The post Revolutionizing Ad Optimization: Freestar’s Dynamic Ad Stack first appeared on Freestar.

Let’s get started! 

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a project supported by Google to provide web publishers with a way to quickly serve web pages for mobile devices. There is much debate in the industry about whether AMP is worth the hassle. For our perspective, check out our blog on 5 AMP HTML Myths Busted.

Ad Network is a company that serves as a broker between a group of publishers and a group of advertisers, aggregating inventory and audiences from numerous sources in a single buy. Ad networks traditionally aggregate unsold inventory from publishers to offer advertisers a consolidated and generally less expensive pool of impressions. Still, they can have a wide variety of business models and clients. In the context of ad trafficking and ad tech, the term “network” is generally taken to mean an ad network.

Ad Operations refers to processes and systems that support the sale and delivery of online advertising. More specifically, this is the set of workflow processes and software systems that are used to sell, input, serve, target, and report on the performance of online ads.

Ad Tags are snippets of code (usually HTML and Javascript) generated from an ad server that allows for ad serving on web pages or within mobile apps where ads need to display.

Ad Targeting is serving an ad to the appropriate audience based on data. Ad targeting can involve demographic, geographical, behavioral, or psychographic data.

Backfill refers to ads that a publisher can use when direct sold or programmatic ads did not serve due to lack of demand, or demand not meeting the price floor. Certain demand partners specialize in this solution that helps publishers monetize as much ad inventory as possible. Backfill ads act in the same way as House ads, but they offer the added benefit of providing revenue for these unfilled impressions. 

Consent Management Platform (CMP) is a tool used by publishers to manage and obtain user consent for the collection and processing of their data under data protection regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States.

An Impression is when an ad is displayed on a webpage, regardless of whether or not it has been viewed.

Transparency Consent Framework (TCF) is an advertising industry-standard framework developed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). It provides guidelines and technical specifications to facilitate compliant and transparent user consent management in the online advertising ecosystem.

Unfilled Impressions (also known as blank ads) occur when there is no demand to fill an ad slot on a website. There are many reasons for blank ads, such as insufficient advertiser demand, user behavior, and too-high CPM floors on a given impression. Unfilled impressions are normal, and it is not always optimal for maximum revenue to have 100% fill on all ad positions.

Winning Bid is the highest programmatic bid in an auction. It does not guarantee that an ad will be served; the bid must then compete in the ad server, and something of higher priority, like a sponsorship campaign, could still win above it.

We hope Volume 2 was a helpful dive into ad tech terms. Be on the lookout for our next Ad Tech from A to Z, where we continue diving into additional industry terms. Also, if you have any further questions or want to chat with someone at Freestar, please email us. 

The post Ad Tech from A to Z V.2 first appeared on Freestar.

In this article, we will explore header bidding, how it works, and the benefits and limitations of this technique. We will also take a closer look at server-side header bidding (SSHB), a variation of header bidding that is gaining popularity in the industry.

What is header bidding?

Header bidding is a programmatic advertising technique that allows publishers to offer their ad inventory to multiple ad exchanges simultaneously before making ad calls to their ad server. In traditional ad serving, publishers prioritize ad networks or exchanges and make calls to them one at a time, often resulting in lower bids and reduced revenue. With header bidding, publishers can invite multiple demand partners to bid on ad inventory simultaneously, resulting in increased competition and potentially higher ad revenue. This technique is called “header” bidding because the code is placed in the head of a web page’s HTML code.

Header bidding replaced waterfall bidding because it is a more efficient and effective method of programmatic advertising. In waterfall bidding, publishers prioritize ad networks or exchanges and make ad calls to them one at a time, in sequential order. However, this can result in lower bids and reduced revenue for publishers as the system is based on the estimated value of the demand sources rather than the bids, so the one with the highest bid may be behind others with a higher estimated value. For example, in a given auction, if the third-highest estimated value demand partner has the highest bid, the first two would need to go unfilled for the publisher to access that highest bid.

Benefits of Header Bidding

The main benefits of header bidding include the following:

1. Increased revenue: Header bidding helps publishers achieve higher revenue by creating a competitive environment for their ad inventory. By enabling multiple demand sources to bid on the same inventory simultaneously, header bidding ensures that the highest-paying ad is selected for display.
2. Improved fill rates: Header bidding promotes adding new demand sources and allowing multiple demand sources to compete for the same inventory. This means that publishers are more likely to fill their inventory with relevant ads, leading to higher overall fill rates.
3. Greater control: With header bidding, publishers have more control over their ad inventory and can decide which demand sources to work with. This helps them optimize their revenue and ensure they work with the most effective partners.
4. Reduced delay: Unlike traditional waterfall ad buying, header bidding significantly reduces delays between an ad request and the ad being served. This improves the user experience, reduces page load times, and helps publishers avoid losing visitors due to slow loading times.
5. Increased transparency: Header bidding provides greater transparency for publishers and demand sources. Publishers can see which demand sources are bidding on their inventory and at what price, while demand sources can see the inventory being offered and make informed decisions about whether to bid on it. This transparency helps to build trust between publishers and demand sources and improves overall industry accountability.

Limitations of header bidding

While header bidding offers many benefits, limitations and challenges are also associated with this advertising technique. Some of the main limitations of header bidding include the following:

1. Technical complexity: Implementing header bidding can be technically complex, requiring changes to the publisher’s ad server and website code. This can be challenging for smaller publishers or those without a dedicated tech team.
2. Higher data usage: Header bidding requires additional data to be sent back and forth between the publisher and demand sources, which can increase data usage and costs.
3. Ad blocker issues: Header bidding can be vulnerable to ad blockers, which can block the header bidding code from running, leading to lost revenue for publishers.

Overall, while header bidding offers many benefits, it is essential for publishers to carefully consider the potential limitations and challenges before implementing this advertising technique.

How does header bidding work?

Header bidding is a programmatic advertising technique that allows multiple demand sources to bid on the same ad inventory in real time. Here’s how it works:

1. The publisher’s website initiates the header bidding process: Instead of immediately calling the ad server, the publisher’s website initiates the header bidding process by sending requests to multiple demand sources (such as ad networks, exchanges, or SSPs) to bid on the ad inventory.
2. Demand sources bid on the ad inventory: The demand sources receive the request and submit their bids in real time. These bids include information about the ad creative and the bid price.  
3. The highest bid is selected: The bids are evaluated in real time, and the highest bid is selected. The winning demand source’s ad creative is then sent back to the publisher’s website, along with any tracking or targeting information.
4. The ad is displayed on the website: The publisher’s website receives the ad creative and displays it on the page, where the user can see it.
5. Steps 1-4 are repeated for each ad slot: This process happens asynchronously for each ad slot on the page, allowing multiple demand sources to bid on each slot and ensuring that the highest-paying ad is displayed.

Overall, header bidding enables publishers to offer their ad inventory to multiple demand sources simultaneously, creating a more competitive environment that can increase revenue, improve fill rates, and provide greater control over their ad inventory.

The process described above is an example of client-side header bidding (CSHB), but there is also a server-side implementation.

What is server-side header bidding?

Server-side header bidding (SSHB) is a programmatic advertising technique involving the header bidding process on an external server rather than on the user’s browser. Unlike traditional header bidding, where the bidding process occurs on the user’s device, SSHB moves the bidding process to an external server, which can help reduce latency and improve page load times.

In SSHB, the publisher’s browser sends a request to an external server that hosts the header bidding solution. This server sends bid requests to multiple demand sources, including ad networks, exchanges, and SSPs. The demand sources receive the bid request and submit their bids in real time, with the highest bid being selected. The external (Prebid) server sends the winning bid/creative to the publisher’s ad server (GAM in most cases), which determines the winner and serves the winning creative. 

SSHB can offer many benefits over traditional client-side header bidding, including reduced latency, improved page load times, and the ability to handle high traffic levels more efficiently.

Getting Started with Header Bidding

Getting started with header bidding can be a complex process, but there are some basic steps that website publishers can follow to implement this advertising technique:

1. Evaluate the potential benefits: Before getting started with header bidding, publishers should evaluate the potential benefits of this advertising technique for their website, including increased revenue, improved fill rates, and greater control over their ad inventory.
2. Choose a header bidding solution: There are many header bidding solutions available, ranging from free and open-source solutions like Prebid to commercial platforms. Publishers should evaluate the different options and choose a solution that best meets their needs.
3. Implement the header bidding code: Once a header bidding solution has been selected, publishers must integrate it on their website. 
4. Configure the header bidding settings: Publishers will also need to configure the settings for their header bidding implementation, including which demand sources to work with, what bid floor to set, and how to handle ad timeouts.
5. Monitor and optimize performance: After implementing header bidding, publishers should monitor their performance and optimize their settings to improve revenue and fill rates. This may involve adjusting bid floors, adding or removing demand sources, and monitoring ad quality issues.
6. Consider working with a header bidding partner: Publishers may want to work with a header bidding partner like Freestar to help manage their implementation and optimize their performance. These partners can provide additional expertise and support to help publishers achieve the best results from their header bidding efforts. It’s important to note that these partners usually have requirements to work with them, such as monthly pageviews or recurring ad revenue. 

Working with Freestar

Are you experiencing low ad yield? Lack of transparency? Need to optimize demand? Freestar’s header bidding solution enables publishers to open up their ad inventory for bidding by multiple demand partners in real time. But that’s just the start; we’ve built numerous optimization features to maximize yield.

Freestar offers publishers the best ad stack:

• Industry expertise – Industry experts and machine learning to maximize your revenue
• Robust reporting – Robust, unified dashboard with real-time metrics
• High-quality demand – We have over 30+ premium demand partners
• Easy implementation – Hassle-free implementation to make installation easy
• Lightweight Code – Lightweight code with user experience in mind
• Innovative ad products – An innovative and evolving suite of ad products

If you’re interested in maximizing your header bidding and ad monetization, don’t hesitate to contact our team to find out how we can help. Get started today! 

In Conclusion

Header bidding has become an essential part of the programmatic advertising ecosystem, enabling publishers to increase their revenue and gain greater control over their ad inventory. By creating a more competitive environment, header bidding ensures that publishers can get the most value out of their ad space while providing advertisers greater access to high-quality inventory. 

With the introduction of server-side header bidding, the benefits of this technique are only set to increase, offering faster page load times and improved efficiency. As the advertising industry continues to evolve, header bidding will likely remain a vital part of the programmatic landscape, providing publishers and advertisers with the tools they need to succeed in an increasingly complex ecosystem.

The post ​​What is Header Bidding and How Does it Work? first appeared on Freestar.

In June 2021, Google began the process of deprecating its SPM program in favor of a new MCM program. The deprecation process was finalized last year and any publishers who were previously on SPM have since transitioned to MCM. This program was developed to give publishers more control and transparency into their ad monetization.

We’ll break down the differences between the programs and its impact on publishers.

What was Google SPM?

Google SPM (Scaled Partner Management) was a program Google introduced to allow small and mid-sized publishers access their Google Ad Exchange network. This program works by:

1. Allowing a large publisher or monetization partner with GAM 360 (Parent publisher) to provide a smaller publisher (Child publisher) access to their AdX demand. 
2.  Providing the child publisher use of the parent publisher’s account to expose their inventories to thousands of new advertisers.

In the end, parent publishers were able to extend their services and increase their access to inventory; while child publishers were given access to more quality demand through arguably the best ad exchange available.  Generally, this relationship via SPM led to increased revenue for both parent and child publishers – a real “win-win”.

Why did Google MCM program replace Google SPM?

On February 1, 2022, SPM was officially retired and replaced by Multiple Customer Management (MCM). Despite Google SPM providing significant benefits to small and mid-sized publishers, there were a few issues that Google wanted to address:

• Harder to Add New Features – SPM was developed when Google Ad Exchange and DFP (Doubleclick for Publishers, now GAM) were separate products so creating new features that worked between them was difficult.
• Less Functionality for Managing Publisher Permissions – The options for permissions were limited and not as robust as they could have been.
• Less Transparency for Publishers – The program lacks transparency because Parent publishers had full access to their Child publishers’ inventories and managed them entirely on their behalf. Child publishers’ needed to fully trust in their Parent publishers having their best interests.
• Less Access to Ad Management Features – Child publishers had access to few, if any, yield management features.

What is Google MCM?

Google MCM (Multiple Customer Management) is a feature within Google Ad Manager 360 which allows smaller publishers to access Google AdX through a third-party Google partner. The partner(s) can also consult, represent, and manage networks or inventories on behalf of the publisher.  This establishes a parent-child relationship.

In Google MCM, the “Parent publisher” refers to the third party advertising technology company or channel partner with access to Google AdExchange; while “Child publisher” refers to an entity that would enter into the program to have their inventory managed. 

MCM Delegation Types

The MCM delegation types distinguish the nature of the relationship between the parent and child.  There are two delegation types in MCM:

• Manage Account – Manage Account delegation allows the publisher (child) to delegate some or all of its management responsibilities to other Google Ads accounts. This allows for more streamlined management of multiple accounts by allowing for different users to be responsible for different aspects of account management.
  
  Account delegation can be set up to give different levels of access to different users. For example, a user can be granted access to view the data and reports of an account, but not make changes to the campaigns or budgets. Or, a user can be given full access to manage campaigns and budgets, but not have access to billing information.
• Manage Inventory –  Manage Inventory delegation grants Parent publishers access to ad requests and inventory that the Child publisher has sent to the Parent account. With this model, Parent publishers handle ad trafficking and can have up to 15 MCM partners. They also have a more limited level of access to the Child’s GAM account than the Manage Account delegation. 

Why Use Google MCM Program?

With MCM, publishers have:

• Access to exclusive Google demand through AdX – Publishers who don’t have their own GAM 360 can take advantage of the Parent publisher’s account. 
• Access to Google’s Open Bidding – Child publishers can have additional demand from other ad exchanges through Google’s open bidding. Open bidding offers reduced page latency, simple payments and reduced technical know-how.
• Access to ad blocking – Google Ad Manager 360 has additional tools to review, identify and block unwanted ads.
• Access to Programmatic Direct deals – Programmatic Guaranteed and Preferred Deals are supported by MCM, creating another source of ad revenue and potentially high CPMs. 
• Unlock third-party ad management & AdOps – Child publishers on the MCM program can easily outsource a portion or all of their ad ops to a third-party while still maintaining control over their ad set up. 

How can I access Google MCM Program?

Google’s MCM program has specific criteria for publishers looking to join. The criteria includes:

• Google must verify your website
• No copyright infringement violations
• Your website should not be promoting sensitive content (adult, violence, gambling, etc.)
• Your site needs to have a valid ads.txt file

As a publisher, there are two ways to access Google MCM:

• Option 1: Directly by the publisher. Publishers looking to join the MCM program must qualify for certain terms and conditions. The approval process can take approximately two weeks. The downside of a publisher doing it themselves is the difficulty of managing all the aspects of MCM.
• Option 2: Through a MCM program partner. If you’re publisher with a small team or limited resources, going through a MCM program partner like Freestar may be the best option. Freestar would provide the support and manage your account for you and this also includes direct deals. 

Start Monetizing with the Best MCM Partner

Google Ad Exchange is widely considered to be one of the best, if not the best, marketplace in the digital advertising ecosystem.  However, it’s not easily accessible to all publishers due to Google’s processes and undisclosed eligibility requirements. An MCM partner can help you overcome those roadblocks, and take you even further by helping you maximize your inventory.

As a Google MCM program partner, Freestar can invite publishers to Google’s MCM and provide a fully-managed ad monetization and ad ops solution. You can contact us to start the process. We’d be happy to answer your questions and tell you more about how MCM could work for your website.

The post Guide to Google MCM first appeared on Freestar.

While both serve a similar purpose and can be used simultaneously, they’re slightly different solutions. It’s important to understand both solutions in order to determine the best one for your needs.

What Exactly is Prebid?

Prebid refers to the open-source wrapper technology used for header bidding. It’s easy to conflate header bidding and Prebid when it comes to programmatic ad buying and selling.

Let’s simplify it:

Header bidding is the mechanism used by digital publishers to put their ad inventory up for sale on various programmatic marketplaces simultaneously. It is implemented by adding a piece of code into the header of their webpage — hence the name.

This code automatically generates requests to different ad exchanges to fetch bids for the publisher’s inventory. Then, it sends those bids along to their ad servers. Header bidding has replaced the traditional ad exchange technique known as waterfalling (or daisy-chaining). It is much more efficient in producing more advertising revenue.

Prebid is a global organization managed by volunteer community members across the ad tech industry. They collaborate to create a complete product suite of open-source header bidding solutions. As a result, any publisher can get started on their own.

The open-source wrappers are used to manage the technical process of managing ad bid requests to each ad exchange, depending on its configuration. This ensures a common “timeout” to select the highest bid return across these exchanges, returning to the ad server with the best value.

So, what’s the difference?

Header bidding is a method used by publishers to sell their ad inventory and effectively monetize their content.

You can host header bidding on the client-side, within the user’s browser. Or on the server-side, within your server (outside of the user’s browser). There is a technical element to properly implementing header bidding. This is why many ad networks offer their own managed Prebid service.

All this means is that you can leverage a third-party service to manage your website monetization stack.

However, you can create and manage your own customized header bidding experience through Prebid’s complete suite of solutions. Namely, Prebid.js (client-side header bidding) and Prebid Server (server-side header bidding).

What is Prebid.js?

Prebid.js is the open-source header bidding wrapper that helps publishers connect with multiple demand partners simultaneously on the client-side. In client-side header bidding, the auction code lives on your website and is executed within your users’ browser. This means that the browser handles the entire auction logic, including requesting and receiving the bids and selecting a winner.

Prebid.js is actually a core feature within the Prebid ecosystem as it can support multiple formats, including native, video, display, etc. It also provides publishers with a simplified process for header bidding that can be scaled to fit individual monetization needs. Additionally, it allows publishers to easily set up line items within Google Ad Manager. It’s an efficient way to send individual requests to bidding partners and manage their returns.

What are the benefits of Prebid.js?

The benefits of using a Prebid.js wrapper include the following:

• Transparency: It runs on an open-source platform which allows anyone using it to read the code used to power each header bidding auction. This means you can see which demand partners are active and how much you’re earning for your premium ad inventories.
• Better advertising revenue opportunities: Cookie match rates are higher with a client-side implementation because user IDs don’t need to be synced with an additional server. Advertisers will typically bid more on impressions where they can accurately identify a user. Depending on the setup, client-side header bidding can deliver more revenue for every impression.
• It allows asynchronous ad calls to be made: Prebid.js allows for simultaneous calls to various demand partners to be made without interrupting the user experience. It does this by implementing a single timeout feature that prevents page load speeds to be affected while demand partners are returning bid responses.

What is Prebid Server?

Prebid Server is a server-side header bidding solution that runs auctions on a server rather than in the user’s browsers.

When a publisher implements Prebid Server for their server-side auction integrations, they are required to make one call to the server. It’ll respond by calling on the configured bidder adapters. The bidder who comes back with the highest bid will have their ad served on the website.

When a user lands on your website, a client (like Prebid.js) makes one call to Prebid Server. It then calls the applicable demand partners once it has determined which bidders to use. After collecting the responses from the demand partners, it returns the winning bids back to the client. From here, the winning bids are passed to the ad server. The ad server gets the final say on who had the highest bid. If Prebid had the highest bid, it will render the winning creative on your website for your user to see.

One important distinction is that Prebid Server is still a server that needs someplace to run. You can use a hosted, managed solution that offers updated server software, such as Magnite, to manage requests. Or, you can create your own self-hosted server. Granted, the latter will require more planning and resources to set up.

What are the benefits of using Prebid Server?

The benefits of using Prebid Server include the following:

• Significantly reduced latency: Arguably one of the greatest benefits of using Prebid Server is that its process is carried out using a server-side implementation. This allows a web page’s content to load independently of the actual ad auction. As such, the ads’ load speed is improved as it’s separate from the real-time auction. Resulting in a better overall user experience.
• It allows for multiple demand partners: With server-side auctions, generating multiple ad calls is essentially obstacle-free. This gives publishers the opportunity to add even more bidders for their requests. More bidders may equate to more revenue, but client-side integrations suffer from bidder limits. With only one call to Prebid Server, publishers can add as many bidders as they’d like without worrying too much about page latency.
• It allows for unified auctions: Rather than managing and setting up ad units individually per wrapper, publishers can use Prebid Server for all ad units to get performance reports of all their bidders in one place. Essentially, it unites both the server-side and client-side platforms in an auction.

When to choose Prebid.js or Prebid Server?

In general, the choice really comes down to how you’re looking to scale up your demand and improve your user experience.

With the help of Prebid Server, you’ll be able to add as many server-side platforms (SSPs) as you want, without having to worry about slowing down or interrupting your user experience while the ads are loading onto the page — otherwise known as latency. Additionally, with the server-side setup (compared to the client-side setup of Prebid.js) you’ll only have to send out a single request as the entire auction will take place on the server-side.

Adversely, Prebid.js has to send out multiple requests to the ad server, where the user’s browser has to handle the auction. This may negatively affect your website page load time and lower your PageSpeed Insights score. However, for publishers who do not have the resources to manage their own server solution, Prebid.js is much easier and faster to setup. Additionally, with a higher cookie match rate and a well-optimized configuration, you’ll potentially see better revenue opportunities with Prebid.js.

Ultimately, the choice depends on what resources you can allocate to either implementation.

Fun fact: Blockthrough’s proprietary technology was built by our CTO, Matt Kendall, who was also the creator of Prebid.js.

Which is better — Prebid or a managed solution?

To recap, Prebid refers to a suite of open-source header bidding products managed by a global community. This makes it rather cost-effective and offers a universal appeal for all the ad tech players who make up its community. However, it’s not the only solution regarding a more streamlined method to header bidding.

You can also go with a managed solution.

As noted previously, there are many ad networks and SSPs that offer to configure and host your Prebid implementation for you. This method is ideal for publishers who want to focus on content creation as opposed to finetuning their web monetization techniques.

Or, publishers who simply do not have the time or resources to customize their own Prebid solution.

The main caveat is that you do not control the code given to you by a third-party vendor. Depending on their setup, the tradeoff to having another service manage your header bidding experience could result in an increase in page latency on your website.

At the end of the day, if you choose to use Prebid technology, you’ll need to ensure that either you or your team is able to manage it. On the other hand, everything will be taken care of for you with a managed solution.

Originally published on BlockThrough.com

The post What Are the Differences Between Prebid.js and Prebid Server? first appeared on Freestar.

Up-to-date Ads.txt

Ads.txt, developed by the IAB Tech Lab, increases transparency in the programmatic advertising ecosystem by providing a flexible and secure method that publishers and distributors can use to publicly declare the companies they authorize to sell their digital inventory. Ads.txt requires participating publishers to post their list of authorized sellers to their domain, allowing buyers to create a filter to match their ads.txt list against the data provided in the OpenRTB bid request. 

It’s important to have your ads.txt file up to date so that all eligible buyers can bid on your inventory. Not to mention, the Freestar Revenue team is continuously working to add more demand connections for you to take advantage of. For a more hands-off approach, use Freestar’s cost-free hosted ads.txt solution which automatically updates your ads.txt file as we add new demand sources. 

Ad Refresh

There are many techniques that you can use to maximize yield and ad revenue. A commonly used technique is ad refresh. At Freestar, we use a managed refresh feature that auto-enables viewable ad refresh for all ad placements without requiring any code changes from you, the publisher. Our team can activate this for you without requiring any additional time or resources on your part.

Managed refresh is a great technique that publishers can use to gain additional viewable impressions as it’s been seen with increasing impression volume, viewability, and revenue. The guidelines state that the ideal refresh rate is 30 seconds. This is a guideline and may be worth exploring other refresh rates on specific in-view ad units (sticky footer for example). For best ad refresh results, a publisher’s property should have more demand partners/sources competing in their ad stack to have positive participation rates and increased fill.

Industry CMP

With new privacy industry standards in effect, it’s important that your sites remain compliant with GDPR and CCPA regulations by using a consent management platform (CMP). Consent management is a process that allows websites to meet the necessary regulatory requirements regarding consent collection. With a CMP in place, websites have the capability to inform visitors about the types of data they’ll collect and ask for their consent for specific data processing purposes. When you employ a CMP,  it can help protect you from breaching any regulations relating to consumer privacy. 

Freestar is partnered with Quantcast to provide our publishers with a cost-free hosted CMP solution compliant with current and upcoming privacy regulations and industry standards. Freestar’s hosted integration of Quantcast’s CMP includes options for publishers to implement a “Do Not Sell My Information” link for CCPA, along with a module covering GDPR. 

Anchor Ads

Our team is continuously strategizing with our publishers to ensure they are getting the most out of their ads and increasing yield, and one placement we highly recommend is desktop and/or mobile anchors. Anchor ads, as the name suggests, remain at the bottom of the user’s browser window, wherever they go on the page. 

As anchor units allow ads to be on the user’s page for the entire duration of their site visit, your viewability values increase when they are enabled. Anchor units capitalize on the full user session duration. Anchor units are a streamlined way to create additional, highly valuable inventory. They offer the benefit of being always viewable (an incentive to advertisers), and the ability to blend into most website themes and designs. If it’s distracting to a user, they can simply choose to “x” out of the ad session. 

Video Ad Formats

Another great way to maximize yield is by using another ad format. Tap into video monetization even if you don’t have content by running a video ad placement like outstream or a video adhesion product. It’s been known that video ads tend to perform better than static ads whether you’re judging by engagement or clicks. You may have experienced it yourself when scrolling through a web page or social feed and a video catches your eye. Freestar knows this and we know that our publishers are always looking for ways to optimize and maximize their revenue, while simultaneously improving user experience for their readers. 

Optimize Mobile Viewability

On mobile devices, consider moving the first in-view ad unit to below the fold (sticky / adhesion units being the exception). This will increase viewability and increase the likelihood that an ad load before a user has scrolled past the slot on the page. Mobile users browse differently than desktop.

Follow Your Users

Take a look at how your users interact with your website. It’s important to determine where users spend the majority of their time on the page by device type and make sure there is at least one ad in view there. 

Well, there you have it — just a few ways to maximize your yield in 2022! We know you want to earn as much revenue as possible and these are just some of the ways you can do just that. 

If you’re an existing Freestar publisher, send a note to our Publisher Success team at accountmanagement@freestar.com and we’d be happy to get you optimized for Q4. Not currently a Freestar client, but have questions about how we could help you maximize yield? Reach out to us at pubops@freestar.com. 

The post Optimization Checklist to Maximize Ad Revenue first appeared on Freestar.

What Exactly is Sellers.json?

In technical terms, Sellers.json is a JSON file that gets hosted on the server-side platform’s (SSP) website. It typically provides a list of any and all authorized direct sellers or intermediaries bidding in real-time. 

In more general terms, Sellers.json is a file designed to enable all parties involved in programmatic ad bidding to request and track the “entities” behind each opportunity. Essentially, this file maintains the mapping and relationship between all existing vendors and their identifiers within a given ad auction.

Ultimately, the goal is to give ad buyers and sellers more visibility into each step of the bidding event to create more transparency within the entire programmatic ecosystem. That includes steps like sending a bid response to serving an ad. This shows more transparency regarding where an advertiser’s money is going.

The premise is that by creating more transparency within the programmatic bidding ecosystem, the capacity to identify and prevent ad fraud, as well as unauthorized supply sources, will be greater.

How Does Sellers.json Work?

Sellers.json works by acting as an identification source (you can think of it as an ID card) for all ad tech players participating in the selling process of a live bidding auction. 

With Sellers.json implemented, SSPs and exchanges have to provide a list of all their authorized resellers and publishers as well as their seller IDs and any other details regarding their partners. Each seller ID (denoted as seller_id) must map to an individual reseller or publisher, meaning that a single entity cannot have multiple seller IDs within a real-time advertising system.

When it comes to the tasks of the SSP, their responsibility is to store the following details:

• The name of the publisher
• The domain of the publisher
• The publisher’s account ID
• The type of relationship, i.e., sellers or resellers

For example, when a publisher wants to make their information transparent with the sellers.json file, here is what the advertiser will see:

“seller_Id”: “pub-1234789066554848”,

“seller_Type”: “PUBLISHER”,

“name”: “Publisher’s company name”,

“domain”: “example.com”

This information lets the advertiser know exactly who they’re working with, so they can track the publisher’s information back to the domain source to ensure that they aren’t a fake entity created to flood websites with invalid traffic.

Let’s pretend that a random user is visiting your website. As soon as this happens, a bid request gets sent to all the advertisers on the bidding platform to return their bids so that they can serve their ads.

Of course, the advertiser with the highest bid wins. However, the thing that helps these advertisers bid seamlessly and garner the safest and most direct path in their bid selling is the Sellers.json file.

The very presence of the Sellers.json file is what gives advertisers an idea of how many pathways they’re actually going through to purchase their ad inventory, which allows them to make smarter purchase decisions.

It also creates transparency, enabling the advertisers to see if any players on the platform are shady (such as the type that would diminish their credibility by producing invalid traffic). 

So, if an advertiser bids on specific inventory for a dollar, having any shady players present would likely cause the bid to diminish to about 50 cents before it reaches the publisher.

How Does it Differ From Ads.txt and App-ads.txt Files?

You can think of Sellers.json as a step up from ads.txt and app-ads.txt, which are also both ad fraud prevention files. 

JSON itself is not a txt file. A txt, or text file, contains a sequence of characters in a “human-readable” form that can be encoded into computer-readable formats. Additionally, txt files aren’t very flexible and tend to be more prone to error.

JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation. It’s a data-interchange format that’s also human-readable. JSON is used to transmit data, specifically between web applications and servers, and are typically built into dictionaries in Python.   

Another significant difference is that ads.txt and app-ads.txt were designed to crack down on two specific types of ad fraud: unauthorized reselling of inventory and domain spoofing, respectively. Essentially, the two file types enable buyers to get a peek at what kind of ad tech vendors that publishers have authorized to sell their inventory. 

They fall short when you consider that ad tech vendors are buying and selling various impressions on open exchange platforms that include a multitude of intermediaries and resellers. This creates an intricate web of players that become involved in the sale of every single impression, which makes it nearly impossible to keep track of all the resellers and whether or not they’re authorized to sell by the specific vendor.

Now, with Sellers.json, the supply-side platform is able to publish a mapping list directly into its root domain. This is what enables that intricate web of players to become identifiable via mapping and tracking.

Why Sellers.json Is So Beneficial

The goal of Sellers.json is to provide the demand side and publishers within the digital advertising ecosystem with more transparency within the programmatic ad tech space.

Transparency in terms of preventing ad fraud has been one of the top concerns regarding programmatic advertising for quite a long time now, and the introduction of the Sellers.json file is seen as a very large step in the right direction to make programmatic advertising much more trustworthy and fair to all players involved.

Additionally, by combating ad fraud, brands can be more confident about the inventory they are buying, which means that Sellers.json also indirectly impacts brand safety. It also brings full transparency to the table to all of the intermediaries that participate in each bid sale request.

Sellers.json also allows for smaller payloads or bid request object sizes, as it provides a direct and transparent source of information as opposed to the traditional way — which involves supplying limited information as a condition with each bid request.  

Knowing exactly who you’re engaging with when it comes to the sale of an impression not only helps prevent ad fraud, but also builds more trust among advertisers. It increases accountability by incentivizing sellers to conduct their bidding business openly and honestly, which in turn provides more value, generating more ad revenue.

By using Sellers.json, advertisers can help their ad partners reach their target audiences more efficiently since those partners have a better understanding of the supply path. This allows them to shift their focus to the paths that generate the most value per dollar spent.

In the end, everybody wins.

But What About the OpenRTB Supply Chain Object?

As mentioned much earlier, Sellers.json was designed to work directly with OpenRTB Supply Chain Object. 

The Supply Chain Object enables buyers to view all the parties that are selling or reselling any given bid request. It’s the technical parameter that is sent into each ad call to indicate all the intermediaries involved in the transaction, leading directly back to the publisher.

The files themselves are made mostly of a set of nodes. Each node represents a specific participating entity in the selling of a bid request, and the entire chain of nodes from start to finish represents all the sellers who were paid for each individual bid request.

You can think of OpenRTB Supply Chain Object as the record of what happens to each impression. It allows the buyers to look at every party involved in the bid request, identifying the final vendor of the reselling chain. 

Buyers can match each party to the seller ID given to publishers and decide whether or not they are trustworthy partners.  

Who Benefits From Sellers.json?

Technically, everybody benefits from implementing Sellers.json. Sellers.json was designed to benefit both advertisers and publishers by increasing transparency and trust among ad partners. 

The only people that won’t benefit are the shady players — the ones you don’t want on your bidding platform in the first place.

Unfortunately, thanks to ad fraud, over time a lot of trust has been lost among all the players within the digital advertising ecosystem. Both sides (DSPs and SSPs) have let go of vendors over the last year alone due to ad fraud and domain spoofing.

Additionally, while ads.txt has helped reduce the unauthorized reselling of inventory and domain spoofing, it has been proven easy to fool. Sellers.json cannot be manipulated once implemented.

Are There Any Disadvantages?

While Sellers.json is proven to be incredibly advantageous, there is one disadvantage to its implementation. 

There’s an option within Sellers.json that allows a vendor to label their account confidential. This means they won’t have to disclose who they are, which basically defeats the whole purpose of using the file to create more transparency.

Vendors likely won’t choose to remain confidential. However, if more than a few choose to do so, this could create a transparency roadblock. Of course, there could be a legitimate reason for remaining confidential, such as having business contracts with a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) clause, but it’s still a potential and problematic flaw in the system.

Will Publishers Need to Implement Sellers.json Too?

It’s important to note that publishers are not required to have it implemented on their sites. Only the entities — such as the advertisers — who are selling their inventory are required to implement the Sellers.json file on their sites. However, publishers can still opt to keep their information confidential.

So, if you’re one of the players that’s selling or reselling a publisher’s inventory, you’ll be expected to add the Sellers.json file to your root domain as well as list all the individual publishers with whom you’re working.

Additionally, once the Sellers.json file is set up, you’ll need to upgrade your OpenRTB integrations to the 2.3 version (or later) in order to support the RTB Supply Chain Object. Otherwise, your Sellers.json file won’t be able to function correctly, as it depends on the OpenRTB Supply Chain Object for its technical mapping parameters.

Looking Towards a More Transparent Future

The Sellers.json tool was designed to provide advertisers with a more transparent environment that would allow them to purchase ad inventory without having to worry about ad fraud and domain spoofing, which negatively impacts the ad and revenue value. 

As the ad tech industry matures, having Sellers.json on your side is like presenting a badge that denotes the quality of your ad inventory and domain. It’ll be something that all players look for when engaging in programmatic advertising, which will hopefully eliminate invalid traffic once and for all.

Want to learn more about tools like Sellers.json and how to keep your ad inventory safe from invalid traffic? Contact us today to find out how we make ad ops easier for publishers.

The post Sellers.json: The Ultimate Guide for Programmatic Advertising first appeared on Freestar.

Preparing You for MCM

As a Freestar publisher leveraging Freestar’s AdX, you are active via a Google Scaled Partner Manager (SPM) account. Starting on Sept. 30, Google is phasing out SPM and replacing it with Multiple Customer Management (MCM). Since last year Google has been rolling out a beta version of MCM to select publisher partners. Some of the goals with MCM are to simplify the Ad Manager experience and provide support for Programmatic Direct deals, Preferred deals, and Programmatic Guaranteed deals.

By the end of September, any publisher that monetizes non-owned and operated inventory in Ad Manager through a channel partner like Freestar, will be required to use MCM.

Freestar will be managing this Google change and supporting you in the process so it should be relatively easy from your perspective. 

Here is how the process will work:

If you do not already have a Google Ad Manager account that you own, Freestar will send you an invitation for Google Ad Manager to start the process to get one set up. Once you receive the email, you will accept the invitation and send us your new network code. If you already have a Google Ad Manager account, you can just send us your network ID.

Once we have your network ID, Freestar will submit your site to be approved for MCM. The approval process usually takes 1-3 days. Once you are approved, we can add your new Google Ad Manager network ID to our configuration and you will then be monetizing through MCM without having to change any code on your page.

As always, please feel free to reach out to your Account Manager if you have additional questions.

The post Update from Freestar on Google’s Channel Partner Program first appeared on Freestar.

We decided to start off this blog with a little walk down memory lane. For those of our publishers who have been in the game for over a decade, this will bring back both nostalgia and painful memories. This industry has come a long way.

Brian’s Story:

It was October 2012 and I was age 20 with a website generating upwards of 220,000 video views per day from an organic audience I’d spent a half-decade developing when pre-roll video ads were first introduced into my revenue stream. In those days, organizing my display advertising “waterfall” (also referred to as daisy chain) took up the majority of my mornings. 

So when my primary ad network (Break Media, RIP) brought me a pre-roll video campaign with a fixed $6.50 CPM and no frequency caps or limits, you can guess what happened.

Despite having grown a large user base of over 50,000 members, I didn’t think twice about having one 30-second pre-roll video ad run per video, even though many of the clips were under 1 minute in length.

“Early on, I didn’t have the discipline to maintain the balance between user experience and monetization.”

It was an incredibly lucrative time in my 20’s, and unfortunately, it was also painfully short-lived. In just one month my site’s recurring visitors dropped by 40% and even worse, my loyal users lost faith in the standard I’d set for user experience. It was a hard lesson to learn, but one which is proving incredibly valuable with so many ad formats available and new ad tech companies popping out of the woodwork with promises, predictions, and strong opinions founded in their own self interests.

It’s experiences like this that have turned me into the paradoxical Yield Manager.

The Typing, Scrolling Yield Manager Paradox

A yield manager who is overly cautious about user experience is a contrarian, but the same goes for an SEO consultant who guides a publisher to record highs in revenue.

We advise publishers to fight the urge to develop a shortsighted, myopic focus on metrics like CLS and CPM as it only leads to impulsive decisions which can be prevented by leveraging the collective century of experience our Yield and Product teams have among them.

There is as much art as there is science when we navigate these waters. No two websites are truly the same, just as no two publishers are. We cater to your needs with our collective experience and try to navigate all of the unprecedented waters this industry faces.

Optimizing for Efficiency and Deadline Changes 

Spoiler alert: Google has announced they are moving Core Web Vitals to Mid-June. That sounds like an opportunity to me. Here’s what I’d suggest you focus on:

As Freestar’s paradoxical Yield Manager and SEO Expert, I ask each of you to take the time to connect with your audience and rediscover the behavior of your audience. Ask questions, listen, and have enough empathy to simulate their experience on your site. You’ll be amazed at what you uncover from using a tool like CrazyEgg and/or HotJar to measure and anonymously record user sessions, scroll depth, and click/tap density.

Another area publishers are finding success is by redefining the way they interpret their Google Analytics data. When you know things like ad refresh, ad density per page, and your eCPM, you can easily find the recipe for consistent and scalable success within your editorial teams. There are likely more valuable topics to write about without changing the makeup of your editorial approach and philosophy. 

According to Contentsquare’s 2020 Digital Experience Benchmark report of 7 billion user sessions, the Average Time on Page across industries is 62 seconds. That’s two impressions per in-view ad placement if you’re refreshing every 30 seconds.

Optimize for average time on page by creating thorough, engaging, and in-depth content which is comprehensive without being redundant. It’s this sort of thinking which yields just as high of returns as the number of ads on the page, or a specific ad unit. It also gets you to repeat users and helps build your readership.

We opt for a methodical approach which improves with testing and iterating. We know from historical data and experience that the rules can change at any time, and for that reason we build flexibility into our products which allows us to adapt rapidly to any change in the search landscape.

Stay Funky.
Sincerely,
Brian Weiss 
Ft. Funk Works Team

The post School of Hardknocks: Striking The Balance Between UX & Monetization first appeared on Freestar.