Commentary

After Header Bidding: Unified Ad Serving

Header bidding presents a fantastic opportunity for brands and publishers to make the most of the immediacy inherent in programmatic advertising. Serving ads with little to no noticeable lag time and across platforms in an accurate and cost-efficient manner is the underlying goal of most advancements in ad tech.

As header bidding matures and takes over from waterfall auctions, a number of other developments in the space can be expected.

Beyond "The Mobile, Virtual, 360-Degree Future Of Header Bidding" --  discussed in a JuneRTBlog -- PubMatic's recently released white paper details five emerging trends in programmatic advertising: 1) accelerated adoptions of header bidding partners; 2) supply-side platform consolidation; 3) the importance of infrastructure costs; 4) publisher control; 5) increased focus on ROI and yield.

Jeffrey K. Hirsch, CMO and head of U.S. publisher development at PubMatic, elaborated on the study for RTBlog, focusing on the importance of publisher control.

“This is an ecosystem that needs both demand and supply to thrive,” said Hirsch.“In today’s digital environment, there is a greater need for partnerships that are built on transparency and openness and that place control back in the publishers’ hands. We know that publisher-focused technology companies must progress in parallel with the programmatic landscape to ensure that our publishers can succeed within this new automated environment."

The next step in ad tech, says Hirsch, “needs to be unified ad serving. Traditional ad servers were not built for a programmatic ecosystem, let alone one that operates across channels, devices and ad formats. Publishers need to optimize their monetization strategies across both direct-sold and programmatic campaigns at the impression level, all without jeopardizing guarantees or brand control requirements.”

Sophisticated advertisers use device-matching technologies like device graphs to unify ad-serving strategies across screens, an important practice in an increasingly mobile-first world. In fact, households have 10-12 devices on average, excluding linear TV, adding to the importance of unified ad serving strategies.

"Header bidding technology has benefited publishers and their ability to optimize yield," said Hirsch. "A unified approach to ad serving is the next step.“

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