Third Party Ad Tags in Ad Serving

What are Third-Party Ad Tags?

An advertiser places their creatives (Or Tags) in a third party server like Sizmek, Double click, Flashtalking to serve ads to users instead of serving it directly from their server. 

These third parties have better tracking, reporting, re-targeting and optimization capabilities. Also have reports like, path to conversion, reach & frequency reports. 

The same ad tag can be placed on multiple ad inventory space on different websites and apps. Hence easy to make creative changes in one place, do A/B tests, track Viewability and engagement. 

Header Bidding for publishers

What is Header Bidding?

It allows publishers to offer inventory to multiple ad-exchanges simultaneously before an ad-call is made.

Why do we need Header bidding?

Created to increase the yield for publishers. In the Waterfall method inventory was left unsold.

The Long Story

Originally programmatic was taken as a way to monetize remnant inventory in a pyramid inventory structure (waterfall method), with premium inventory reserved for direct-sold campaigns. Once the Premium inventory got exhausted and the visitor has not completed the frequency cap is when RTB kicks-in.

It is like selling the same thing to multiple people and lowering the price every time.

P R E M I U M    I N V E N T O R Y 

P R I V A T E    M A R K E T P L A C E 

O P E N  (R T B) 

Initially, less time was spent on revenue related tasks and most on admin related work. Google’s DFP  came to the rescue by introducing Header bidding which replaced Google’s “waterfall” method of connected demand sources.

Header bidding is also known as pre-bidding, where multiple exchanges can now bid for publishers' inventory. More bidders mean more demand for inventory and better prices. Publishers can control which sources can participate in the process.  

Header bidding is a resource-intensive option and also increases latency for the end-user and prone to malvertising attacks. But the opportunity was so great that it was accepted.

Google Tech Stack - Simplified

What is Google's Ad-tech ecosystem?

Google Re-branded its products and as always Google is great with products and courses, but when it comes to naming products - its a different story :) 

So let's try and unpack the Google ecosystem below: [Starting from buy-side and moving towards sell side]

DoubleClick Campaign Manager is the third-party ad server that allows you to plan, execute and measure your display campaigns through DoubleClick. It is where advertisers make ad placements, create floodlight tags and push to Google Tag Manager (GTM), and complete trafficking tasks.

DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM) is the demand-side-platform (DSP) that allows you to reach your customers when and where it matters. The programmatic buying platform gives access to display inventory across ad exchanges to accurately bid, precisely target and effectively optimize your digital marketing campaigns. 

Display & Video 360 brings together features from DoubleClick Bid Manager, Campaign Manager, Studio, and Audience Center in a single product.

DV 360 combines DCM + DBM 
DCM was formerly known as DFA 

DoubleClick advertiser products (Buy side) and the Google Analytics 360 Suite under one brand: Google Marketing Platform.

Google Ads is the new name for Google AdWords 

Google Ads is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers pay to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, video content and generate mobile application installs within the Google ad network to web users. 

[Coming to the sell side now]

AdSense is Google individual Ad-network. Mainly for small & medium publishers. Ad-exchange is a bigger animal with thousands of networks. 

Google Ad Manager includes Google Ad server/SSP (formerly DFP) & their premium Ad exchange (previously AdX). Mainly for large publishers. 

• Double click for Publishers (DFP)
• Google Ad exchange

Ad Tech Marketplace | Landscape | Ecosysytem

Which are the main players in the Ad-tech ecosystem?

Please note: I have tried to list some of the prominent names in the Ad-tech landscape. This list is a very small representation of the multiple players in each domain.

AGENCIES

WPP	OMNICOM	PUBLICIS
IPG	DENTSU	HAVAS
MERKEL	MDCXPARTNERS	AEGIS

AD SERVERS (BUY SIDE)

DOUBLE CLICK	ATLAS	MEDIAPLEX
SIZMEK	ADGEAR	FLASHTALKING
ADFORM	MEDIAMIND	TRUEEFFECT

AGENCY TRADING DESKS

XAXIS	ACCUEN	VIVAKI (RUN)
CADREON	AMNET (ACCORDANT MEDIA)	AFFIPERF
IMPACT	VARICKMEDIA

DSPs

GOOGLE	AMAZON	THE TRADE DESK
MEDIA MATH	TURN	DATAXU
EFFICIENT FRONTIER	CHANGO	SIMPLIFI

APPNEXUS (DSP & SSP) Both

AD EXCHANGES

DOUBLE CLICK	RIGHT MEDIA	FACEBOOK
AD ECN	OPEN X	INDEX EXCHANGE
RHYTHM ONE	PULSE POINT	DISTRICT M

DMP’S & DATA AGGREGATORS

BLUEKAI	LOTAME	QUANTCAST
SIGNAL	EYEOTA	AUDIENCESCIENCE
KRUX	DATONICS	LIVERAMP

DATA SUPPLIERS

EXPERIAN	ACXIOM	DATALOGIX
EPSILON	TARGUS INFO	TRU SIGNAL
MASTERCARD	WHERE	DATALINE

SSP’s

ADMELD	RUBICON	PUBMATIC
LIFTONA	BEANSTOCK	REVINET
ALTITUDE	SONOBI

AD SERVERS (SELL SIDE)

DOUBLE CLICK	24/7 MEDIA	APT
LIVEINTENT	ADGEAR	ADTECH
SMART	ZEDO	OPENX

The Programmatic Waterfall

What are the components of the Programmatic waterfall?

Reserved Inventory is advertising space on a publisher’s site that is put aside for a specific advertiser for an agreed price.

Fixed Price is any arrangement where the buyer & seller agree on a flat price that the buyer pays rather than the highest bidder in an auction environment.

Automated Guaranteed: More like a direct sale. Inventory & pricing all decided and runs very similar to direct. Trafficking and RFP are automated.

Unreserved Fixed-Rate: This is biddable, yet at a fixed price for a more predictable inventory to help the advertiser. 

Invitation Only: Open for selected advertisers and the Publisher might choose to offer more value by way of transparency.

Open Auction: Open for all but the Publisher can create roadblocks by way of price floors and blocklist.

AD Network | AD Exchange | AD Server | Trading Desk

Which are the main platforms in the Ad-tech ecosystem? 

Ad Network

Emerged to solve the remnant inventory problem. They sold unsold inventory by bundling it into packages and made available to agencies at a discount. So basically companies that aggregate publisher ad space and sell it to advertisers.

Ad Exchange

Emerged to allow the advertiser to buy individual impressions (Not just remnant inventory)  in the auction-based market place. Customers could be targeted like never before.

Ad Server

Emerged as a technology to manage and run online advertising.

Trading desks

Sprung up to help advertisers navigate the complex programmatic media buying process. Specialists teams at agencies operate sophisticated DSPs, to help advertisers get their ads in front of the right customers, at the right time.

DSPs (Demand-side platforms)

Built for advertisers & agencies to plan & execute buys across several exchanges at once.

SSPs (Supply-side platforms)

Built for publishers to manage their advertising impression inventory and maximize revenue.

DMPs (Data management platforms)

Built as a data warehouse to store information on the audience and form segments.


A DSP is primarily used for programmatic buying, which means that there is no negotiation in pricing, but a real-time auction happens. DSP automates this process and it is easier to get started for small advertisers. 

Understanding Programmatic Advertising

What is Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic advertising is basically purchasing relevant ads thru software.

Why do we need it?

All this while Ads were bought by Advertisers/Agencies interacting with publishers. With the advent of digital every small-time blogger, website & publisher now had space to fill for ads.

This created a lot of unsold inventory which could be now bought directly using the software. Supply of Ad-space became greater than demand and a lot of publisher inventory was left unsold. Hence the rise of programmatic.

Impact

By 2020, 65% of all digital ad revenue will come from Programmatic.

The Long Story

Using technology to buy & sell ads in an automated manner can be called Programmatic advertising. Generally used in the context of digital advertising and with terms like real-time bidding, open auctions and remnant inventory.

Whenever there is advertising there is an advertiser and there is a Publisher. The advertiser wants to show his ads to consumers and the Publisher has space to show these ads on his website. Every Publisher has a certain kind of audience visiting their website. So the advertiser could choose which Publishers had the right audience for their brands. 

Media agencies tried helping advertisers find the right Publishers. Ad-networks bundled Publishers together and sold inventory to advertisers. This created Premium and Remnant inventory. The premium was sold directly to advertisers and remnant got sold thru ad-networks.

Now Publishers had the problem of multiple parties vying for their inventory. Hence the SSP can into the picture which helped Publishers maximize their revenue and manage the delivery. (SSP- Supply-side platform)

For advertisers, a similar problem of finding and managing relationships with Publishers was tackled by DSP (DSP- Demand-side platform). The infrastructure for both DSP & SSP evolved into an integrated platform know as RTB (Real-time bidding).