In the last couple of years, header bidding, the ad-tech practice through which publishers are now able to entertain multiple ad bids simultaneously rather than in a waterfall sequence, has tantalised buyers and seller alike.
But, whilst the technology is now getting more widely deployed on display ads, arrival in video ads will take some time. That is according to an exec from one of the leading ad-tech firms.
“Header bidding has really taken off for display and has driven all commoditization of supply there,” AppNexus senior product line manager Lindsay Van Kirk says in this video interview with Beet.TV.
“Video and other formats are a little bit more nascent for header bidding. I think there’s a ton of opportunity there and there’s some really positive results coming from some tests. We have some publishers who are using it. We’ve had some demand partners who are doing video header bidding.
“But those marketplaces are unique in a lot of ways because of the volume of supply and because of the value of the ad units and the value that goes into actually creating the ad units for video. There’s a lot more production work that goes into it, and so, naturally, those things were going to transact at higher rates.”
Applying header bidding to video is challenging for a number of reasons. One is that the VAST and VPAID tags on which client-side video depend impose time-out limits that can add extra latency to the process of calling multiple SSPs, which is the raison d’etre of header bidding.
With awareness of the basic header bidding techniques still gathering pace, applying it to video may not come quickly. A January 2017 survey of US agency and marketing professionals conducted by Advertiser Perceptions found only a quarter of respondents had a “good” or “very good” understanding of header bidding, eMarketer writes.
“They might take a little bit more time before we see a full adoption of video heading bidding,” Van Kirk adds. “Although I think there’s a lot of promise there for video publishers who want to get the most for the video impressions that they have, as opposed to having to continue to manage a waterfall.”
This segment is part of a Beet.TV series on innovation in programmatic advertising around header bidding and wrappers. The series is presented by PubMatic. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
