Best practices for getting your header setup and running optimally
Header bidding, the solution that allows multiple brands to simultaneously make their bid in programmatic for the same impression, has become a rare bright light for a for a segment of the industry that is going through a difficult adjustment period.
As you may know, header bidding was launched to the market in 2009 and has gained a critical mass of adoption in 2016. The good news is that publishers are driving this change. Frustrated by the lack of transparency and the lack of simultaneous competition for their inventory, publishers sought a way to get more competition in the stack by increasing the number of monetization partners and channels. Thus came the innovation of placing demand directly in the the header of the page — header bidding, as we know it, was born.
The header bidding solution increases competition between AdX and other SSPs and, as well chronicled in industry press, publishers have already witnessed a significant increase in revenue thanks to the use of these innovative solutions. Publishers have also increased control because they can now switch out poor performing partners very quickly and push SSPs to earn their way onto the publisher’s stack and earn their seat at the table day-to-day.
However, despite the growing adoption and revenue gains with this new technology, header bidding has its detractors among industry players that point out negative aspects of this technology such as increased latency and reduced user experience. Additionally, the average header bidding setup creates more complexity and data fragmentation for each publisher, putting more responsibility and work on already small teams.
To help publishers overcome these problems, we’ve pulled together a best practices guide that publishers can follow for this new technology. We call these best practices the “5 golden rules of header bidding”:
- Rule 1: Nailing the setup
- Rule 2: The Magic Number of Header partners
- Rule 3: The proper use of header bidding analytics
- Rule 4: Managing prices in a header bidding setup
Over the coming weeks, youll see the above topics adressed in the blog, so please don’t hesistate to subscribe to the blog!