Is Header Bidding a Good Fit for Your Programmatic Monetization Setup?

The global downturn caused by the COVID-19 outbreak can represent an opportunity for Digital Publishers to undertake a review of their current Programmatic setup. Observing the decline in advertising ad spendings, Publishers have begun to wonder whether they have been providing a sufficiently high and appropriately diversified demand for their own inventories; and header bidding has been very much to the fore when it comes to such considerations.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to monetize your website with header bidding technology, in a nutshell, it allows you to auction your ad space simultaneously between many ad exchanges (in contrast to “a waterfall”, where the query “falls” from one bidder to the next). There are a myriad of options for the technical implementation of header bidding. Therefore, the most important thing when weighing up such options is a consideration of the possibility of resources over-allocation – which is the main disincentive when working with many header-bidding solutions.

What is worth considering in advance?

Partnership Management.

Introducing a header bidding setup requires the established relationships with at least 3-4 (but more often 8-10) Sell-Side platforms. Their selection should not be accidental, but based on factors such as the quality of their advertising offer, their presence on the market (in geographical terms), and their responsiveness and proactivity in ensuring brand safety (in practice, the important day-to-day issue of blocking unwanted ads – the more precise the better). It is worth having a person with both technical and business competences to oversee the managing of such partnerships.

The alternative, which is outsourcing yield optimization to an agency, can be a time-saving option if your primary goal is not to keep all the monetization flowing through your very own tools.

Technical and Coding Resources.

With the classic header bidding setup, even the smallest change is related to a tampering with the scripts placed on the page. And considering our experience in monetizing Publishers – it would be unheard of for header bidding to be activated on a one-time basis, and without further changes. Common are changes such as short / long timeout tests, or the adding of new partners – and these are desirable changes needed to calibrate the tool that will maximize publisher profits.

When choosing the most suitable tool for Programmatic auctions, it is therefore worth checking how many man-hours per week your company can devote to development support; and whether you have a quick response system to react ad hoc if necessary. The specificity of advertising setups is the direct impact of any changes in trends on financial results. Therefore, if you know that difficulties may arise, and that ads generate a vital part of your revenue, it is worth paying attention to solutions like header bidding wrappers. They will allow you to manage much more on a yield management level, without involving other teams.

Transparency Issues.

In the previous article we mentioned that with the development of the Programmatic industry, companies have placed more emphasis on conducting their own in-house yield monetization activities, wherein issues such as transparency and data security are prioritized.

The Future of Header Bidding Monetization

The natural direction of the development of header bidding solutions has led to the creation of products that Publishers can successfully and easily integrate into their own existing advertising stack. The goal is to create solutions that will support the current team structures on the client side – made up of both business and tech employees. Our answer to this market need is QuickWrap, which combines a friendly interface with a functional header-bidding management console. If this suits your team’s needs, you can join our beta testers program.

And if you are considering another monetization header bidding solution in the programmatic model – don’t be afraid to reach out to our Yieldbird consultants!