In the world of digital advertising, balancing revenue optimization and performance is a delicate task. Page load speed, efficient use of resources, and seamless user experiences are as crucial as maximizing ad revenue. Freestar has emerged as a leader with its innovative header bidder wrapper technology, built upon and extending the open-source Prebid.js framework. A key focus of Freestar’s technology is not just maximizing auction efficiency but also modularizing the code to optimize delivery and minimize memory leakage across browsers.

Dive deeper into Freestar’s approach in improving performance in dynamic ad environments which is centered around modularizing its proprietary wrapper and optimizing browser memory management.

Understanding Header Bidder Wrapper Technology

Freestar’s header bidder wrapper technology serves as an advanced intermediary between a publisher’s website and various demand sources, facilitating efficient asynchronous auctions. By selecting the highest bidder from multiple sources, Freestar ensures publishers receive optimal revenue for their ad inventory.

However, Freestar’s focus goes beyond revenue generation. It aims to equip publishers with a modularized, performance-optimized orchestration layer that minimizes the impact on page load speed and mitigates memory leaks. Freestar’s wrapper is engineered to deliver only the essential code specific to each publisher’s needs, making it lightweight and efficient.

What is Memory Management in Browsers?

Understanding memory management is key to appreciating Freestar’s optimization efforts. Modern web browsers like Chrome, Safari, and Firefox use heap memory to store data such as DOM (Document Object Model) elements, scripts, and styles. They rely on garbage collection (GC) to free up memory that is no longer needed by removing objects that are no longer referenced in the code. However, certain elements—particularly those that change frequently, such as ads—can cause memory leaks if they are not properly managed. Memory leaks occur when old objects, such as removed DOM elements, remain in memory even though they are no longer visible or used on the page.  Other common causes of memory leaks include closures, event listeners, timers and intervals, and dynamic content.

This becomes particularly important in ad environments where ad units frequently refresh. If these refreshes aren’t handled correctly, the old ad creatives and their associated DOM elements may remain in memory, causing orphaned DOM objects. Over time, this leads to increased memory consumption, leading to greater page load times and a negative user experience. 

The Impact of Ad Refresh Cycles on Memory Usage

A key component of modern ad strategies is the use of ad refresh cycles, which replace an ad creative with a new one after a set interval. While this boosts ad impressions and revenue potential, it also increases the risk of memory leakage.

Freestar’s technology takes this into account, offering an intelligent refresh system that ensures proper cleanup of DOM elements and event listeners tied to old ad creatives. This process reduces memory bloat and minimizes the risk of memory leaks during repeated ad refreshes.

Freestar’s Proprietary Header Bidder Wrapper Technology: Extending Prebid with Modularization

Freestar’s header bidder wrapper is built on top of the widely adopted Prebid.js framework, but it goes beyond Prebid’s capabilities to offer a proprietary, modularized solution tailored to each publisher, and to each experience. This approach ensures that the code delivered is highly optimized for each publisher’s specific use case and requirements.

1. Modularizing the Freestar Header Bidder Wrapper

Freestar’s proprietary technology is designed with modularization at its core. This means that, like Prebid, Freestar’s wrapper is broken down into individual components—each responsible for a specific function such as handling bids, managing analytics, or facilitating ad refreshes. However, Freestar goes a step further by allowing publishers to only load the modules they actually need. This results in a highly efficient, optimized payload that reduces the overall file size and execution time, improving performance significantly.

For instance, if a publisher is using only certain demand sources or ad formats, Freestar’s modularized wrapper ensures that the code for unrelated features—such as video ad units or demand partners that are unused is excluded from the build. 

So, what does this achieve?

This precision targeting ensures that only the necessary code is delivered to the browser, resulting in faster load times, better performance, and reduced memory usage.

2. Device-Specific and Geo-Specific Optimization

Freestar’s modular approach also enables device-specific optimization backed by data-driven insights into device performance and resource limitations. Different devices—whether desktop, mobile, or tablet—vary significantly in processing power, memory capacity, and network bandwidth. By delivering device-specific builds, Freestar can ensure that mobile users, who account for approximately 50-60% of global web traffic, receive a lighter version of the wrapper with fewer resource-intensive features.This reduces the number of resource-intensive features by up to 30% (as shown from our internal tests), improving page load times and minimizing the impact on device performance.

In addition, Freestar’s header bidding wrapper can be optimized for geographic regions. Depending on where a user is located, certain demand partners or ad formats might not be relevant. Freestar’s modular builds allow the wrapper to be customized  by region, ensuring that users only load what’s necessary for their locale, reducing unnecessary overhead.

3. Prebid as the Core, Freestar for Customization

While Prebid.js serves as the foundation for Freestar’s technology, Freestar’s proprietary wrapper extends Prebid’s capabilities by providing more advanced customization and performance optimizations. Although Prebid is inherently modular by design, Freestar adds substantial value by incorporating proprietary features that fine-tune the framework to publishers’ specific needs. Freestar’s wrapper focuses on reducing the memory footprint, streamlining ad refresh processes, and improving the efficiency of demand-side integrations.

Benefits of a custom modular build,

• Minimal Code Bloat: By including only the required modules, Freestar minimizes the amount of JavaScript delivered, speeding up page load times and reducing execution overhead.
• Optimized for Device and Region: Publishers receive custom versions of the wrapper based on the user’s device (desktop vs. mobile) and geographic location, ensuring maximum efficiency for each visitor.
• Lower Memory Usage: Fewer active modules mean fewer memory-intensive operations, helping to reduce the risk of memory leaks or unnecessary memory consumption.

Freestar ensures that Prebid’s core functionality is tightly integrated with our custom performance optimizations, allowing publishers to leverage Prebid’s open-source advantages while benefiting from Freestar’s enhanced features and control over the header bidding process. This combination leads to higher ad yield and a seamless, memory-efficient experience.

Freestar’s 4-step approach to Performance Optimizations for Memory Management

Freestar employs several key strategies to manage memory more effectively within its modularized header bidder wrapper:

1. Efficient DOM Element Removal: When an ad creative is replaced, Freestar ensures that old DOM elements are completely removed from both the DOM tree and memory. This prevents orphaned objects from lingering in memory, which would otherwise lead to gradual memory bloat.
2. Smart Garbage Collection Coordination: Freestar’s wrapper technology works in harmony with browsers’ garbage collectors, ensuring that outdated elements (such as old ad creatives and event listeners) are marked as unreachable and freed up as quickly as possible.
3. Optimized Ad Refresh Logic: Freestar’s wrapper includes intelligent refresh logic that handles ad replacement in a memory-efficient manner. It cleans up event listeners and de-references old ad units properly, allowing browsers to reclaim the memory without delays or leaks.
4. Cross-Browser Testing: Freestar regularly tests its wrapper across different browsers to ensure compatibility and identify any discrepancies in memory handling. This allows the team to optimize for different garbage collection cycles and prevent browser-specific memory leaks.

 Achieving the ideal balance with Freestar

Freestar’s proprietary header bidder wrapper, built on and extending Prebid.js, represents a state-of-the-art solution that combines performance optimization, modularization, and memory management. By delivering a custom, lightweight build tailored to each publisher’s specific needs, Freestar ensures efficient resource usage, fast page loads, and reduced memory consumption.

Freestar’s focus on preventing memory leaks, avoiding orphaned DOM elements, and minimizing code overhead sets a new benchmark in the ad tech space. This allows publishers to maximize ad revenue without sacrificing performance. By modularizing its header bidder wrapper, Freestar ensures that only the necessary components are deployed, resulting in an efficient and adaptable solution across devices and regions.

For publishers, this translates into a seamless balance between ad monetization and user experience. Whether you’re optimizing for desktop or mobile, Freestar’s technology can help reduce latency, streamline ad delivery, and enhance overall site performance – ultimately leading to higher ad yield, improved user engagement, and a more competitive edge in the market.

Contact us today to learn more on how we can help you unlock your full potential.

The post Optimizing Ad Tech with Freestar’s Modular Header Bidding Wrapper: Performance Enhancements, Memory Management, and Customization first appeared on Freestar.

We listened to our publisher’s feedback and built Report This Ad to improve ad quality and combat certain ad types. Now, with just a click, publishers can report detailed information about unwanted ads to our Ad Quality team.  

What is Report This Ad?

Report This Ad (RTA) was a joint effort built by Freestar and our ad quality partner, Confiant. When RTA is enabled, a “Report This Ad” link will appear below every ad unit. This link allows website users to report any ad they deem malicious or inappropriate and allows Freestar to investigate the ads based on the information provided. 

How does it work?

When the RTA feature is enabled, Freestar will display a “Report This Ad” link below every ad unit. Clicking this link launches Confiant’s Ad Reporter modal box, where users can give more information about the problem – for example, if the ad contains offensive content or is playing sound. Confiant collects this information, along with technical details from the creative itself, and provides this data on all reported ads to the Freestar team.  

Our Ad Quality Support team can access this information to quickly and efficiently track and block the source of the unwanted ad.

How should I use Report This Ad?

It’s important to know that this product is not enabled for every publisher. Rather, Freestar enables RTA for publishers sensitive to ad quality and needs an easy way of reporting unwanted ads to us. If you feel this product would benefit you, please discuss it with your Customer Success Manager or email accountmanagement@freestar.io.

Report This Ad is most useful as a tool for you, the publisher, to report bad ads to us, your Customer Success team. Because the tool gathers technical data about the creative, it allows us to troubleshoot more effectively than we could with just a screenshot. However, please keep these important tips in mind:

• When submitting your report, please include a detailed description of the issue in the dialog box.
• Please still send us that screenshot! RTA captures helpful data, but it does not capture an image, and we still need this for our investigation.
• Please let your CSM know that you have reported an ad so that we know to retrieve that data for our investigation.
• Please remember to use RTA! This tool is most effective when used by you, the publisher so that we can ask you any follow-up questions.

Report This Ad can also be used to collect reports from your users. However, remember that many website users are not specific about why they are reporting an ad and are often just complaining about ads in general. By default, Freestar does not monitor user complaints for this reason. If you would like to monitor your user complaints or receive data about user complaints, please be sure to arrange this with our Customer Success team.

Why was this product built?

As previously mentioned, we built this product in response to publisher feedback. The Report This Ad button is an essential feature for publishers sensitive to certain types of ads, specifically broken/poor ad experiences, brand suitability, competitor ads, etc. 

Without this feature, it would take significantly more manual effort to investigate and attempt to recreate the issue the publisher has reported. Freestar wants our team to be able to quickly ascertain the cause of the unwanted ads and make actionable decisions to mitigate any impact on publisher earnings. 

Questions?

If you have any questions about Report This Ad, reach out to your Customer Success Manager or email accountmanagement@freestar.io. They can help you determine if Report This Ad is a feature needed on your site(s)! 

The post Improving Ad Quality with Report This Ad first appeared on Freestar.

A blocklist is a list that details what type of advertisers or ad categories a publisher does not want to appear on their site. This can be for any number of reasons but most often because of brand safety, user experience and/or legal compliance. 

More often than not, publishers use blocklists to prevent specific categories of ads from appearing on websites or apps that they deem inappropriate or unsafe for their users. Publishers have a responsibility to their online community, and blocklists can help prevent any unwanted ads from appearing on their website. 

Benefits of using Blocklists

We work with a number of ad-sensitive publishers that prioritize the content and quality of ads our partners deliver across their apps, websites, and e-commerce sites. Whether that’s blocking your competitors from advertising where your customers shop, or keeping adult-targeted ads from populating on a website geared towards kids – Freestar has the quality control to safeguard brand safety, all while ensuring monetization opportunities are not lost. 

Using a blocklist in ad tech can offer several benefits for publishers, including:

1. Improved ad quality – By using a blocklist, publishers can ensure that no bad or malicious ads appear on their website which can negatively impact their user experience.
2. Brand safety – Publishers can avoid displaying ads that are considered objectionable or harmful or is considered a competitor. This helps to protect the publisher’s brand from association with content that may not align with their values or image.
3. Increased user engagement – By avoiding displaying unwanted ads, users are more likely to have a more positive user experience and engage with ads.

How do Blocklists work?

A blocklist can block specific advertisers or brands, or it can block entire categories of advertisers. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) maintains an industry standard list of advertising content categories. Freestar uses these categories as the basis for our publisher blocklists, and we will ensure that they are mapped appropriately to each demand partner’s blocking capabilities.

Freestar has the knowledge and expertise to help curate site-specific blocklists by category and brand. Freestar has several options for blocklists when onboarding a new site: Default, Standard, or Sensitive. 

• The Default Blocklist includes Non-Standard and Illegal Content, as well as auto-play sound type ads.
• The Standard Blocklist includes all of the above plus items that are age-specific, like alcohol or dating. 
• The Sensitive Blocklist includes all of the above plus additional blocks that users can be more sensitive to seeing, like religion or politics.

What are the drawbacks of a blocklist?

A blocklist does not guarantee 100% of the ads displaying on a publisher’s website will be brand safe. On the occasion a ‘bad’ ad does get through, our team is on hand to help investigate the bad ad. Any information you can provide will help in our investigation, so please provide as much of the following as possible:

• Screenshot of issue, preferably in hi-res PNG format
• Advertiser or brand
• Clickthrough URL or landing page
• URL where it happened
• Date and time of issue
• Device, browser and OS
• City/state/country where it happened
• HAR file if possible

Our Ad Quality team will investigate this and determine which demand partner it came from and how we can minimize it from occurring again. For our more sensitive publisher, there is the option to activate our ‘Report This Ad’ feature which allows a user to provide real-time feedback on any ads they encounter that might not be a great fit for the website.

The other drawback of a blocklist is ad performance. By blocking specific advertisers or categories, publishers may impact ad revenue. However, some publishers find this tradeoff worth it especially if brand safety is a top concern. 

Key Takeaways

Freestar works with ad quality partners who are focused on delivering better ad experiences, and keeping up to date with ad-blocking trends around the world. Our dedicated Customer Success team are always ready to work with your team to find a tailored solution that fits your needs best! If you have any questions,  please don’t hesitate to reach out to your Customer Success Manager or email us. 

The post Blocklist 101 first appeared on Freestar.