Is Server Side Header Bidding the future of Header Bidding?

Is Server Side Header Bidding the future of Header Bidding?

By now most of the publisher have already tested the Header bidding solution and they have now full faith in the concept. It has already started generating lot of revenue for publishers.The buzz around it shows that some publishers are starting to consider it as a custom yield-optimising solution in order to drive maximum return.

But the cons like latency has always been raising a question on the future of Header Bidding. So all leading players like Google, Rubicon, PubMatic etc have been trying to come up with a solution to resolve it. Google Opens Up Dynamic Allocation To Outside Demand and is on verge of launching exchange bidding solution for publishers.


But the surprise has come via Amazon as they are rumored to be launching a product into this space in a bid to take on Google.The product is a header wrapper which will handle requests server side in the cloud, rather than from the site visitor’s browser, this has the benefit of reducing latency, which should increase ad performance & monetisation.

The server side approach is same approach that DFP’s Exchange Bidding In Dynamic Allocation (EBDA) uses. Publishers can use the new product to move all their header partners’ server-side, just like EBDA in DFP. But unlike Google, Amazon has no intention to act as a clearing house. It will let publishers and tech companies interact with themselves completely. Publishers will have sepearte contract with these tech companies and tech companies will pay directly to publishers. Also the solution is much cheaper and with the cost being a penny CPM. It is quite low than what publishers are paying as ad serving fee.

Ad requests will be handled on the server instead of in consumers' browsers, which may mean less lag time loading web pages. The entire auction process will occur in the cloud. So publishers biggest worry about header bidding (i.e Latency) will be take care of via such solution. So it will be a win win situation for adtech vendors and publishers both.

Location based Advertising is the Future of Mobile Advertising

Why should you adopt location based advertising in your mobile marketing strategy

As the number of smartphone users has increased phenomenally, these devices have become an extension of users who carry their mobile phones everywhere they go – stressing the importance, utility and functionality of location based services for advertising enabling advertisers to send personalized messages to people based on their location.

Locally, many retail stores have tapped into the location based Beacon technology to reinvent the relationship between constantly on-the-phone shoppers and the retail stores. Based on information about your location, your smartphone shows you related offers, discounts, products or deals pertaining to the section of the store you are skimming – definitely more engaging than the traditional retail shopping experience. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Location based services are the future of marketing, especially mobile marketing. Remember how Starbucks increased its revenue simply by switching to mobile coupons instead of print?

There is no way a mobile marketing campaign can ignore location-based advertising and here’s why you must adopt this approach in your mobile marketing strategy:

Personalized messages – Users prefer personalized messages over the one-fits-all approach and location based applications provide indispensable data about user behavior. With location based mobile analytics, it is possible to send across the right message at the right time to attract real time users, as Of course, you will target users only in a certain area demarcated by you, which means that your advertisement will not appear on thousands of other smartphones, but it also means more impactful advertising because any user would prefer to know about offers in their vicinity rather than those applicable on stores 100 kms away.

Real time advertising – Location based data is shared real time. This means advertisers can reach out to people when they are most likely to act upon the advertisement. Retail stores employing Beacons, as mentioned in the introduction, is an example of very effective real time mobile advertising.

Targeted ads – Location based advertising helps advertisers share relevant data with users, minimizing bad user experience. It is a known fact that users expect to see advertisements on mobile, but when these advertisements are targeted, there are lesser chances of users blocking the ad or getting irritated.

Location based advertising is the way forward for mobile advertising. However, advertisers must move forward with caution as mobile devices also handle a lot of sensitive data and maintaining user privacy is utmost when you decide to tap in to the power of location based services.

Why you should be using out-stream video ads

The video advertising budget is going to grow to around $15 billion by 2020. This brings in need for publisher and creative agencies to come up with new video ad formats. The most famous of the latest ad formats is outstream video ads. Some people do call it as Native/ in read video ad unit. It is available on desktop and mobile as well. It is available on desktop in two ad sizes (640x480 or 640x360 &300x250) and on mobile (mweb& app) its available in ad size 300x250. The format has been widely accepted by all leading publishers and advertsiers. It is highly viewable ad units and marketers are getting higher ROI on it. These ad units are embedded in article.This means if you’re reading an article on, any site, you will see an auto-play video. If you scroll down, the video will stop and leave your field of vision. If you want to listen, there’s a button to unmute it or sometimes if you scroll above the video then it gets unmuted itself.


As we know that the reach and connectivity of digital video advertising provides marketers with improved scope for engagement. Also consumers are cutting their ties to traditional media and turning to digital video for discovery, entertainment and brand awareness. BI Intelligence reports that in 2016, digital video will reach nearly $5 billion in ad revenue due to developing delivery channels, amplified engagement and the highest average click-through rate (1.84 percent) of any digital format.

The video advertising budget is going to grow to around $15 billion by 2020. But at the same time publishers do not have that much video inventory to cater the need of advertsiers as a result of which they have launched outstream video ads. It gets open in front of users which they are reading an article. Its now users choice if they want to veiw this ad or not. But if the video ad ha been targeted with the audience targeting then there is high probability that the user is going to view and enagage. For example if Adidas shows a ad of its newly launched sports shoe to someone who is a sports lover then there is high probability that user is going to view it for sure. Many advsertisers are considering it to be far more superior than traditional pre roll or instream ads. Because the user is going to consume video content and a pre or mid roll ad acts as a hinderence to him. It may annoy the user. It is not the case with outstream.

Reasons for advertisers to spend on outstream video ads.

• High viewability (They are designed to be 100 percent viewable)
• High View through rate
• High CTR
• Better Brand Recall
• Target users based on behavioral,contextual or semantic targeting data
• Better brand awareness compared to prerolls
• Only deploying and playing when the unit is onscreen

Reasons for advertisers to spend on outstream video ads.

• Publishers that didn’t used to offer mid- and pre-roll inventory now can do so.
• Act as an additional source of $$ for publishers
• Available inventory isn’t meeting demand
• Out-stream brings scale to video
• Out-stream offers new contextual opportunities

Viewability: The Great Display debate!

Viewability: The Great Display debate!

Everyone has been talking about moving to viewable impressions for years. If it happens in 2016 then the oldest model of buying and selling impressions Cost Per Thousand impressions (CPM) will get replaced by viewable Cost Per Thousand impressions (vCPM). It will add lot of value for brand and advertisers as it will add more transparency and protection for brands from wasting money.

Currently around half of display ad impressions can’t be seen, which has been a cause for concern among online advertisers who are not sure they’re getting fair deal out of their advertising $$$. Viewability is quickly becoming an important metric for checking campaign performance and the value of online advertising, since an ad that isn’t seen has no value. They will neither ad to CTR nor CPL etc. So buyers want to purchase only viewable impressions. But currently the advertising model is such that buyers does not have a choice. They have to buy impressions which is of no use to them. But in past one year tolla and techniques have been build around the world to measure the viewablility. So before digging deeper into vewability lets see what does viewablility actually stands for?

IAB defines a “viewable” impression as one that's at least 50 percent visible for at least 1 second. But its scary for many publishers because they will loose the revenue coming out of BTF ad slots. And BTF ad slots generally contributes to 50% of their revenue. Publishers can only overcome this loss by either taking these BTF ad slots under viewable range or either by increasing the cost of ATF slot by double. But increasing the rate will not guarantee flow of deals. And even advertisers might refuse to pay higher cost of the ad slots which he has been purchasing at lower rates. And also taking BTF ad slots under viewable range might lead to loss of users. So publishers will need to rethink and redesign their strategy and website too.

The major advertising giants like Google and Facebook have started to offer their customers the ability to pay only when their ads become viewable. So its high time for publishers to start thinking about viewability. As majority of their advertising $$ comes via Google and Facebook. Also all other DSP'S have also started to pay higher $$ if viewability score is being passed. MRC has been evaluating and accrediting the viewability technologies of ad tech firms and has approved 11 vendors: RealVu, comScore vCE-Validation, DoubleVerify, Google Active View, spider.io, Integral Ad Science, Alenty, Sizmek, Moat, WebSpectator for Publishers and Glam Media.So if publishers can have tie up with any of these vendors then they pass viewability score for each and every impression. Publishers can use this viewability score and pass this score to DSP'S in the bid request. It will help DSP'S to evaluate the viewability state of impressions being bought. And DSP'S tends to pay higher ecpm's if viewability score is being passed in bid request being send to them.

Despite of so many efforts from MRC and IAB we are no where close to implementing vCPM model of buying and selling impressions. Below are the main reasons due to which vCPM model does not seems to be existing in near future.

1. Lack of consistency around what a “viewable impression” actually is and what technology could measure its viewability.
2. Vendors offering viewability solutions use various different methods and technologies to establish whether impressions meet those criteria or not.
3. Wide discrepancies between vendors.

Viewability is the common denominator that will solve these negative practices in the Programmatic industry. Transacting on viewable impressions will surely influence marketers to spend more advertising $$ on digital advertising.