Beyond U.S. v. Google: It’s time for ad exchanges to bid fairly in header bidding

It’s a startling statistic, but virtually all of Snopes’ advertising revenue comes from open market programmatic buyers. Midsize news publications like Snopes are better served investing in their journalists and expanding their content offerings than focusing on direct sales. Our leadership team has successfully grown this newsroom, and the newsroom at Salon before it, through the efficiency of a header-bidding-only revenue strategy.

Unfortunately, as the U.S. v. Google case laid bare, the potential for a truly pure and unadulterated auction for advertising inventory has yet to be realized for publishers and marketers alike. The success and sustainability of publications like Snopes have been hampered by the advantages that Google has maintained and exploited through its control of both the primary ad server, Google Ad Manager (formerly DoubleClick for Publishers), and one of the largest sources of programmatic demand — Google Ad Exchange.

Here’s what folks monetizing websites have taken as gospel for a decade or more: Google has the absolute advantage over us. Ad ops and revenue ops teams across the industry have witnessed firsthand the peculiarities of having the winning bid for an impression, from any number of header bidding participants, then be sent to Google’s ad server, where Google’s Ad Exchange gets a final, exclusive, uncontested chance at it. This is the main part of today’s ad tech infrastructure where change is most needed.

Google Ad Exchange demand must not be allowed to remain gated behind Google Ad Manager. Regardless of the outcome of U.S. v. Google, buyers and sellers alike must demand fairness and transparency in auction mechanics. No technical limitations exist for Google beyond giving up a vertically integrated advantage. The ad tech industry as a whole must call on Google Ad Exchange to bid at the same time as others, during the header bidding process, with a prebid adapter. This is not just an idealistic plea for fairness; it’s a rallying cry for the longevity of the open internet.

Should all revenue potential from programmatic advertisements be unshackled from Google Ad Manager, supply quality for display advertising on the web could improve materially. If advertisements were displayed at the end of the header bidding process, rather than necessitating further time for Ad Exchange to compete through Google’s ad server, viewability averages could improve in correlation with faster rendering speeds across the web. The opportunity cost of this structural inefficiency in the digital advertising market eats at margins for both buyers and sellers. The value in working media dollars and net revenue to publishers instead leaks to parties who have found opportunity in working around this inefficiency. Each of those workarounds degrades the potential for efficiency in buying through direct supply paths, while limiting buyer access to their desired inventory and audiences.

This reveals a glaring truth: Buyers who rely solely on deals are missing out on a massive opportunity for efficient access to premium inventory on the open market. There’s a treasure trove of inventory among premium publishers, trusted inventory sources, whose untapped supply paths are waiting to be unlocked. Marketers and agency strategists, I urge you to scrutinize the supply paths through which you are accessing publisher inventory today. This is the essence of sellers.json and ads.txt files: If the publisher is offering an impression opportunity directly via supply-side platform representation, as Snopes does, are you maximizing the purchasing power of your dollar by buying it elsewhere or otherwise? 

Publishers must look in the same mirror, now more than ever. What elements of an ad stack perpetuate this inefficiency? It’s not every quarter or even every year that publishers are able to overhaul their revenue strategies. In many cases, relationships and integration types are inherited and not reconsidered by successor revenue ops teams. How many resellers and associated ads.txt entries are adding confusion for buyers about your supply, and eroding the performance potential that should be inherent to your direct supply paths?

It’s time to rebuild with a level playing field. True transparency and efficiency via header bidding can only be achieved when all programmatic demand competes with equal privilege. Let’s unlock the full potential of the open market for publishers and marketers alike, and create a more equitable and prosperous open web for all.

This op-ed represents the views and opinions of the author and not of The Current, a division of The Trade Desk, or The Trade Desk. The appearance of the op-ed on The Current does not constitute an endorsement by The Current or The Trade Desk.