But publishers are not without controls to keep the bottom at bay — flooring, the process of setting a minimum price for ad inventory, empowers publishers to keep inventory pricing competitive with other channels (e.g., direct sales).

Flooring is a simple concept: a publisher sets the minimum CPM they are willing to accept for an ad placement, and an advertiser must pay this amount or higher to display the ad. Publishers using Google Ad Manager (GAM) set their CPM floors for the open exchange using Unified Pricing Rules (UPRs), ensuring that any bids accepted from their programmatic demand partners meet their minimum pricing requirements.

This is where the simplicity ends and the anxiety begins. Set your floors too low, and you miss out on revenue from advertisers who are willing to pay more. Set them too high, and you miss out on fill.

Continuously establishing the right CPM floors to earn the highest revenue for your ad inventory without sacrificing fill rate is simply impossible to do manually. But it is possible to automate through dynamic flooring.

A Floor-Shifting Odyssey

The holy grail of yield management is that sweet spot that maximizes both CPMs and fill rate — but this sweet spot is a constant-moving target. CPM variations occur based on content, traffic source, seasonal spending trends, macroeconomic factors, user data, tech variables like device type, browser, operating system, and every combination of these CPM “ingredients.”

Some publishers dedicate hours, full days, and even team members to analyzing CPM data and updating UPRs. They spend a lot of time and effort on a process that results in low and untraceable success. Other publishers prefer to “set and forget” their UPRs. They may not be sacrificing time and mental sweat equity to maximize yield, but they are leaving money on the table by not passing optimal floors.

Even if you could manually set floors effectively, GAM limits the number of UPRs you can create. To achieve optimal CPMs, you’d want to pass custom floors at a granular level. Each page on your site earns differently, so you want a unique floor for every URL and all the other CPM variables.

Dynamic Flooring to the Rescue

Dynamic flooring is a way to intelligently and proactively adjust your floors based on real-time data from every pageview. With each impression, a dynamic flooring solution learns and improves its ability to create the right floor at the right time. It will automatically generate a real-time floor based on a smart prediction of the value of the current pageview.

Several variations of dynamic flooring have appeared over the years, and they are not all created equal. Many publishers have even grown wary of the term dynamic flooring as providers have not optimized revenue but instead, shuffled it among partners. This favors one or more demand partners to others’ detriment and fails to drive incremental revenue.

Ultimately, dynamic flooring is not about getting your UPRs right. The way to achieve the ideal flooring system is to control the win rate of your SSPs. Doing this will create pricing pressure on your whole revenue stack.

An ideal flooring system should:

• Set an infinite number of granular floors based on page content, user data, traffic source, technical specs, and other variables;
• Continually adjust floors based on the latest data (this might mean that floors are adjusted every few minutes);
• Pass the optimal CPM floor for every ad placement on every pageview; and
• Automate your flooring optimization.

When you implement smart publishing tech that accesses the latest, granular data from every pageview, it’s like having 50,000+ UPRs simultaneously working for you and automatically updating in real-time.

Finding the Right Solution

Dynamic flooring solutions are springing up faster than identity partners. Look under the hood, before you sign the vendor with the lowest price and biggest promises, Ask them these questions:

• How does your technology create optimal floors for every pageview?
• How recent is the data you’re using to set floors?
• How can you prove that your solution makes me more money and isn’t just shuffling my revenue?

If they can’t show their work, work with someone who can!

Dynamic flooring is one of the best tools to earn more from the open exchange, which is especially important when strange economic circumstances stymie the flow of direct-sold campaigns. However, picking the right solution requires more than a price-tag check—be sure you’re prepared to tell the difference between revenue shuffling and true dynamic flooring.

The post What Is Dynamic Flooring? appeared first on AdMonsters.

Transparency in the programmatic supply chain is one such challenge prevailing in the industry. With so many parties involved in the supply chain, it has become even more difficult to keep track of ad spend and quality. That is why the industry needs Supply Path Optimization (SPO). 

Supply Chain Optimization is a process of increasing transparency and efficiency in the programmatic supply chain by cutting down the number of intermediaries that are not adding significant value. 

Why Is Transparency Needed?

Transparency in the supply chain involves a lot more than just making information available to all parties. It involves creating an environment of trust where all stakeholders feel confident that they are receiving fair and honest information.

This includes details about ad placements, ad inventory, and pricing. Ensuring transparency is important because it promotes better communication and helps build strong working relationships between publishers and advertisers.

Benefits of SPO

It is often perceived that SPO only benefits advertisers, but that is simply not true. Both the supply side and demand side can greatly benefit by optimizing supply path efficiencies:

• • Increased Transparency: SPO provides better visibility and insights about the ecosystem — the intermediaries involved, exact ad spend on impressions, etc. It enables advertisers to tackle the issue of bid duplication and enables publishers as well as advertisers to identify and eliminate unnecessary or fraudulent players. 
• • Brand Safety for Advertisers: With SPO, advertisers feel more confident about their brand image and safety. They can eliminate the SSPs who do not follow their brand safety guidelines. 
• • Increased Revenue Opportunities: Streamlining SPO can ensure that publishers receive the highest bids possible for their ad inventory ultimately increasing ad revenue.
• • Reduced ad fraud: SPO can help publishers reduce ad fraud by ensuring that their ads are only displayed on legitimate websites.
• • Increased Efficiency: SPO can help publishers and advertisers improve the efficiency of their programmatic advertising inventory and ad campaigns by reducing latency and improving transparency.

How does SPO work?

To make sure that SPO works in the most optimum way, advertisers need to come up with certain strategies to apply. One of the ways advertisers could reclaim control and optimize the path is by limiting the number of SSPs and ad exchanges they work with and work with a select number of partners. They would also need to focus on cutting off resellers from the market and opt for bids that offer them the best chance of winning. It is always important to make sure that every bid must bring a unique value attached to it in an auction-themed environment.

Implementation

One of the best ways to implement SPO is to make sure that multiple routes are being avoided to buy or sell inventory. The lesser the paths, the less the chances of duplication.

According to recent studies more than 60% of buyers currently think that SPO has reduced the chances of fraud while the buying power has also been enhanced for at least 30% of the buyers in the landscape, along with this roughly 20% of them have seen a more transparent Fee structure due to the same.

SPO Implementation steps include:

• Assessment:

Developing a thorough grasp of your programmatic supply chain is the first step in deploying SPO. This includes the process of figuring out all the intermediaries who are buying and selling your ad inventory. 

• Evaluating and consolidating intermediaries: 

Once all the intermediaries have been identified, evaluate the ones which are unnecessary or ‘bad actors’, the ones adding costs and latency to the page load time.

Based on the evaluation, consolidate the significant ones and eliminate the ones not adding value to the supply chain. 

• Monitoring the results: 

SPO is an ongoing process and it needs to be measured regularly. This will help in analyzing the efforts if the goals are being achieved or not. Based on the analysis, those efforts can be streamlined and optimized. 

This can be a complex process at times and can be achieved by having the right resources in place. Also, working with an SSP or DSP partner can be considered to simplify the process. 

What Are the Best Practices for Buyers and Sellers to Facilitate Supply Path Optimization

There are several best practices for buyers and sellers to facilitate supply path optimization. These include the use of ads.txt, sellers.json, a lesser number of SSPs, and adherence to industry standards including brand safety and relevance. 

Ads.txt and sellers.json are text files that are placed on a publisher’s website, which allows buyers to verify the identity of the seller and ensure that they are buying ad inventory from authorized sources. Reducing the number of SSPs can help optimize the supply path by reducing the complexity of the supply chain, which can lead to better efficiency and transparency.

Uses of AI for SPO

The use of AI for SPO is becoming increasingly common in the ad tech industry. AI algorithms can help automate the process of analyzing data, identifying inefficiencies, and optimizing the supply path. This can help buyers and sellers make better decisions, reduce costs, and improve efficiency.

With the growing changes in the current landscape, it is expected that AI tools will also be able to help in the execution of policies to optimize the supply path and can also aid inventory management issues.

Measurement and Enhancement of SPO Efforts

Measurement and enhancement of SPO efforts are essential for ensuring that the supply chain remains transparent and efficient. Regular monitoring and analysis of data can help identify areas for improvement and enable stakeholders to make data-driven decisions. 

By enhancing SPO efforts, buyers and sellers can optimize their supply chain, reduce costs, and improve their ROI.

Recent Industry Developments

Recent industry developments, such as the implementation of the OpenRTB 2.6 draft, Ads.txt 1.1, and Transparency Center, have further advanced the cause of supply chain transparency and optimization. 

The OpenRTB 2.6 draft includes new features that make it easier to detect and prevent fraud. Ads.txt 1.1 includes a new field that allows publishers to specify their direct relationships with advertisers, making it easier for buyers to identify authorized sellers. The Transparency Center provides a centralized location for buyers to view information about ad inventory and verify the identity of sellers.

Next Steps for Buyers and Sellers

Supply chain transparency and optimization are essential for the ad tech industry to thrive. Buyers and sellers must work together to create a transparent and efficient supply chain that benefits all stakeholders. By following best practices, utilizing AI, and embracing recent industry developments, the ad tech industry can continue to evolve and drive growth in the digital advertising space.

The post What Is Supply Path Transparency & Optimization? appeared first on AdMonsters.

But, the status quo for SSP protocol is no longer working. According to a new survey from Emodo, marketers crave more innovation and keener targeting and measurement skills from SSPs. 

SSPs are beginning to reassess their practices, especially after Yahoo shut down its SSP and other major ones filed for bankruptcy. There is clear evidence that SSPs need to evolve with the times, but how do they make it happen? 

“We’ve been hearing a lot of commentary about the commoditization of supply and demand and how brands and agencies have been struggling to understand the value SSPs truly add to the supply chain,” said Damian McKenna, Chief Operating Officer at Emodo. “This survey underscores the key focus areas for SSPs to remain competitive and deliver value for buyers and sellers. While we are focused on all of the above, Emodo is doubling down on innovations around optimization, especially as it relates to targeting, innovative formats, and unique inventory.”

Innovation Over Efficiency

Andrew Byrd : Emodo recently released a study stating that 56% of marketers are demanding SSP Innovation and 53% want enhanced targeting and measurement. Why did you decide to create this study? Were the results what you expected? Did anything surprise you?

Damian McKenna: There’s a fever pitch surrounding Supply Path Optimization (SPO) to the point where it’s almost talked about too much. We agree that eliminating redundancies and focusing on quality supply is incredibly important, but marketers want more than improving efficiency and removing redundancy. Most marketers we hear from want to deliver something unique, something impactful, and something that speaks to the consumers we are trying to reach, and that’s why we did a study.

Interestingly, this study shows that marketers defined SPO as less critical to them than innovation and enhanced targeting and measurement. If you read the trades and generally talk to people at conferences, SPO always comes up. But innovation, especially related to new formats and targeting, is a place where smaller, more nimble companies like Emodo can stand out as an SSP. Efficiency is essential, but it is half as crucial as innovation to reach your audience. 

AB: I’m curious about the shift to focusing more on innovation and not efficiency, especially when it relates to how generally SSPs are doing within the industry. Evidence shows that a lot of SSPs are struggling right now and are starting to reassess their business practices. What are the issues and is the industry starting to remedy them? 

DM: It’s the battle between scaling innovation and the rapidly expanding space. If you look at the market data over the past 15 years, the expansion of the programmatic marketplace was incredible. It’s hard even to put it on a chart and quantify it. So much of the innovation in the first decade of programmatic was simply curation. The value of SSPs was the curation and connecting of the content to multiple formats.

As the market continued to expand, innovation became lost amid rapid expansion. If you think about the share of spend, publishers over the last few years probably felt a little lost and not heard. At the same time, there were so many intermediaries in the middle. Publishers wanted to find new and unique monetization opportunities, and they wanted that percentage of brands and DSPS. The SSPs and these intermediaries in the middle were trying to catch up with other mediums, over-indexed on scale and availability, and under-indexed on innovation.

Additionally, there are changes in how people listen to programmatic opportunities. There’s a focus on supply path optimization, which forces these SSPs to reevaluate how they operate, the partners they keep, and how they add value and differentiate. At  Emodo, we’re in a unique position because we have a two-sided marketplace. Our managed service team deals directly with large holding companies and marketers. We also have an SSP, and we can offer publishers unique demand and opportunity and not be lost as just a part of the value chain. We can see the whole thing, and our managed service team has helped us understand the needs of that marketer and the agency’s needs.

Cutting Out the Middleman 

AB: You mentioned cutting out intermediaries in the supply chain and that is a sentiment I’ve heard from publishers and advertisers. Do you think cutting out the intermediaries will be hard for SSPs in the future? Will it hurt or help them?

DM: The shift in header bidding happened because publishers are running from current auction practices. They are vying for the same impressions at the same time as ad tech vendors or intermediaries, and on the buy side, ad tech is trying to reduce the number of auctions they have to sit through because the cost is too high. That puts pressure on pure-play intermediaries. Analysts say they will pressure intermediaries, but that’s a natural evolution. 

In some cases, advertisers are unknowingly bidding against themselves and subsequently driving up the prices. They pay because of too many intermediaries, and that needs to change. Continued pressure will be on any intermediary that doesn’t provide incremental added value or efficiency by having their stake on both sides or a differentiated solution.

The Automation of the Supply Chain

AB: SSPs automated the process where an ad publisher would manually assign specific ads to spaces through negotiations with human media buyers and sales teams. Do you think some of the kinks have developed because the process has become automated? 

DM: When I started in the industry in the 90s, digital media promised that technology would make buying and advertising more efficient. It’s more efficient than it was, but we’ve also had to look at programmatic buying and recognize some severe complexities now. There are inefficiencies that innovation has brought, and that’s natural in some ways. 

For example, publishers are doing publisher-initiated auctions that move through fewer ad tech pipes as intermediaries disappear. So publishers are trying to get the maximum opportunities to bid further on their inventory. So there’s a tension between efficiency and effectiveness on the buy side. 

Publishers need to maximize the opportunity and quality they can bring to their users. Simply put, there’s a need for increased simplicity and control in the buying and selling process. Sometimes we get too complex for our own good.

Stand Out From the Crowd

AB: What final advice would you give SSPs to improve the results of the service? 

DM: When we launched the survey, we expected SPO to be at the top of the list of concerns for marketers. The results showed that SPO is half as important as innovation and value. I advise you always to listen and build for your customer’s needs. You also have to understand what the buyers want and what publishers need.  

Our job is to be the intermediary, the curator, and also to provide unique, differentiated value, and we have to deliver value to both sides. It’s incumbent upon us to do that. We have to lean into innovation and differentiation. If we can’t confidently clarify where we’re innovating, bring value to both sides, and differentiate ourselves, then we must look hard at what we’re doing.

The post Emodo SSP Survey Says Marketers Crave Innovation appeared first on AdMonsters.

Although Google delayed their third-party cookie cut-off, there have to be new and effective ways to aggregate consumer data in an ethical manner. 

Amongst buyers and sellers alike, there is already some discussion about the next phase of data collection practices and theories. So much so, that it could be a bit of information overload for the ad tech newbie or veteran. Regardless, the industry is moving full speed ahead to stay on top of these new regulations. 

One of the more widely spread solutions is Alternative IDs. This medium involves identifiers that are privacy-focused and allows publishers to access first-party data that is volunteered by the consumer. 

This can include data assets such as email addresses, clicks, and names. While the data is collected through cross-device usage, both publishers and advertisers have first-party IDs to find ad placement matches. As of now, there are 10 prominent alternative ID solutions and it is one of the most common practices for cross-site tracking. 

The majority of companies are encrypting their user data. Others are taking it a step further by using ID tokens that periodically alter, similar to the theorized Web3 tokens. 

So, what are the different ID solutions? From February 2022 – June 22, Emarketer and Sincera highlighted that thousands of publishers were using what they called the Top 5 Identifiers. including ID5, Unified ID 1.0, RampID, Prebid SharedID, and Criteo.

Here we look at 10 such solutions and explain how they’re supposed to work.

Top 10 Alternative ID Solutions

ID5 ID

The ID5 ID is specifically designed for publishers. This is an encrypted first-party data ID that gives publishers a unique device ID they can share with their partners and clients. With their ID5’s identity cloud publishers can:  

• Identify users in all digital advertising environments to increase monetization with the ID5 ID
• Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations with their privacy-by-design technology
• Prevent data leakage by permissioning user IDs to authorized partners only

This specific ID is unique because its technology, as mentioned above, is privacy focused by design. Browsers and applications that work with ID5 must disclose to the user that their data is being collected and what kind of information is being collected. Users are given consent, opt-out and do-not-sell signals from ID5 based upon their preference. 

ID5 has a relationship with about nearly 600 publishers and with their mass amount of data assets, ID5 can retrieve that data to create a unique ID. With the data in the ID publishers can use cross-site data collection, profiling, and data measurements, and share the ID with partners to target ads and sell them for higher prices. 

Unified ID 2.0

This specific ID solution was launched by The Trade Desk but has evolved more into a collaboration with Prebid, with Prebid.org taking on the role of operator of UID 2.0’s technical infrastructure. Much like the other solutions, the consumer’s email is used to build the ID and that allows them to receive personalized advertisements. In practice, UID 2.0 can facilitate cross-site app reach, create targetable audience segments, measure attribution and conversion of ad spend, and analyze ad campaign details.

For the benefit of publishers and advertisers, the solution targets ads to users giving both entities encrypted IDs that can be matched in the bid stream. The ID itself does not contain data, but it is transferred in the bid stream process. UID2 is a decentralized system that can be used by small and large publishers and advertisers who want to use the encrypted IDs for matching and who have a large database of users’ emails. 

This solution has become one of the more popular Alternative IDs. In fact, the popular streaming service, Tubi, became the first CTV publisher to implement the ID in July of 2021. 

In terms of its development, The Trade Desk’s Chief Revenue Officer, Tim Sims, said that “Unified ID 2.0 is a collaboration among everyone within the advertising ecosystem to pioneer an interoperable, open-source ID solution that helps advertisers connect with audiences while keeping consumer control and privacy in mind.”

Ramp ID

LiveRamp’s ID solution is self-described as “a people-based map connecting de-identified offline touchpoints and online devices.” It has one of the largest U.S.-based device data assets and works to design its technology to collect that data in an ethical way. 

There are the aspects to the process of creating their ID: 

• Offline PII merging: Resolving separate emails, postal addresses, and phone numbers to a single individual
• Online device linking: Matching disparate devices to people-based anonymous identifiers
• Offline to online: Merging these offline and online identity spaces into a unified, privacy-conscious, people-based ID space

While many ID solutions have interoperable properties, this specific solution is known for its interoperability. It can connect with IDs stored with premium publishers such as Google and Facebook, direct internet deals, and marketplace activations. After the ID is created, it offers cookie syncing to match in DSPs. For optimal user experience, publishers and advertisers who want to outsource ID creation and greater interoperability should be on the lookout for RampID. 

SharedID 

This community-focused ID was created by Prebid and  is inherently unique from the other solutions because it is owned and operated by Prebid.org’s publisher members rather than a vendor. The community-led technology is privacy focused and targeted to work across different publishers and DSPs. 

To start the ID process, publishers write the SharedID as a first-party value. After creating the unique user ID with the data, the publisher can make it accessible to a bidder or “use the user ID as a building block for publisher controlled first party self-declared data without the use of an identifier.” 

The main functionality of SharedID is acting as a storage center for first-party data. On the other hand, unlike many of the other ID solutions, SharedIDonly offers cross-site tracking within the publisher’s domain. Thus, it is recommended that only tech-savvy publishers with fewer resources that want to share their first-party data with DSPs should use this ID solution. 

ConnectID

Yahoo’s alternative ID solution, ConnectID, “uses consent-based, first-party data to bring audiences to life in a world without cookies.” One of the biggest pulls for this specific solution is Yahoo’s large consumer base that consists of 500 million unique user profiles and about 200 billion daily cross-screen user intent signals. In addition, the company has direct consumer relationship data across sites such as Yahoo News, Sports, and Finance. This helps publishers create in-depth identity-based user profiles. 

While the data is expansive, ConnectID only works with Yahoo’s DSP which has audience activation and media measurement with assets such as CTV, programmatic audio and much more. Experts agree that it should be used by publishers or advertisers that have a lot of resources, direct user relationships, and who want to outsource ID matching. 

To start the process, a Yahoo user signs in using their email address and gives consent for the site to use their information. Their address is encrypted after being sent to Yahoo and is then sent back to the publisher as a ConnectID to share for bidding. After the ID is created, the publisher and advertiser’s ConnectID are matched on Yahoo’s DSP which initiates the process across multiple media channels. 

Panorama ID

This specific ID is a privacy-complaint solution for the open web that caters to multiple inputs such as CTV, web, and mobile. Created by Lotame, the solution is powered by the brands’ patented graphing technology and it connects “different types of device identifiers, associated individual behaviors, and privacy choices into a single view, without dependence on cookies.” 

For privacy compliance, Lotame has included a universal opt-out option for consumers. If they opt out once, the decision will be reflected in real-time and maintained across every device and touchpoint associated with the ID. In addition, Panorama ID has access to 90 platform partners and data from 180 providers across 58 countries. For each anonymized ID, there is an average of 199 web and 89 mobile attributes that both publishers and advertisers have access to. 

Since it uses multiple data points, it can be utilized across SSPs and DSPs to match with ads and other IDs. Publishers who want to obtain user content and who have a large user base to provide active consent to be tracked and shown personalized advertisements should look out for this ID. 

CORE ID

CORE ID reaches about 200 million consumers in a privacy-safe way, according to the creator of this ID solution, Epsilon. It offers publishers and advertisers deterministic data rooted in offline name or address data. Publishers and advertisers with resources to outsource ID resolution and matching should use the solution

To start the process, after a user is tagged on the publisher or advertiser website, they call the CORE ID service to see if the user has a CORE ID. If the user does, their email address is pushed through the hashing process and shared with the service provider. Afterward, that data is paired with other data connected to the user that can create a unique profile identifier. The matching process occurs through Epsilon’s DSP and their data processing system called Agility. 

Unlike the previous IDs mentioned, CORE ID does use cookies as a part of the unique ID. Despite this, CORE ID asserts that third-party cookies going away will not affect their process. Since it is “people-based, CORE ID is anchored on deterministic data elements, making it highly reliable and stable. The data is pseudonymized before it enters the digital ecosystem, keeping consumers’ information properly safeguarded and aligned with evolving regulations.” 

Fabrick ID

Neustar launched their unified identity ecosystem in 2020. The Fabrick ID is an “innovation in identity-powered media and measurement that improves omnichannel marketing effectiveness, while future-proofing brands, publishers, and platforms in a privacy-first, post-cookie world.” 

Like many of the ID solutions mentioned, publishers and advertisers can use the ID solution to conduct cookieless audience targeting and data personalization. According to Neustar, Fabrick ID has already fostered success for their clients: 

• With Fabrick’s Multi-Touch Attribution and Marketing Mix Modeling, a retail client increased the accuracy of their cross-media forecasts, reduced data sparsity, and evolved into a 100% data-driven marketing organization. 
• A telecommunications firm increased their ad spend by 4x, increased their on and offline sale conversion rate, and bolstered their ad creative. 

Designed as a cookie replacement, Fabrick ID is a programmatic token made up of a culmination of publisher-provided data. With the PII, clients who use the solution build marketing programs. Once the campaign is executed, Neustar performs measurements using Fabrick and other IDs. It is perfect for publishers that use multiple IDs and want to connect those data points across one platform for transactions and measurements. 

nonID 

LiveIntent’s nonID is unique because it does not require publishers or advertisers to conform to their specific ID solution. According to the brand, their “nonID data processing service is able to safely bridge whatever ID you’re using to the wider digital ecosystem via an active, encrypted email address.” Not only does the solution offer cross-site identification, but it can also help determine which email address is best used for the multi-device process. 

All ID solutions are powered by first-party data, but LiveIntent has data collection assets with 200 million unique email addresses and 25 billion authenticated data signals. 

In addition, due to LiveIntent’s partnerships which allow them to place ads within publishers’ newsletters, they have large access to zero-party data. Therefore, the ID solution is recommended to publishers with newsletters that want to outsource ID creation and matching and who want to generate revenue by putting ads into newsletters. 

SWID

This user-first ID solution was created by a network of operators called the Secure Web Addressability Network (SWAN). 

The Secure Web ID standards are strict as SWAN requires all operators to sign a binding contractual agreement and follow their standardizing terms. Based on the consumer’s data sharing preferences, the SWAN operators created the SWID on their behalf. Transparency is the core of their system. It is best used by publishers and advertisers of no particular size or resources that want a decentralized ad tech system that centers around consumer consent. 

As mentioned above, consumers can choose to opt in or out of sharing their data. On the other hand, consumers can change their preferences any time they please. To start the ID creation process, a pop appears on the publisher page that uses SWAN where the consumer can choose their preferences. If they choose to share their email address, the SWID is created. The SWID is stored into a cookie in a single browser where both the sender and receiver can increase transparency through the ad transaction supply chain. 

Unlike some of the other solutions, publishers cannot buy or sell profile or media data. Publishers can only create personalized profiles for the data which they can sign in to view. 

The post What are the Top 10 Alternative ID Solutions and How Should You Use Them? appeared first on AdMonsters.

IDG announced it would change its name to Foundry at the start of the year. Already a powerhouse in the tech space, the name change and several new acquisitions were only the start of the company’s progression into a MarTech empire.

To get the scoop on the new and evolved Foundry, AdMonsters spoke with the company’s President, Kumaran Ramanathan. He discussed the process of the name changes and acquisitions, how the company could help bridge the gap between the sales and marketing teams, and his advice on how the industry should move forward in such strenuous times.

Andrew Byrd: IDG recently rebranded, changing its name to Foundry and focusing more on data, B2B software, and tech. What was the driving force behind this rebrand, and how do you think it will benefit your company?

Kumaran Ramanathan: What we’ve tried to do is reinvent ourselves. Our old brand IDG communications just wasn’t reflective of the business we were becoming. We got together with everyone around the table–the strategy, marketing, and revenue teams. We discussed our different views of the brand strategy, and some people wanted a huge investment in our visual identity. We took a step back because we needed to understand the connection point between the business, our teams, our customers, and our market.

We didn’t initially set out to change the name. We realized several months into the process that it was essential to turn ourselves away from the very thing that defined us, IDG. IDG is known as one of the world’s biggest media companies. Still, we have the courage of our convictions to understand that if we didn’t make a move ultimately down the line, it would cripple our ambition and ability to be identified as a MarTech powerhouse.

We had a brand purpose, and that was to make tech real. We will give people real data and results, which will help us shape the naming process and the naming architecture. Foundry was great because it gave the nod to our media heritage. That’s where we made the original fonts. It helps us create a new company that’s not too different from the old DNA.

AB: A major part of the rebranding and the acquisitions that Foundry undertook seems to center heavily around pairing the company’s first-party data with acquired and homegrown marketing technologies. How do you think this will help improve the ad tech space?

KR: Tech is going to be powered by robust data. We need to have an integrated model of marketing that focuses on activating real intent signals to drive accurate results. We’ve brought together the best tech data from our acquisitions to innovate. You know, I don’t think we’re the new sheriff in town, riding in on our horses to clean things up. That would be incorrect positioning, but there is much noise around the space on the technology side of things, and the barrier to entry is shallow.

So many players in our space don’t have access to the audiences they claim to. Customers are confused. With the effects of the bid stream and the US Senate’s role in trying to clean up privacy, all of these things are coming together as environmental factors for the industry.

In reference to how we can improve the ad tech space as a whole, I think the only question that customers should ask their suppliers is how do they really reach their audience. Trust and integrity are so important, but as I said, we’re not here to do the cleanup. We will continue with our DNA of doing the right things, not the easy stuff, and I feel that our customers will benefit from that approach.

Think about it as if you are a customer. You have people coming to your website all the time, and they want to understand the context of that data. They don’t just want our data. People that are in our environment are also in our customer’s world. Clearly, they’re downloading their content. How can we bring those two data points together? That’s where MarTech fuses it beautifully. If you’ve got access to the audience, and you’re doing it in an open, transparent way, surely that will win in the long term.

AB: In your press release, Foundry’s Chief Strategy Officer, Jason Tenenbown, said there is a “growing disconnect between the sales pipelines and marketing funnels.” Why do you think there’s a disconnect between them, and how will Foundry play a role in bridging that gap?

KR: I love that question. Even though we talk about it, I’ve not been asked to think about it that way, but I think there are a couple of things. The sales and marketing departments have always had a tense relationship. Sometimes they are in sync, and other times they clash.

The people buying technology and public companies in our sector have gotten larger and more complex. For instance, if we think about the geography of the data pull. Our data shows that company X is downloading and reading assets around a particular topic. That one company could pull data from anywhere–it could be London, Germany, or California. So clearly, there’s a message going out that we should be looking at something new, and people are starting to do their work.

We know it’s hard to reach the buy team, but the data can be used as a bridge between the two functions. If we think about intent data, it must be complete and accessible through a MarTech environment. Sales and marketing use the same intent data and tools to align strategies, and that’s an arrow.

We’ve been very comfortable selling to the office of the CMO for many years. We believe the office of the CRO is equally important, and the data bridges those two areas. They will have a much more complete view of their potential prospects. Will it help them determine the right time to send marketing materials and for the BDR team to nurture those leads? When is the right time to get Field Sales involved? It gives us some comfort that the strategy of bringing together the best of media and the best marketing technology to create something new and actionable based on data.

AB: In February of this year, Foundry announced that it acquired Selling Simplified, a MaaS platform that provides lead generation products, data services, and analytics. How does this acquisition of B2B data help improve generating sales leads and engage with the path-to-purchase?

KR: It would be nearly impossible to do anything we just talked about without the acquisitions. We would only have one side of the equation: the media side. The four companies fit well into the overall strategy when considering where the Foundry media brands fit in. When you think about all four acquisitions, they’re enabling us to have a proprietary tech stack under one roof. As a company, it is our philosophy that we want to do these things ourselves.

With Selling Simplified, they were great for our first-party data proposition due to its technologies. They are great at demand generation, and we’re delighted to have those capabilities, but that wasn’t the reason we acquired them. The software makes the data we’ve got richer in depth and quality. It’s helping us keep our current data more accurate. It would help us refresh data in real time. It ensured that we weren’t using third party sources.

Then there is the commercial perspective. The CRA is interesting because it helps activate our data in a tight, very targeted manner across our commercial stack. Whether that’s media, face-to-face events, our data business, or software business, they all benefited from that holistic view.

AB: What new things does Foundry have in store as you look forward to growing more next year? What advice would you give to other publishers looking to do the same?

KR: I will say that you need to know your customers and know your markets. Learning the rhythm of both simplifies everything. Understand technology, both for going to market that will help your customers increase their output, and that’s ultimately what we’re all trying to do.

But I will say, there was one mantra that I’ve always said: You should stand up for your vertical, for your community, and invest in the revenue model. Don’t take any backward steps there. You know you’ve got to put money into the content. The editorial people are fundamental because there is no business without that. Clearly, the technology is only there to leverage the data and relationships you create from brilliant journalism. AdMonsters is an excellent example of that. But then you need to invest in the revenue model to get your bang for your buck. If not, you’re going to be swept aside.

It’s been a tough few years for many people. All of us have had to work through the last couple of years. You have to have some fun and not lose sight of that. I don’t think we’re in a position to be given advice, but that’s the kind of thing I’m trying to do daily. You know, remind my managers and get as many people as possible to feel they are part of trying to be on the journey to do something that everyone thought was impossible.

The post Foundry’s Evolution: The Company’s Journey From IDG to Martech Powerhouse appeared first on AdMonsters.

Of course, the advertising supply and demand ecosystem isn’t quite so simple. Under the surface, advertisers and publishers rely on the delicate relationship between DSPs and SSPs to make sure the right ad gets to the right audience at the right time—ensuring publishers maximize ad revenue and advertisers maximize ROI. Yet, despite record ad spend and a booming ad tech market, the advertising ecosystem is increasingly showing signs of its age.

The Problem: Ad Opportunities and Bid Requests Are No Longer Synonymous

Across the advertising supply chain, rusty ad tech pipes and a lack of transparency continue to breed distrust from both publishers and advertisers. For example, one 2020 report by the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) and PwC found that a large, and growing, ad tech black hole is causing ad spend to dry up before it ever makes it to the publisher. Publishers currently receive only 51% of advertiser spend and one-third of supply chain costs go unattributed, according to the study.

While there are multiple reasons for the growing inefficiencies in the ad buying process, one of the fundamental reasons can be traced to the widespread adoption of header bidding. When publishers first began using header bidding strategies in the mid-2010s, it immediately led to rapid growth in the number and frequency of bid requests.

Header bidding suddenly allowed these publishers to create simultaneous auctions for the same inventory across multiple SSPs and exchanges at the same time. But this new header-bidding approach harbored one key inefficiency: 

It created widespread duplication of bid requests, as multiple SSPs and exchanges peppered DSPs with the same ad opportunities over and over again. 

Fast forward to the current header bidding climate and more than 90% of bid requests now result in wasted traffic that does not receive a single bid from DSPs and their advertisers.

As if that wasn’t enough, the ad tech consolidation arms race has intensified in recent years—driven by an overcrowded market and rising tech infrastructure costs—which has led to fewer DSPs and an even more strained relationship between SSPs and the DSPs that remain.

DSPs have responded to the bid request explosion with queries per second (QPS) limits designed to streamline the bid request process and reduce the high costs associated with trillions of requests. But this is far from a perfect solution, and it introduces new problems—namely, who should really be in control of filtering bid requests: the supply side or demand side?

Getting Back to the Basics: Delivering the Right Ad, at the Right Time, to the Right Audience

Ultimately, what both DSPs and SSPs were looking for was greater bid request relevance. For the SSPs, this meant finding a way to limit bid requests to the inventory that a specific DSP would actually bid on. While, for the DSPs, it meant reducing the overall bidstream and filtering out costly bid request duplication.

DSPs sought to solve this problem first by developing supply path optimization solutions that would help them to identify bids that were more likely to win an auction. However, these solutions sometimes made it difficult for SSPs and their publisher partners to understand how and why their bid requests were performing.

Enter traffic shaping. Traffic shaping is an automated process in which programmatic auctions are filtered to expose the relevance of each auction. Traffic shaping seeks to solve the wasted traffic problem by selecting a subset of bid requests that are more likely to result in bids when passed on to DSP partners.

“It’s simply acknowledging that exchanges cannot send 100% of ad opportunities to DSP buyers,” said Chris Kane, Founder and President at Jounce Media, a programmatic advertising consultancy. “And so, the shaping part is: Well, if I’m not going to send every part, what am I going to send?”

The theory behind traffic shaping strategies is that by sending only the most relevant advertising opportunities to each DSP, the infrastructure costs associated with waste can be greatly reduced without having a noticeable impact on SSP and publisher revenue.

According to research executed by Rivr—a traffic shaping solutions provider—traffic shaping can result in a reduction of bid requests by 30-60%, while still maintaining nearly 100% of existing revenue for SSPs and their publisher partners. Additionally, the infrastructure savings from this type of reduction in bid requests can drive massive profit gains for SSPs and their DSP partners.

So, What’s Holding Traffic Shaping Back?

Given the clear benefits, it would be easy to assume traffic shaping is a solution publishers, SSPs, exchanges, and DSPs should all be able to get behind. But that simply hasn’t been the case—as pent-up distrust across the advertising ecosystem harbors lingering concerns about the goals and use cases for traffic shaping. Not to mention, SSPs continue to view traffic shaping as a low priority initiative—far below their focus on consumer privacy and identity resolution. 

In order to effectively move past these concerns, it’s time for the industry to address them head-on—and turn greater issue transparency into mutually beneficial solutions. Let’s take a look at three of the primary concerns holding the ad tech industry back from realizing its traffic shaping future:

Concern #1: Traffic Shaping Will Damage Publisher Revenue Streams

It stands to reason that when you start selectively sending bid requests to just a few demand sources, publisher revenue might be the first thing to suffer. After all, publishers have been conditioned from years of header bidding success to believe that the more SSP plug-ins they use, the higher their revenue will climb.

By shutting off supply from SSPs and publishers that generate high QPS with low returns, DSPs have changed this balance. In this emerging environment, publishers may find that peppering the buy-side with bid requests could get them blocked from critical sources of advertiser spend.

It’s a well-documented fact that modest bid requests and high margins are two things DSPs love—and they love them, even more, when they come together. At its core, traffic shaping seeks to optimize for both of these things. Traffic shaping results continue to suggest that traffic shaping can preserve nearly all existing publisher revenue.

Even better—once QPS limits become less of a guiding factor—publishers will be free to build competitive differentiation in powerful new ways.

“It’s exciting to us, [publishers], that we might be able to compete with other publishers on the quality of the ad experience and other aspects rather than QPS,” said Patrick McCann, Senior Vice President of Product/Data at CafeMedia. 

Concern #2: Traffic Shaping Is Not a High-priority Investment

In a complex industry that also has evolving brand safety, identity, and ad fraud challenges to contend with on a daily basis, it’s often the same DevOps team responsible for tackling all of these issues. As a result, traffic shaping tends to quickly fall down the to-do list.

“Traffic shaping is not a high priority for an SSP, because—let’s face it—they don’t view it as an existential crisis,” said Benjamin Hansz, Vice President of Strategy at Rivr. “If an SSP doesn’t have the best traffic shaping, a DSP will still buy from them. But the moment an SSP fails to account for a growing fraud or brand safety concern? Revenues will dry up within 24 hours.”

However, this is a risky approach. Why? Because it risks devaluing bids over time, which could quickly lead to a fallout with publishers who wish to maximize the return on their available inventory. For this reason, waiting until traffic shaping becomes a bigger issue may mean waiting until it’s too late—when publishers have already moved on to someone else.

Concern #3: Traffic Shaping Is a Product Challenge for SSPs

This final concern stems from the previous one. If an SSP doesn’t have the bandwidth to tackle traffic shaping challenges right now, but also can’t afford not to, what can they do?

When the team at GumGum encountered this very problem, they didn’t like the options. Skipping out on traffic shaping altogether seemed like a good way to anger their DSP partners, but finding the internal staff hours to solve this complicated challenge wasn’t an option either. In their case, finding the expertise and bandwidth they needed to get traffic shaping right required turning to a third-party solution.

“A product like Rivr, even though we could spend a lot of time internally building a traffic shaping solution—as a lot of other SSPs have done—we didn’t feel like that should be our core competency,” said GumGum CTO Ken Weiner. “We could have built it if there wasn’t an option, but this seemed like a more efficient use of our time and capabilities.”

Pushback to a third-party traffic shaping solution tends to revolve around the belief that SSPs should prioritize investment in proprietary competitive advantages. But traffic shaping’s role in the ad tech ecosystem is too fundamental to the ecosystem’s future success to continue to ignore. As the industry hurtles toward its brave, new, less cookie-dependent future, the nature of programmatic trading and auction dynamics will only grow more complex.

 Traffic shaping is an investment in a more productive and profitable future for the advertising ecosystem—one that meets DSP needs for reduced bid requests and maximizes publisher revenue. For that reason, it’s also a challenge that is perfectly tailored for a third-party solution that benefits publishers, DSPs—and every step in between.

The post The Future—and Present—of Bidstream Efficiency Lies with Traffic Shaping appeared first on AdMonsters.

Initially hit by the pandemic, programmatic started to rebound again in May as consumer buying, viewing, and browsing behavior shifted inline with their stay-at-home status to an all-digital diet.

But as the third-party tracking cookie nears its demise, privacy regulations ramp-up and browser-and-OS led privacy-forward initiatives increase, programmatic has an ever greater opportunity to prove its mettle in driving efficiency and ROI for marketers.

And for publishers, in a post-cookie world, their first-party data could provide a deeper understanding of a known user and context leading to a stronger understanding of the value of their inventory, with the ability to optimize campaigns resulting in healthier performance.

We had a chat with IPONWEB‘s Publisher Product Lead Wenda Zhou to talk about the current state of programmatic, from header optimization tricks for pubs during the downturn to the effects of de-duping auctions, traffic shaping and SPO.

Gavin Dunaway: As ad spend still seems to be a shadow of its pre-pandemic self, what are some straightforward header optimization tricks publishers should be employing to grab what they can? 

Wenda Zhou: An easy and effective way for publishers to maximize revenue coming through the header is to ensure their ad slot layout is configured in an optimal way that combines high levels of viewability with good page performance, while also giving bidders the ability to make it back to the wrapper within the timeout windows.

One way to do this is to break ad units into groups and make separate calls to header partners according to a slot’s position on the page. For example, units at the top of the page should definitely be called first and a tight timeout should be applied, as there’s not a lot of time for the bidder to respond before the user begins to scroll. For slows toward the middle or bottom of the page, there is more time for a bidder to respond so it makes sense to send a separate request for that group of slots with a longer timeout. Publishers who send a single request for all slots on the page are definitely leaving some money on the table.

GD: Has the programmatic space truly seen the impact of de-duping auctions a la the Trade Desk’s demands? Will other DSPs follow suit?

WZ: In short, no. Traffic duplication (and the effort to minimize it) first came into focus about three years ago, with single-source duplication. This has mostly been cleaned up with minimal impact to the wider industry. More recently, traffic duplication is being evaluated on the buy-side from two perspectives: across multiple supply sources (seeing the same impression opportunity from multiple SSPs); and single-source cross-relational partnerships such as  Google’s open bidding (OB) and Amazon’s Transparent Ad Marketplace (TAM).

The Trade Desk’s recent announcement was based on the latter, its point being that a single source shouldn’t simultaneously be attempting to monetize the same impressions through its direct path to the DSP as well as through other exchanges. The SSP should select its preferred path for each supply source and only provide an impression opportunity to the DSP through that selected path (which may not be the most direct one).

This is actually the easier of the two forms of duplication to identify and prevent. Given that the two most prominent instances of this type of duplication are through OB and TAM (Google and Amazon), however, it’s unlikely many other DSPs will take this stance. And while The Trade Desk might have benefitted from lower hardware and listening costs as a result of less duplication, we have not heard of a massive impact to trading across the board, though it’s likely some SSPs will have been impacted more than others.

Addressing multi-source duplication will actually have a much larger impact on trading, if and when DSPs figure out how to address it. If a DSP plans on limiting all access to an impression opportunity to one SSP, this may cause serious issues with scale/delivery and will drastically shift the supply landscape to a few clear “winners.”

GD: How is traffic shaping changing how publishers monetize (and how buyers buy)?

WZ: As publishers have become more selective in their demand partners, many have started to turn off SSPs that don’t yield significant incremental revenue. Traffic shaping has become one of the ways for SSPs to secure a seat in the publisher’s header by efficiently leveraging their demand connections to focus on the inventory that will yield a higher win-rate. On the buy-side, DSPs have become more selective in choosing the most favorable supply paths with the best inventory mix and cost structure for their advertisers.

Many DSPs have upgraded their buying algorithms to account for traffic filtering or shifted their media buys to private marketplaces (PMPs) to gain more direct access to a publisher’s inventory. We have seen traffic shaping mostly applied on less supply-constrained inventory types, like desktop and mobile web. Big screen inventory formats like video on connected TV (CTV) remain unaffected. Similar to supply path optimization (SPO), traffic shaping is another opportunity for publishers to initiate conversations with buyers, namely agencies and DSPs, to discuss how to form a deeper partnership that benefits both sides with more direct access to premium supply, with maximum transparency and cost efficiencies.

GD: SPO—programmatic savior or tearing the ecosystem apart?

WZ: Depending on who is asked, there will almost certainly be a difference of opinion about SPO’s utility and value to the ecosystem. Those on the receiving end who have been pruned by agency buyers or a DSP that uses machine-learning-based buying models to determine the most cost-effective path to inventory might think that we were better off without SPO. Nonetheless, the aim of SPO is to boost overall ecosystem health through cleaner, more efficient pipes to quality media that is brand safe and fraud-free.

Taking this as the starting point, SPO can be seen to benefit any player that adds value to the supply chain. For agencies, this means working closely with DSP, SSP, and publisher partners to find supply paths that are clean, performative, ads.txt and privacy compliant, brand-safe—and that give them a competitive edge over other buyers.

For publishers, SPO should be seen as an opportunity to instruct buy-side partners about their preferred supply paths, namely the ones that restore as much ad spend to working media, but potentially also the ones that create minimal financial risk. In this case, SPO wouldn’t be the savior of programmatic but it would help to reset the playing field around real value generation and restore some sense of balance and control between buyers and sellers.

GD: The open programmatic ecosystem has been squeezed by the walled gardens for some time now—what’s it going to take for that to turn around? Is a second expansion merely a pipe dream?

WZ: Where programmatic is still yet to achieve its greatest potential is within the realm of data. Data is very much the lifeblood of the walled gardens, and, if the open web is to compete effectively (and thereby spur a second expansion of programmatic), then agencies, brands, and publishers need to be able to trade on proprietary data within the privacy-safe environment that the new regulatory constraints have (rightly) mandated. Central to this is resolving the identity (ID) conundrum, which is the lynchpin of the supply chain as we know it today, given its impact on independent publisher business models, as well as its role in enabling brands and agencies to independently track and measure campaign effectiveness.

Considering how rapidly standards around open RTB trading emerged at the turn of the last decade, followed by the hugely complex media trading systems that leveraged these standards, there’s no doubt the identity issue will be solved. However, this time around, the resolve to find a solution that meets the online ad industry’s needs (as well as growing calls for consumer privacy) will need to be a collective one that is rooted in the belief that the open Internet must remain free and be powered by advertising delivered by the many, not the few.

GD: With the third-party tracking cookie still heading toward its demise, where is IPONWEB placing its bets on a replacement technology?

WZ: Across all our businesses, including BidSwitch and The MediaGrid, we are actively exploring solutions and working with industry bodies like the IAB project Rearc and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to determine both possible and optimal solutions to achieve privacy-compliant addressability and accountability at the user level.

Some of these solutions include: leveraging first-party cookie or publisher level unique ID, contextual targeting, user consented targeting/tracking, parsing trading and user tracking information in an anonymized non-resolvable fashion—the list goes on.

The post IPONWEB on the State of Programmatic appeared first on AdMonsters.

As an industry operating in real-time, at billions of transactions every second, efficiency and performance are key. We only have to look at The Trade Desk’s call for bid deduplication—and the reasons behind it—to see that ad operations plays an important role in improving both the workings of programmatic advertising and as a result, the buyer/seller relationship. 

The questions become: How can we improve ad operations for a better ecosystem? And what tools can we introduce to support infrastructure in a way that builds a bridge between supply and demand, making sure that both sides are happy with the outcome?  

That’s where traffic shaping and machine learning come in. 

Using machine learning for better traffic shaping can mean huge strides forward for healthier ad operations, the future of the programmatic ecosystem and two-sided bid optimization. 

But, traffic shaping itself needs to be well understood and approached in a meaningful way to achieve its full potential. 

We sat down with Benjamin Hansz, Vice President Strategy for Simplaex’s Rivr, to discuss traffic shaping.

Gavin Dunaway: What is traffic shaping? 

Benjamin Hansz: In the world of programmatic advertising, traffic shaping refers to the practice of selecting a subset of requests to process based on various signals either within the auction data itself or by enriching it with data from outside the auction process. 

When traffic shaping is applied to help an SSP determine which DSPs should receive a specific bid request, we call that Demand Selection. This helps deal with a problem that plagues all sides of the programmatic ecosystem: noise. Referring to the requests sent but not answered, or wasted, and contributing to bottlenecks and compromised margins for the supply partners sending the bid requests out and the demand partners receiving them.  

When executed correctly, bid requests are sent only to the relevant demand partners i.e. those who are most likely to participate in the auction in a meaningful fashion, as opposed to sending all requests to all partners. This has become increasingly important with the unpredictability of ad spend and the growth of header bidding that causes an overload of requests—fewer of which actually lead to impressions and revenue, and many of which are duplicate.

GD: How does it work?

BH: There are different ways to execute traffic shaping depending on the set up of the supply side party executing the auctions. Commonly, you’ll see the supply side either let QPS limitations determine which ad-requests and which bid-requests are processed, or select which demand partners to cut in bulk based on rules. Some might develop their own logic based on a couple of dimensions, such as country and device, to guide filtering (better, but time and effort consuming), or even better, implement tools, like Rivr, that plug into the bid stream to analyze the completed auctions and make recommendations based on specified features. 

For example, based only on the information from the bid stream (i.e. completed auction events), Rivr is able to establish which DSPs are most likely to bid and which can safely be removed without compromising revenue. Rivr does this all using audience level analysis, which acts as a translator, empowering both sides to understand the inventory and the audience that they’re trying to match. 

This is done by using higher value metrics, i.e. instead of looking at the ad format, device type and some contextual clues, audience analysis delivers each demand campaign based on similar audience types displayed by the desired behavior to previous ads (i.e. clicks, views, etc). This allows for media-agnostic optimization and a better understanding of the traffic in question.

The resulting reduction in bid requests sent—an industry range of 30%-60%—has a direct impact on infrastructure costs, performance and efficiency, all while retaining practically all revenue. 

GD: Why use a traffic shaping tool? 

BH: “Waste” or unanswered bid requests currently account for an obscene portion of most bid streams. Over 90%. This “waste” places strain on SSP performance and has monetary implications—including server resource costs—that hurt a company’s bottom line. Traffic shaping tools cut this waste drastically and have a positive impact on the entire equation. 

Traffic shaping allows the supply side to expedite auctions, and simply put, make more from less. A few of the high-level benefits include:  

1. • Infrastructure cost savings as a result of fewer requests to process. 
   • Higher quality traffic: improved relationship with DSPs due to sending only relevant traffic to each relevant partner. 
   • Increase in revenue per 1M bid requests which increases efficiency for both sides. We’ve been seeing 24% uplift. 
   • Improved DSP-SSP relationship: the demand partners gets more relevant traffic as well as cost savings for a healthier relationship.
   • Internal efficiency: savings in time & energy for the SSP employees for them to focus on USPs. The benefit is moving it off a roadmap and into reality.

GD: What does traffic shaping have to do with Supply Path Optimization (SPO)?

BH:  Supply Path Optimization, put in very simple terms, is a way for the demand side to take back some control and streamline operations. For example, many demand partners have made moves to decrease costs by cutting out underperforming traffic sources, reducing the number of intermediaries in an auction, making calls for deduplication and other improvements for efficiency. 

Traffic shaping helps to create a cleaner path to placement and improve the outcome for both auctions by doing the work of cutting out the ‘dead weight’ in the programmatic supply chain. 

GD: What is the impact of traffic shaping on the supply-demand relationship? 

BH: When done right, the impact of traffic shaping ultimately strengthens the supply-demand relationship by making it more efficient. One way to interpret the end goal of traffic shaping is that it optimizes the deal flow between the buy-side and sell-side. When all the noise is stripped away, the supply side is able to present the demand side with the opportunities it’s genuinely interested in. 

Now, whether a specific demand partner actually bids, and is successful is another matter. Put another way, by stripping away all the dross, traffic shaping allows supply and demand to get straight to business. 

GD: Is there an impact on revenue with traffic shaping?

BH: Depends how you look at it, and how you play it. It’s possible to do traffic shaping (i.e. cutting out waste) without sacrificing any revenue. However, in practice, it’s not unreasonable that there may be a small revenue sacrificed. 

Also, there does come a point when it may be desirable to sacrifice some revenue to significantly increase the reduction in data and server costs, e.g. for sources of high volume, low-value traffic. It all comes back to how the trade-off between lost revenue and cost savings looks in each unique setup.

This ‘sweet spot’ where the savings and efficiencies far outweigh the revenue impacted, will be different for everyone and is determined with our partners on a case by case basis. 

GD: What has been the pushback from other industry partners about SSPs employing traffic shaping?

BH: It’s a matter of trust. Some DSPs may prefer to see “all the data” for fear of being left out of pockets of traffic they think are worth it. Or of the greater fear that the DSP’s own algorithms/selection criteria may be gamed by the SSPs. Some publishers may also want to get their ad requests in front of every possible demand partner, and hearing that their SSP is employing traffic shaping may lead them to think they’re missing out. 

At the end of the day, ultimate KPI for both scenarios is the result—i.e. when the DSP gets better quality traffic or the publisher gets better revenue.

GD: What can an SSP expect from an out-of-the-box traffic shaping tool? 

BH: You should expect three things:

Time to market:  an average SSP could easily spend a year or more developing the most basic traffic shaping tool. By contrast, an off-the-shelf solution should be up and running in a month or two.

Adaptability:  as each SSP has its own idiosyncratic infrastructure, by necessity, a solution provided by a third party would be extremely flexible in how it works within the existing process and auction logic of that SSP. Thus it basically becomes native to the auction set up as the models learn 

Best in class solution: a third-party vendor would have the advantage of sharing best practices across different industry partners. While most companies hire talent from industry peers, the insights and knowledge those hires bring from their peers begins to age from their first day. 

A third-party that is actively engaged with a number of industry peers, not only is able to share the best learnings across a wider range, but also execute practices that are the most up to date.

The post What Is Traffic Shaping? appeared first on AdMonsters.

“But take that a step further—how do we get the right piece of inventory with the right person at the right time to the bidder?” he continued. “Is that a pipe dream—or a necessity as infrastructure costs and buy-side cries for waste reduction and de-duplication mount?”

The supply-side partners in the discussion group seemed to lean toward “necessity.” As the conversation progressed, it became clear that the relationship between SSPs and DSPs was central to a solution. The antiquated idea that SSPs are publisher defenders and DSPs are buyer advocates has created a gulf—one might say a black hole of pricing machinations and Russian-Doll-style auctions that threatens to suck away the benefits of the open ecosystem entirely.

Key to bridging that gap—or plugging the black hole—is traffic shaping.

Adversaries or Allies?

Historically, the relationship between the DSPs and SSPs has been complex and somewhat adversarial—DSPs help advertisers find their most desirable audiences at the lowest price point, while SSPs want to help publishers reach the highest bidder and best monetize their inventory. But the rise of header bidding eclipsed the waterfall and vastly changed the nature of the relationship between SSPs and both buyers and sellers.

For instance, DSPs no longer have to work with various SSPs just to make sure they’re at the top of different publishers’ waterfalls. Meanwhile, publishers can expect better results by working with many SSPs simultaneously and opening up new avenues of demand. Individual SSPs lost a lot of the power they had with publishers back in the waterfall days and found themselves in greater competition for demand. This has somewhat commoditized supply, leading to massive duplications of auctions, and all the nasty infrastructure costs that follow.

With the amount of DSPs rapidly shrinking and SSPs increasingly appealing directly to buyers and agencies, the working relationship between DSPs and SSPs has become even further strained. There’s a lot of frustration over how roles are defined between DSPs and SSPs when it comes to bid optimization, particularly as the industry made the leap from second-price to first-price auctions.

The switch came along awkwardly, with many SSPs admittedly not being transparent about when first-price auctions were employed. To avoid over-paying for inventory, bid shading emerged as a standard practice for buyers—in effect, we’re still using second-price tools for a first-price world.

The lack of transparency and pricing gamesmanship are holding back progress in programmatic and sustaining the outdated adversarial relationship. As the walled gardens close in on the open programmatic space, SSPs and DSPs need to become more allied, thinking less about their proximity to publishers or buyers, but focusing on enriching the benefits of the open marketplace.

“One of the big challenges is that algorithmic optimization is, by definition, not transparent,” said Tom Kershaw, CTO, Magnite (fka Rubicon Project/Telaria). “But I think the idea that we should get rid of algorithmic optimization and go back to manual configurations through UIs is not an option for our industry. The ship has sailed on that—we are going to be in an algorithmically optimized environment. And if we’re not, we’re not going to be here. So we have to figure out a way to do that in a transparent manner.”

United by Traffic Shaping

On the road to transparency, one of the strategies that marketers and agencies are steadily employing is Supply Path Optimization (SPO), which entails finding or negotiating a direct path to supply by cutting out unnecessary intermediaries and reducing duplication.

But many see SPO as a weaponized transactional approach that can cut out competitors without the greatest benefit to publishers or advertisers—it almost echoes old waterfall tactics. SPO also puts a burden on the algorithm-reliant DSPs because of a lot of manual decision-making, and necessitates a fair deal of negotiation.

Traffic shaping is an alternative practice that has been cropping up in the ad tech lexicon as a method for increasing efficiencies between the supply and demand sides. For example, Rivr’s AI-powered traffic-shaping tech plugs into the SSP stack to dynamically reduce waste for both SSPs and DSPs by optimizing the exchange to hand-pick bidders based on audience-level analysis and the demand side’s intent to bid.

CTO Moti Tal mentioned that Rivr predicts which bidders are most likely to result in success per individual auction, and then sends the request only to the fitting demand partners, compacting the bid stream and reducing waste to all parties involved.

The group suggested there are two types of traffic shaping: automated and explicit. While explicit controls can create transparency for the buy side, it’s a great deal of work to make sure campaigns are adapting to the realities of the bidstream while also meeting requirements. Explicit controls are not always beneficial to DSPs as it may disrupt their ability to fulfill campaigns in an efficient manner.

What’s more important—and which often gets lost in the quest for transparency—is that the goals of the models are transparent rather than the models themselves. And the goals are more straightforward: maximizing spend, minimizing the bid required to win, etc.

The conversation made clear that the traffic-shaping onus falls squarely on the SSP. But using algorithms or machine-learning-driven tools to direct ad calls to the most relevant bidders both increases efficiencies and avoids the “unfair” aspects of SPO.

Publishers Get Realistic

Header bidding opened the auction floodgates, increasing the QPS weight for DSPs and competition among SSPs. As publishers integrate a slew of partners into their headers, there’s an expectation that every piece of inventory, no matter the quality, will be available to any and every advertiser.

Publishers count on bid density to drive up CPMs, and traffic shaping could put a dent in that practice. But it’s high time publishers understand that the trillions of ongoing auctions simply isn’t sustainable. The infrastructure costs to support publishers’ Manifest Destiny will drive their monetization partners out of business, forcing them to be further indentured to the walled gardens—and incur higher fees to add insult to injury.

At first, it may be hard for publishers to accept, and once again it will fall on SSPs to show how traffic shaping is working toward their clients’ benefit—namely driving them to high bidders. But this is the burden of playing an increasingly prominent role in a transforming industry—with the right tools, SSPs are going to force all players in the space to come together.

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Acxiom—previously the Acxiom Marketing Services division of LiveRamp, which was spun off and sold to IPG in 2018—will be injecting its treasure trove of consumer data on the supply side. Yeah, you heard that right—we’re all very used to advertisers searching for users across the exchanges based on their own data stores and relying on cookie syncs, but injecting a variety of data types into the exchange makes for sharper and more efficient targeting. The solution seems to leverage identity concepts but the end-publisher doesn’t need to be hooked into an identity solution—which is useful for pubs lacking scores of authenticated traffic.

You can bet I was fascinated by this setup and wanted a better understanding of how it works. Kristen Williams, VP of Strategic Partnerships at SpotX, and John Baudino, SVP of Digital Data at Acxiom, were happy to oblige.

GAVIN DUNAWAY: So how exactly does this work? Does Acxiom need to partner with publishers? 

KRISTEN WILLIAMS: No, Acxiom does not need to partner with the publishers directly. SpotX’s deep relationship with media owners allows for the Acxiom audience mapping on the supply side, as a result of this integration.

GD: Is Acxiom syncing IDs within the auction, somewhat akin to an identity solution?

JOHN BAUDINO: Yes, Acxiom is enabling customer based data strategies by onboarding our datasets to SpotX’s premium video publishers inventories. The partnership drives more filtered demand to media owners and enhances their engagement with advertisers who are focused on audience-based buying and wish to hone in on specific customers via well-curated and actionable first- and third-party audience data, across all devices and platforms. As a result of the partnership, advertisers will gain access to premium video inventory at scale via SpotX, as well as audience mapping and advanced forecasting and planning.

GD: What kind of data is Acxiom inserting—mainly demographic?

JB: All of Acxiom people-based data is available upon request to be activated in a secure and compliant manner on SpotX’s platform. We can help curate a full funnel data strategy for Agencies, Brands and Advertisers via our Audience Cloud Platform.

GD: Will this Acxiom product be open to agencies outside of IPG, which owns Acxiom?

KW: Yes, the product will be available to agencies outside of IPG.

GD: What are the chief benefits to publishers besides potentially higher CPMs?

KW: CPMs are indeed higher when audience targeting is applied but this is opening up demand that wasn’t available before. Publishers and media owners will also have the benefit of more filtered demand that is specific to their audiences via well-curated and actionable first- and third-party data. This, in turn, improves their engagement with advertisers overall and creates a more personalized and relevant viewer experience.

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