Is 'Header Bidding' the future of AdTech?!

The strides in technology have taken advertising to the next level. AdTech focuses on aligning the deals between advertisers and publishers. 

In a traditional waterfall model, the publisher allocates the priority for each advertiser they are connected to. The waterfall model was not profitable for publishers and demand partners alike. The main problem with waterfall model is that selling price of ad impression does not reflect its actual value.

Why did clients and publishers get dissatisfied with waterfall model?

01.  Inefficiency due to more latency.

02.  Revenue gets impacted.

03.  Complex Ad settings.

'Header Bidding' is an approach that allows publishers to sell their website inventories to many ad exchanges simultaneously. This is a latest disruption in the AdTech World. Header Bidding was introduced in 2009, and as it stands in 2021, large number of publishers have adopted this technology. The publishers add a JavaScript code in the header of their webpages (hence the term header bidding). The browser runs the auction, the winning bid competes with other campaigns in parallel, whichever has the higher price wins.

Why does Header Bidding stand out? What is in it for the AdTech players?

01.  Header Bidding results in greater revenue. Pitting bids against each ad exchange drives up the price.

02.  Avoids pass backs by placing the bids in one single auction, within the ad server.

03.  All ad impressions are on the same bid. This makes it transparent and increases overall efficiency by enabling buyers to compete per impression.

Key questions to ponder?

01.  Why should an AdTech company invest in Header Bidding as opposed to Daisy Chain/ waterfall bidding?

02.  What is in it for the publishers?

03.  How does the AdTech industry get benefited by leveraging the power of Header Bidding?

In Header Bidding, the publishers can monetize more.

Opportunities:

01.  Transparency of supply side platforms, SSPs, enables unified bidding on a single platform.

02.  Helps in bid strategy and forecasting.

03.  Helps is overall media planning and execution of ad campaigns. 

Case Study One: Pubmatic

A leading news company needed a programmatic partner to maximize its costs. The company partnered with Pubmatic to strategize, minimize pain points and monetization of their digital assets. By deploying Pubmatic’s decision manager, the company was able to realize the benefits of fifty percent increase in average CPMs and 9X increase in overall revenue.

Case Study Two: Mediamath

MediaMath partnered with OpenX to put header bidding to test for the buy side. OpenX added twenty four percent more users. Provides buyers additional reach in the process of bidding. This gave advertisers the wherewithal to compete for greater share of publisher’s inventory.

Case Study Three: The Hindu tabloid

One of the pioneers in the online newspaper industry teamed up with Automatad to setup Header Bidding. Results have been astounding. Revenue has steeply increased by forty percent and user experience improved by 2X margin.

Thus, Header Bidding is a win-win for both advertisers and publishers. It has become a mainstay of the AdTech world and is here to stay for good reasons.

"Don't celebrate closing a sale, celebrate opening a relationship." - Patricia Fripp.