This post was most recently updated on September 10th, 2020
Here comes one of the most significant innovations in the advertising industry in 2015: Header Bidding, also called ‘Tagless Bidding’. While this new technology eliminates the archaic ‘waterfall’, it also presents some challenges such as latency, odd implementations, and source code manipulation. These are known issues and for which solutions already exist, however, more work needs to be done.
Related Read: Why Header Bid Networks will Increase Publisher Ad Revenues
Let’s focus on the positive! Header Bidding undeniably provides a lift in overall revenue. Now the question is: which header bidding networks are known to perform well? Here are our top picks for 2015:
Amazon has one of the most widely used header implementations, and they claim their strength comes from their ability to innovate and work at scale. They are standardized in the sense that they return a uniform count of bids per page. Amazon’s Header Bidding Solution implementation presents some nuances. For instance, you’ll see ‘7×9’ as shorthand for 728×90.
Amazon offers heavy retargeting demand, though they are picky and prefer to work with private exchanges.
More demand means a higher yield. Brealtime makes the process easier by providing APIs and aggregation. Site speed can be an issue with header bidding but Brealtime has devised a solution to address this: timeout threshold.
Index Exchange’s header bidding takes about 200 milliseconds or less. According to their study, header bidding outperforms waterfall ad rates by 166% in open exchanges, 46% in private exchanges. Between Q1 and Q2 this year, Index Exchange data shows 68% growth in header tag use among publishers.
Sovrn just released their Header Suite to publishers as of December 3, 2015. The tool allows publishers to choose the solution that fits their needs:
Sovrn’s strategy is to put the control back into the hands of publishers. You can learn more at www.headersuite.com. To apply for Sovrn’s header bid solution, go here.
Related Read: How Does Header Bidding Fit into your Overall Ad Ops Strategy?
Headquartered in New York, Yieldbot was among the pioneers of header bidding technology in 2011. To date, they have completed about 750 integrations. Last November 10, 2015, they announced the launch of Pubfood.js, an Open Source Software (OSS) that empowers publishers to understand, manage and easily measure bid partners.
OpenX has access to a wide range of advertisers and offers one of the best header bid solutions to date. An increase of 57% in programmatic revenue was claimed by Townhall Media when they started using OpenX’s header bidding technology to sell ads on their site.
The entire process is a breeze. Publishers must meet the main requirement of at least 100 million ad impressions per month to qualify. They’re hands-on with their implementation. It begins with a call, at which point you provide them access to DFP. They then set up line items and orders. You provide them with a test page with the header script implemented and once they approve, you can push it live and watch your revenues rise dramatically.
MonetizeMore is offering its own meta header bid solution called PubGuru header bidding. If you’d like to find out more and discover how MonetizeMore can help you optimize your ad earnings, be sure to book a free consultation today.
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image credit: businessinsider.com, yieldbot
Kean Graham is the CEO and founder of MonetizeMore & a pioneer in the Adtech Industry. He is the resident expert in Ad Optimization, covering areas like Adsense Optimization,GAM Management, and third-party ad network partnerships. Kean believes in the supremacy of direct publisher deals and holistic optimization as keys to effective and consistent ad revenue increases.
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