Rethinking the Ad Server
This question invariably gets asked in every panel or interview revolving around header bidding. “Hack” is a term dripping with bile and contempt – it symbolizes a ragged workaround versus some mythical notion of organic development.
But such development rarely occurs in the digital advertising space – its sordid history is filled with hacks, whether it was hard-coding display ads or the early days of real-time bidding (i.e., pre-OpenRTB).
In both of those cases, the hack was merely a bridge across the muck into a greener pasture. So the best answer to that oft-repeated question is, “Yes, but a lot of great developments in advertising technology have been hacks that lead to better systems.” Header bidding is actually a great hack, and also an attempt to hijack Google’s walled garden.
Even so, can we picture the pasture past the bridge – a world beyond the hack and even the walled garden? Yes, but first we need to understand how header bidding has forever altered the transactional landscape, and then reconsider how the ad server itself operates.