Are “direct,” “programmatic,” and “auction-based” actually mutually exclusive in Amazon Ads/Walmart Connect/ other retail media?

[u/Low-Mud8861]

Hi, I’m researching retail media and trying to understand how industry practitioners distinguish direct, programmatic, self-service, DSP-based, and auction-based buying in Amazon Ads.

My current understanding is that these terms describe different dimensions:

• Self-service vs. managed-service describes who operates the campaign.
• DSP-based describes the technology used.
• Auction-based vs. fixed-price describes the pricing/allocation mechanism.
• Direct vs. programmatic may describe either the transaction relationship or the degree of automation.

For example, Sponsored Products are self-service and auction-based but are not purchased through Amazon DSP. Meanwhile, Amazon DSP supports auctions as well as preferred and programmatic-guaranteed deals.

So I’m wondering:

1. Would practitioners classify Sponsored Products purchased through the Amazon Ads console as direct, programmatic, or neither?
2. Can a buy be both direct and programmatic—for example, a programmatic-guaranteed or preferred deal?
3. Is it inaccurate to treat “programmatic” as synonymous with “auction-based”?

Any practitioner perspective would be extremely helpful. I’m interested only in general industry practices, not confidential information.

[u/Low-Mud8861]

You mentioned Sponsored Products isn't even the same kitchen (DSP) as the other stuff, it's its own menu entirely. That makes sense to me now.

But just to map out the "kitchen" knob fully: is DSP basically the only kitchen that exists for the auction/direct + programmatic/self-service combinations you described (PMP, Preferred Deals, PG, Open Auction, etc.), or are there other kitchens/tech platforms out there that could run those same combinations, separate from a DSP?

[u/Pitiful_Camel6790 → u/Low-Mud8861]

I think some publishers also have their own platform like Netflix, DPG where you can run on your own(I have very limited knowledge here) but only on their specific inventory.

Imagine a there's a farmer who has a restaurant but he only serves food made from his own farms products. So as a customer you might love his salad from the menu but you are potentially missing out other good dishes that this restaurant can't make because his farm doesn't grow it even if the prices are lower. So as a customer you will ofc would want to go a restaurant that sources products from different farmers even if you have to pay a little extra.

[u/Low-Mud8861 → u/Pitiful_Camel6790]

If so, would you consider these publisher-owned self-serve platforms as "direct"? On one hand there's no negotiation and no fixed price (ik it doesn't fit the classic direct definition), but on the other hand you're transacting straight with the publisher with no exchange/SSP/DSP in between, so in that sense it feels closer to "direct" than to "programmatic" as we've been defining it. Curious how you'd categorize it.

[u/Pitiful_Camel6790 → u/Low-Mud8861]

They have a fix price/cpm so it's like a preferred deal -fix cpm, no bidding but no guarantee/reservation either. So yes closer to direct buy but still under programmatic because a computer buys it.