Advertising - Header Bidding (Advance or Pre-bidding)
About
Header bidding is a mediation that consists of an auction that takes place (by default outside) of the ad server via the header of a web page.
When the page loads, the header script loads before anything else on the page and enables publishers to have simultaneous auctions with all bidder.
header bidding is also known as:
- advance bidding
- pre-bidding
- or indirect line items
Header Bidding is an open auction over the publisher ad inventory and offers every ad opportunity to multiple bidders at the same time, significantly increasing competition and monetization.
Header bidding seeks to compete all demand sources, both direct sold and programmatic, simultaneously in a unified auction.
With header bidding, every impression is auctioned off to all demand partners simultaneously, before the publisher’s ad server is even called. Advertisers Advertisers (Ad buyers) using programmatic channels get to look at every single publisher’s impressions, not just those that went unsold in a traditional waterfall setup without header bidding.
Header bidding’s most important impact on publishers is the significant increase of revenue
Articles Related
Auction House
Auction House that supports header bidding:
- Prebid (2015) - Free, run in the browser or server
- https://www.bidscape.it/ - prebid based free hasle
- Google open bidding (formerly known as exchange bidding) (2016) - 5% fee for display and outstream inventory and a 10% fee for video and app on top of the exchange fee. Because open bidding runs within Google Ad Manager, it’s completely server side.
- Advertising - Amazon Transparent Ad Marketplace (TAM) (2016) - one-cent CPM only for impressions it monetizes, but publishers must have a direct relationship with their SSP to access that lower fee. TAM initiates on the client side, but the auction runs server side.
- Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace (UAM) runs on the TAM infrastructure but handles billing and reconciliation for smaller publishers. UAM charges a 10% fee for outside buyers, making it more expensive than Google open bidding for display inventory.
Network
Header bidding documentation on divers network
Software
Browser extension
Because the process happens in the loading of a webpage, this is possible to see the auction with a browser extension.
Example
- with Headerbid Expert Chrome extension on the weather page that uses apstag
- bidscape ad inspector
Format
- Prebid.org's header bidding pbjs,