Understanding What Header Bidding Is?

Deval Shah
Deval Shah

Digital advertising has grown to be a giant industry. Despite its successful growth, there are still many inefficiencies and dispersions. Programmatic selling theoretically means an automated process. Yet it requires considerable work behind-the-scenes, especially to connect the buyers and sellers.

The technique of header bidding was born out of this. It is one of the ways for publishers to get good revenue from their ad inventory. Though the concept has been here for a while, surveys from eMarketer say only 21% of marketers understand the complete meaning of header bidding.

So, what is header bidding?

Header Bidding

Header bidding is also popularly known as pre-bidding or advance bidding, and it is a programmatic technique. In this technique, the publishers offer inventory to several ad exchanges concurrently before they talk to their ad servers.

The basic idea behind header bidding is it allows multiple demand sources to bid for the same inventory simultaneously. This increases the yields for the publishers and helps them make more money.

How Is Header Bidding Different?

Header bidding has always been in the background, invisible, silently watching. But publishers find it difficult to understand programmatic efficiency, and it is left out on the sidelines.

Instead, they go for the waterfall structure, where if one sales channel did not attract customers, they push them to the other low valuable channels almost out of desperation.
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Though the waterfall structure works, it has many flaws and fails in the long run, yet publishers say it brings them profit.

What Do You Get Out Of Header Bidding?

Now, as you know what is header bidding, here’s how it benefits the publishers. The major benefit it offers to the publishers is the chances for a greater yield. A single header bid source can increase their yield by 10 per cent.

When inventory is combined into a single server-side supply, the publishers can sell it on a per-impression basis. This gives the publishers more transparency on how much their impressions are worth.

How Does It Help Publishers and Advertisers?

A few benefits header bidding offers for the publishers are,

  • Improves Yield – As publishers rely less on supply-side platforms, the overall yield increases.
  • Increases Control – Publishers can control the sources which can be allowed to participate in the bidding process. They have control over their site as well.
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  • Increases Revenue – They can increase the prices they charge for premium inventories. 30% – 50% increase in revenue has been recorded.

Header bidding also helps the advertisers in specific ways.
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  • Transparency and Inventory – As the advertisers get access to the publisher’s inventory, they know the availability and bid accordingly.
  • Less Mediation – Every advertiser has equal access and opportunity regardless of using AdX or not.

Challenges It Can Offer

The most challenging aspect is what it does with the publishers’ page load time. Every SSP tag that the publishers’ adds to the page can add up to page latency. It can be a risk factor and can contribute to the slow-down of the web pages.

Header bidding is an interesting strategy in the world of transparency and data control. Though it can seem like a contentious method, many publishers have experienced and benefited from it, giving it the benefit of the doubt.

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