Looking for honest hot takes. What is a healthy overall monthly budget to have before considering DSPs?
120k monthly budget. We have Meta (not fully maximized in terms of budget), ASA, and CTV.
Does it make sense to add DSPs as an additional platform at this point or should we maximize Meta?
+1 to what’s already been said above.
With a ~$120K monthly budget, I personally wouldn’t rush into DSPs yet — especially if
Meta is not fully maximized. In most cases Meta still has a significantly higher ceiling, so if there’s still room to scale or improve there, that’s usually where I’d focus first, alongside ASA.
That said, the answer will also
depend a lot on the geos you’re spending in. $120K/month can go a long way if you’re focused on lower-cost markets, but it can feel relatively small if most of your spend is concentrated in expensive Tier 1 geos like the US. So the point at which it makes sense to expand to DSPs will naturally vary depending on where your budget is actually going.
Before expanding to DSPs, I’d want to see
clear signals of channel saturation: CPIs consistently increasing while CPMs remain stable, creatives struggling to maintain CTR, scaling budgets becoming progressively less efficient, etc. Without those signals, adding another platform often just introduces complexity rather than true incremental growth.
Since you didn’t mention the app category, another thing I’d consider before DSPs is simply
expanding into other major partners first, like TikTok, if you’re not already running there. It’s often a more natural next step before moving into DSP ecosystems.
Also, if the spend you’re mentioning is mostly
A2A (app-to-app) traffic, it might be worth testing
W2A (web-to-app) flows as well. In many cases that can unlock additional inventory pools and give you another scaling lever without needing to jump straight into DSPs.
If you have an AM at Meta, one thing that can also be useful is trying to
get more visibility into where you’re actually delivering, especially if you’re using
Audience Network. Since it’s Meta’s in-app inventory, there’s always a chance of
re-impacting the same users through other DSPs later on if placements are not well understood.
Another thing I’d be cautious about when eventually testing DSPs:
avoid starting with partners running pure CPA models. A common pattern there is that they push very large volumes of impressions to identify small pockets of conversions. Your
CTR tends to collapse, and at scale that can also create surprises on the attribution side.
Many MMPs include
Fair Usage clauses in their contracts to control the volume of impressions they process. If a DSP suddenly floods your attribution pipeline with impressions, you can end up hitting those limits and paying
unexpected overages. For reference, AppsFlyer documents this in their MSA:
https://www.appsflyer.com/legal/msa/
If I had to test DSP inventory at some point, I’d probably start with
Applovin or Unity, but only once I had strong evidence that Meta / ASA (and potentially Google) were approaching their scaling limits. DSP environments often come with
lower CTR inventory, so they typically require
more budget and patience to properly validate.
So short answer: at $120K/month, I’d still focus on squeezing more out of
Meta + ASA first, and only look at DSPs once you’re confident those channels are genuinely getting close to their ceiling.
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