1. From Hack to Holistic Approach
Header-Bidding:
From Hack to Holistic Approach
Presented by
Emry DowningHall
General Manager

2. Why this tech has grown so quickly
Header-Bidding auction mechanics
Latency and how to approach it
Price flooring and why it’s critical
Wrappers
Best practices: level up
What’s next for header-bidding?

3. Header-Bidding
Tagless Ad-Tech

4. 100,000,000 STUDENTS WORLDWIDE USE OUR FAMILY OF WEBSITES AS READING, WRITING AND CRITICAL THINKING SOLUTIONS

5. Largest revenue driver in 2016
Header-Bidding % of total revenue
From one enabled partner in to seven and counting 3%
2014
From manual to automated DFP line item setup
24%
From placed on the page to home brewed framework
2015
43%
From no-timeout to controlled timeout
Largest revenue driver in 2016
2016

6. Why is header-bidding growing so quickly?
Dynamic Allocation
Vs.

7. Why is header-bidding growing so quickly?
Increases the value of inventory
Increases dynamic competition
Growth Drivers
Encourages unique demand
Easier to monitor discrepancy
Eliminates passbacks

8. Auction Dynamics: Bid Entry
INDEX
Enabled partners pass bids into a publishers mediation layer
Each enabled partner runs a 2nd price auction within their exchange
Bids must be returned before timeout occurs
OpenX
AOL
AppNexus
SOVRN
Timeout 1200 MS

9. Publisher Mediation Layer
Auction Dynamics: Publisher Mediation Layer
INDEX
$5.50 bid
Publisher Mediation Layer
1st price auction
OpenX
$4.00 bid
AOL
$3.00 bid
AppNexus
$2.00 bid
SOVRN
$5.75 bid

10. Auction Dynamics: DFP Mediation Layer
This process sets a more effective floor price for AdX. Minimizing auction spread and increasing performance.
Cuts the bid disparity of a non-header setup due to pricing granularity. This is why you need so many line items.
Dynamic pricing enables appropriate bid levels for high and low valued inventory.
DFP Mediation Layer
2nd price auction
$5.75 bid

11. Auction Dynamics: DFP Mediation Layer
This process sets a more effective floor price for AdX. Minimizing auction spread and increasing performance.
Cuts the bid disparity of a non-header setup due to pricing granularity. This is why you need so many line items.
Dynamic pricing enables appropriate bid levels for high and low valued inventory.
DFP Mediation Layer
2nd price auction
$5.75 bid

12. Latency: Fighting the Good Fight
Page latency negatively impacts:
Billable inventory
User experience
Viewability
Fight latency with:
Async integrations
Testing different timeouts
Limiting partners

13. So what? Why does that matter?
Pricing: You’re Being Floored
The vast majority of header partners use publisher specific price floors to optimize and apply bid pressure on their advertising partners.
So what? Why does that matter?
Floors too high: Partner may not bid deep into page sessions
Floors too low: Partner wont be competitive for ‘first look’ inventory

14. Pricing: You’re Being Floored
Ask your partners how your inventory is being floored
Anonymize and share bid data
Flooring Best Practices
Diversify floor pricing where available
Push for dynamic pricing

15. Let’s talk about rappers

16. rappers wrappers No market leader: Why? Choice paralysis
Difficult to test multiple solutions
Partners don’t play nicely with one another
Misinformation amongst partners and publishers
Do you need a wrapper solution to be successful?

17. The Levels of Header-Bidding
Level 1: Getting Started
Level II: Power Up
Level III: Flight
Async integrations
Tracking impression/revenue discrepancy vs. DFP
Dynamic price floors/timeouts
Price priority line items
More granular line item setup
A/B testing
All bid values are net
Static timeout enforced
Throttling partners
Examine what revenue impact new partners provide
A sense of partner(s) flooring strategy
Bid multipliers
A sense of average CPM per pageview
Unified reporting
Throttling partners: The ability to cut or add partners based on performance per user session.
Bid multipliers: Applying a multiple to a partner’s bid to increase its chances of winning the impression.
Unified reporting: Automated insights into partner performance, including latency and percentage of revenue. This is used for determining what dynamic bid floors to pass.

18. What’s next for header?
Alleviating the publisher complexities required to play
Server to server integrations
Automated data collection
Defined strategies for handling many partners
Google’s response? It wont be ‘First Look’

19. THANK YOU!
QUESTIONS?
@EDH5

20. DATA SLIDES WERE NOT INCLUDED IN PRESENTATION

21. Key metrics for ad performance
Measurement
What does it measure?
Formula
Real CPM
CPM based on total impressions, not paid
Revenue / (total impressions / 1,000)
Revenue per 1,000 pageviews
Revenue earned for every 1,000 pageviews
Revenue / (total pageviews / 1,000)
Revenue per 1,000 sessions
Revenue earned for every 1,000 sessions
Revenue / (total sessions / 1,000)
Pageviews per session
Average pageviews seen per user session
Pageviews / Sessions
Impressions per pageview
Average impressions seen per pageview shown
Impressions total / Pageviews
Ad type SOV
Percentage of total revenue per ad type Ex. Header, AdX, Rich-Media
Ad type rev total / Total rev

22. Header-Bidding: metrics to monitor
Measurement
What does it measure
Formula
DFP impression total vs. partner impression total
Impression discrepancy
Partner imp / DFP imp
DFP revenue vs. partner revenue
Revenue discrepancy
Partner rev / DFP rev
Impression weight
% of total impressions HB partner accounts for
Partner imp total / total header impressions
Revenue weight
% of total revenue HB partner accounts for
Partner rev total / Total header rev
Header-Bidding revenue vs. total revenue
% of total revenue header-bidding accounts for
HB rev total / Site rev total
Pageview vs. Impression growth
Difference between pageview and impression growth
abs(Imp growth % - Pageview growth %)