Building a High-Performance Ad Server for a Global DOOH Marketplace

To Power Real-Time Bidding, Creative Syncing, and Proof-of-Play Compliance

Building a High-Performance Ad Server Platform for a Global DOOH Marketplace

A global DOOH supply-side platform operating in 19 markets faced challenges from manual creative approvals, lack of real-time bidding, and one-off DSP integrations. These issues slowed down campaign activation and made it hard to scale efficiently. As campaign volumes grew and compliance demands increased, their outdated platform couldn’t keep up. While common for fast-growing companies, these problems intensified the need for a more unified and automated solution to meet modern buyer expectations. That’s when they approached Rishabh Software to architect an Ad server platform that would deliver real-time programmatic capabilities, automate creative delivery, support 24/7 global operations, and ensure full transparency through Proof-of-Play reporting.

Capability

Programmatic AdTech Engineering

Industry

AdTech

Country

United Kingdom

Key Features

As an enterprise-grade AdTech software development company, we delivered a microservices-based ad server platform that was optimized for modularity, performance & scale. It was designed to support real-time ad delivery and intelligent deal workflows to ensure campaigns run smoothly across global screens.

Unified Inventory & Deal Management

Implemented a Unified Inventory & Deal Management system that centralizes the management of frames, tags, and location data. This system is integrated into an easy-to-use interface for creating deals, targeting audiences, and monetizing inventory across different regions and devices.

Real-Time Auction Engine with DSP Integration

Developed an Auctioneer component that integrates with DSPs to run high-speed bid requests, process responses, and select winners instantly. This enables last-minute inventory monetization and facilitates global ad trading.

Automated Creative Workflow with SmartSync Delivery

Developed an automated creative workflow with SmartSync Delivery. This solution streamlines the secure upload, approval, and assignment of creatives, with automated syncing to player devices. SmartSync enhances offline resilience by caching assets locally, to ensure uninterrupted playback even without a network connection.

Proof-of-Play Compliance Dashboard

Implemented a post-delivery tracking system that generates detailed Proof-of-Play (POP) reports. Essential for contract fulfillment, brand safety, and third-party validation.

Challenges

Existing infrastructure couldn't meet real-time bidding demands, causing delays and missed delivery windows.

Fragmented creative workflows required excessive manual intervention, slowing down campaign activation and increasing errors.

Operations across 19 markets lacked consistent deal visibility, centralized inventory targeting, and timezone synchronization.

The absence of an automated Proof-of-Play system left media owners vulnerable to disputes and unable to verify ad delivery.

Solutions

We engineered a purpose-built Ad server platform with a distributed, cloud-native architecture. It combined global scalability, real-time performance, and system resilience to enable programmatic DOOH at enterprise scale. The key deliverables of the project included:

Microservices-Based Architecture with Modular Core

The entire solution was architected as independent services including inventory, deal, creative, and player modules with each component built for horizontal scalability and faster deployments across regions.

High-Speed Real-Time Auction Engine

Our custom Auctioneer system enabled low-latency bidding by connecting with multiple DSPs in milliseconds. The core Adserver processed available slots, evaluated eligibility, and served the winning creative instantly.

SmartSync Content Delivery with Fallback Support

SmartSync ensured that the latest approved creatives were always available on the player, even during network outages. This guaranteed content integrity and uninterrupted delivery at the edge.

POP Reporting and Campaign Monitoring Suite

We developed a Proof-of-Play tracking layer that fed verified playback logs into a Compliance Dashboard to allow media owners to generate on-demand POP reports and monitor campaign performance in real time.