measurable gains:

• Centralize all programmatic demand across display and native placements.
• Increase competition from top DSPs to boost revenue from premium impressions.
• Maintain end-to-end ad service availability during rising traffic load.
• Launch brand campaigns faster by reducing manual setup.
• Track revenue, fill rates, and auction performance in real time.

Work description

Stage 1. Analysis of requirements

The team reviewed the client’s campaign workflows, inventory management, and demand channels. They identified bottlenecks during holidays, summer vacations, and other intensive booking periods.

Business analysts documented requirements for a future travel SSP to unify inventory and connect new demand sources. It was supposed to act as a core supply-side layer within the client’s advertising stack, replacing fragmented ad server workflows.

Stage 2. Architecture design

Geomotiv’s team designed the architecture with modular components for inventory management, bid processing, reporting, and DSP integration. The goal was to let separate modules scale independently to cope with high-demand periods.

Our developers also defined a robust data foundation for the SSP. PostgreSQL structured inventory, campaign logic, and reporting models, ensuring predictable behavior as demand scaled. Redis supported real-time auction execution during traffic peaks, keeping ad delivery stable under high load. The team also incorporated Kafka to stream auction events, delivery logs, and reporting signals into the analytics pipeline.

Stage 3. Iterative development

We split development into phases, delivering prioritized features gradually. The team combined inventory, auction, and DSP modules into one programmatic interface using APIs. We built real-time monitoring and reporting dashboards to track key revenue metrics:

• eCPM across display and native inventory.
• Fill rates by placement type.
• Total impressions served per day and per region.
• Revenue generated from seasonal campaigns.
• % of premium impressions sold to programmatic buyers.
• Revenue contribution from global DSPs.

Throughout the iterative delivery, we focused on meeting SSP’s performance goals. The team applied:

• asynchronous processing to manage high bid volumes,
• caching strategies to reduce response times and boost service reliability.

Geomotiv’s developers and QAs conducted load and stress testing to validate that the SSP for travel experts remains fault-tolerant. We tracked critical performance metrics to ensure the stable work of programmatic pipelines:

• average auction response time,
• maximum concurrent bid requests,
• uptime per regional cluster, etc.

Stage 4. Release

Our team deployed the SSP within the client’s travel commerce platform. We directed small-scale traffic to validate workflows and monitor auctions under real programmatic load.

The platform is ready to onboard new global DSPs and widen access to premium programmatic demand. The team continues controlled testing to refine performance and grow revenue. Further iterations will support higher load and larger demand volumes over time.

Results

Within the first months after launch, the new setup proved its efficiency. It handled seasonal demand more effectively than the previous ad stack. The travel SSP delivered clear performance gains under real production traffic.

During intense booking windows, fill rates increased by 18%, and eCPM for premium placements grew by 22%. Campaign launch time dropped by up to 35% thanks to programmatic workflows. These results validated the SSP’s ability to sustain revenue growth during high-demand periods without delivery disruptions.