• by Joe Mandese , July 23, 2020

As part of an effort to make programmatic media buys even more transparent, independent audience exchange OpenX is launching a new system making it easier for advertisers and agencies to access server log-level reporting to analyze their buys.

The system, aptly dubbed BIDS (for Bidding Intelligence Data Set), enables buyers to access their log data directly via cloud data platform Snowflake.

During the earliest days of digital advertising, log data was lauded as means of understanding exactly which ad were served to consumer's browsers, but as printouts of log files piled up (literally) on buyer's desks, the industry shifted to more aggregate reporting. In recent years, a combination of improved algorithmic technology to sort and organize data, as well as a push for greater first-hand transparency has led may advertisers and agencies to begin requesting log-level data directly again.

"As digital media continues to become more transparent, log-level data allows marketers to look at auctions they have participated in and gain insights that can help inform future campaigns," OpenX said in a statement, adding, "Analyzing log-level data can help marketers uncover what bidding, pricing and targeting strategies result in auction wins, it can uncover previously unseen technical errors, and it provides deeper visibility into the supply path."

(The screenshot of the log file shown above was previously provided to MediaPost by Reset Digital, which is developing platforms for marketers to analyze the data directly.)