DSPs Fobid Bid Duplication: New Fairplay In Programmatic Advertising.

 

Publishers use the exchange to bid on their behalf for ad impressions. Exchanges try playing smart by trafficking multiple bids for the same ad impression, to increase the probability of getting the bid. Their smartness failed them in this economic downfall and guided them towards extinction.

Due to high traffic, the cost to request bids has increased. The demand-side platforms were already under pressure, and economic situations made things critical. This led to the pounding of the concept of bid-duplication. Now, MediaMath is establishing a new supply chain that won’t include SSPs selling duplicate impressions. To make an example of that, last month, Trade-desk had already given notices to all the SSPs to demolish all the duplicate bids which are there for the same auction. The Trade-desk gave SSPs a two-week time frame which is further extended, but DSPs are expecting the SSPs to fall in line in time.

Joey Livesey, The Trade Desk director of partnerships EMEA said: “By tackling the bid duplication problem we’re hopeful that it will give publishers visibility into an egalitarian measurement of their SSP partnerships as adding another isn’t necessarily going to drive additional revenue for them in a big way.”

This could be a problem for some SSPs. As, Karim Rayes, chief product officer at Tremor International’s stated: “The clampdown does affect our SSP — as it does every other SSP out there — as we cannot send the full breadth of our supply to our buyers using these DSPs.”

Since the emergence of header bidding four years ago, publishers like Trade-desks were rewarded by DSPs for auction duplication. More bids for the same impression meant more revenue generations for a DSP. This crackdown of Trade-desk doesn’t remove the incentives completely, but in a manner reduces the extent of rewarding publishers for the usage of the same exchange several times.

Founder of ad tech consultancy, AdProfs, Ratko Vidakovic said: “I understand the economic rationale for why The Trade Desk is trying to flush outbid duplication but they’re doing so in a crude manner.”

Further, he stated that “The Trade Desk is asking publishers and SSPs to chop off branches to their supply in a way that treats them all equally when they’re not. One SSP might sell specific inventory, for example, so it’s just not about these partnerships being used to serve multiple bids requests for the same impression.”

It might be one of the reasons why MediaMath is applying a different approach for the SSPs it works with to suppress the use of bid-duplication. Now, DSPs will only be allowing those exchanges to place a bid that doesn’t barter various impressions to the identical publisher.

Jeremy Steinberg, from MediaMath, who is the global head of the ecosystem stated: “We’re more focused on precision when it comes to bidding duplication.”

Further, he said, “The aim is to work with SSPs and publishers on a partner basis to understand how we can leverage performance data alongside tools like sellers.json and SupplyChain Object to understand what’s the best impression for our clients.”

However, SSPs gave a positive response to the Trade-desk crackdown. CEO of Engine Group’s SSP EMX Global, Michael Zacharski, welcomed the decision as a positive approach towards a non-duplicative inventory.

“We believe that one impression should be sold one time from an individual exchange, but I don’t think we are yet in a world where publishers sell inventory through just one exchange or source,” stated Zcharski. “Cost reductions up the funnel on the buy-side will shift dollars towards stronger alliances between buyers and sellers creating a need for more custom and flexible marketplaces on top of a simplified supply chain.”

Integrating multiple wrappers to duplicate bids made events doubtful, and unfairly exploited for programmatic auctions. This kind of process will no longer be tolerated and will be screened efficiently. But, the basic proposition of heading bidding — allowing publishers to execute concurrent auctions for analogous impressions — isn’t going off.

Founder of programmatic consultancy Jounce Media, Chris Kane stated:

“What’s clear is that The Trade Desk is using its market power to change incentives for publishers and ad exchanges.” He further added, “Sellers will do what buyers reward, and we are beginning to see buyers reward more efficient supply paths.”