• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, February 24, 2016

The consensus among a panel of experts on Tuesday was that header bidding remains a very new tool, and adoption remains low. In addition, the panel concluded that agency teams need more education on how private marketplaces (PMPs) and header bidding work.

During “Headers Up!: What Does Header Bidding Mean For Buyers?” at MediaPost’s Programmatic Insider Summit, Tim Sheets, senior director of monetization at Open X, said header bidding “can amplify volume tremendously.”

Ashley Evenson, digital media strategist, Ciceron, said her agency remains in the early adoption phases of header bidding: “As a buyer, you need to know what the publishers are doing." However, CPM inflation is a concern. With header bidding, CPMs may increase due to the fact that ad buyers are getting a first look at the inventory. When CPMs rise, buyers will have to pay more for the premium audiences they seek. Still, "that first look is more valuable to us," Evenson noted, adding that it remains too early to tell how it will all pan out. Evenson emphasized that her agency and publisher experience enables her to obtain a 360-degree view and understanding of the programmatic landscape: "I think marketers/agencies need this understanding and education."

Felix Zeng, director of business development, programmatic, for The Weather Channel and Tim Sheets, senior director of Monetization, Open X, maintained that the goal is to find more valuable buyers for each impression: header bidding enables bidders to bid their true value. Zeng said the misconception is that impressions are being inflated when actually, the door is opening to impressions that you might not have had before.

Andrew Sandoval, director of programmatic media, The Media Kitchen, asked Evenson what the future looks like. Her answer: “I think it’s adoption and education—how are the DSPs going to work with header bidding? In the future, there will be more ad tech companies to help with serving.”

Sheets said programmatic will become more of a “delivery method vs. a sales channel. …We’ll be able offer guarantees in a real-time environment.”

With regard to standards for header bidding, Weather’s Zeng said, “The field is wide open right now. I’d love to see a standard and I’d love to see that everyone’s doing it correctly—each vendor has a proprietary method.” However, no one on the panel thought standards were coming any time soon.