TIPS TO OPTIMIZE YOUR HEADER BIDDING SETUP

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1 TIPS TO OPTIMIZE YOUR HEADER BIDDING SETUP 2017 AppNexus Inc. All Rights Reserved.

2 5 TIPS TO OPTIMIZE YOUR HEADER BIDDING SETUP 2 eader bidding has taken digital advertising by storm in the last two years. Industry observers estimate that at least 60% of publishers have adopted some kind of header bidding solution, and many of them have reported substantial revenue increases as a result, with some seeing gains of over 50%. However, there are still plenty of publishers who are either just now adopting header bidding, still thinking about how to get started, or simply haven t had anyone who can walk them through the best practices. That s who we wrote this guide for. Inside, you ll find five actionable tips to help you optimize your header bidding setup and better monetize your inventory. Enjoy! Powered by AppNexus info@appnexus.com AppNexus Inc. All Rights Reserved.

3 1 RUTHLESSLY ASSESS YOUR DEMAND PARTNERS

4 5 TIPS TO OPTIMIZE YOUR HEADER BIDDING SETUP 4 RUTHLESSLY ASSESS YOUR DEMAND PARTNERS Header bidding provides you an excellent opportunity to assess the value each of your demand partners brings to the table. Why is this important? Header bidding is all about increasing yield by creating more competition between your demand partners. Given that, you may wonder why you wouldn t just add as many demand partners as possible after all, more competition can only increase your CPMs a little bit more, right? The problem is that every demand partner you work with in the header will cause at least some increase in page load times. Because of that, we recommend publishers add no more than seven demand partners to their clientside header bidding setup. If you work with more partners than that, you ll have to think long and hard about who makes the cut. How do I do this? We recommend you evaluate your partners by tracking data points such as: How much weight does their adapter add to your page? If a demand partner is adding a ton of latency to your page, the CPMs they provide may not be worth the compromise in user experience. How often do they win auctions? If their win rate is low, they re probably not worth the added weight to your page. What percentage of available impressions do they bid on? If a partner isn t even bidding on a significant portion of your impressions, they probably shouldn t be part of your header bidding setup. By using these metrics to evaluate your partners, you can ensure that you strike the right balance between yield and user experience. Powered by AppNexus info@appnexus.com AppNexus Inc. All Rights Reserved.

5 2 DECIDE WHICH AD UNITS TO SELL VIA HEADER BIDDING AND MAKE SURE TO CALL THEM OUT IN THE HEADER

6 5 TIPS TO OPTIMIZE YOUR HEADER BIDDING SETUP 6 DECIDE WHICH AD UNITS TO SELL VIA HEADER BIDDING AND MAKE SURE TO CALL THEM OUT IN THE HEADER It s now possible for publishers to source header bidding demand for virtually every type of ad unit and format. However, publishers need to actively choose which ad units they want to enable for header bidding for each page on their site. Why is this important? Many publishers miss out on opportunities for increased monetization by limiting the amount of inventory they make available to their header bidding partners. This is especially true for non-display formats like video, native, and mobile app. Many publishers don t bother setting up header bidding for those formats, often because they work with so few demand partners specializing in them that they don t believe there will be substantial benefits from increasing competition through header bidding. However, we ve found that even for formats and ad units where a publisher works with just one partner, header bidding can increase revenue by bringing programmatic competition to the publisher s direct demand. This can be especially valuable for a format like video, which already sees higher CPMs by virtue of the format s high performance. In that situation, header bidding can super charge what should already be a highly lucrative ad unit. How do I do this? Once you ve decided which of your ad units you want to expose to header bidding demand, you need to make sure they re called out in the header. To do this, you ll need to enter the identifier code and ad unit sizes into the appropriate place in your header, depending on what kind of wrapper you re using. In Prebid, for instance, you would make these edits within the variable adunits. You ll also need to include the unique parameters for each bidder you re working with required to serve ads on each ad unit. Powered by AppNexus info@appnexus.com AppNexus Inc. All Rights Reserved.

7 3 DEFINE THE OPTIMAL TIMEOUT FOR ALL BIDDERS

8 5 TIPS TO OPTIMIZE YOUR HEADER BIDDING SETUP 8 DEFINE THE OPTIMAL TIMEOUT FOR ALL BIDDERS Most header bidding wrappers will allow you to set a timeout that acts as a deadline for your header bidding partners to respond to each bid request. Why is this important? With header bidding, the ad server waits to evaluate bids and choose a winning creative until every demand partner has responded to the bid request. That means that the entire process can be stalled by one slow partner, adding latency to your page and hurting the user experience. Setting a timeout allows you to cap the bidding process at a time of your choosing so that your page load times remain reasonable. How do I do this? Many wrappers, including Prebid, allow you to set a timeout during the initial setup process. In Prebid, all you ll need to do is set the timeout by modifying the PREBID_ TIMEOUT variable inside the wrapper configuration (or whatever the equivalent line is for wrappers other than Prebid). Powered by AppNexus info@appnexus.com AppNexus Inc. All Rights Reserved.

9 4 1 2 SHUFFLE THE ORDER IN WHICH BIDDERS ARE CALLED

10 5 TIPS TO OPTIMIZE YOUR HEADER BIDDING SETUP 10 SHUFFLE THE ORDER IN WHICH BIDDERS ARE CALLE By default, most header bidding wrappers will simply call your demand partners in alphabetical order. But the best wrappers will give you the option to randomize the order in which partners are called for every impression. Why is this important? Our testing has shown that the last bidders in your wrapper to be called during a header bidding auction have a harder time submitting a bid to the ad server before the timeout, while the first bidders in line have much higher bid rates. This disadvantage grows the more demand partners you work with. That partially negates the main value add of header bidding, which is to put all your demand partners on an even playing field and drive higher CPMs through increased competition. If one of your demand partners is consistently being called last and not being given an opportunity to compete, then it may as well not be included in your setup. How do I do this? Again, most wrappers will give you the option to customize the order in which bidders are called when you first configure your wrapper. In Prebid, this is done automatically if you re using version or later. If you re using an earlier version, you can set this function by adding the argument for the pbjs. setbiddersequence( random ); to your configuration. By randomizing your bidder call order for each impression, you can ensure that no partner faces this disadvantage more often than the others. Powered by AppNexus info@appnexus.com AppNexus Inc. All Rights Reserved.

11 5 OPTIMIZE YOUR PRICE GRANULARITY

12 5 TIPS TO OPTIMIZE YOUR HEADER BIDDING SETUP 12 OPTIMIZE YOUR PRICE GRANULARITY When your header bidding wrapper passes bids into your ad server, the demand partner s bid CPM values are rounded down into buckets which are then passed into the ad server using key values. You ll need to make sure that the buckets into which bids are being rounded down are as granular as possible within the price ranges where you re seeing the highest concentration of bids. Why is this important? The price bucket scheme that you use for your website has a big impact on your header bidding line items ability to compete in your ad server. By default, many header bidding wrappers are configured to use $0.50, $0.25, or $0.10 buckets, unless they re specifically configured to a higher granularity. If the price buckets of your header bidding wrapper and corresponding line items aren t granular enough, you risk rounding your bids down too low, thus making them non-competitive in your ad server auction. For example, if you were using the $0.50 granularity in your header bidding wrapper and a partner returned a bid of $0.99, it would be rounded down and evaluated in your ad server as $0.50. It could then lose to an ad server bid of $0.51, even though it actually represents a much higher bid, resulting in a substantial loss in revenue on the impression. How do I do this? Wrappers like Prebid simplify price granularity by giving you a menu of options for how the header will round down bids before passing them to the ad server. Prebid specifically offers the following options: Low: Uses 50 cent increments and is capped at $5 CPM Medium: Uses 10 cent increments and is capped at $20 CPM High: Uses 1 cent increments and is capped at $20 Auto: Applies a sliding scale to set different levels of granularity for different ranges of bids Dense: Also applies a sliding scale but uses even more granular increments, especially at lower CPMs If you re using Prebid, you ll need to choose from those options based on how much your impressions normally sell for, how many demand partners you work with, and how many line items you can create in your ad server. However, we ve found that most publishers get the best results with the Dense option, as it tends to provide the correct level of granularity depending on what happens in each auction, without requiring the publisher to set up too many line items. However, if you re looking for a more customized solution, Prebid allows you to set a custom granularity by using the customgranularity function and specifying your price bucket ranges. To understand which ranges would have the largest impact on your website, we recommend working with a Prebid analytics provider to gain insight into the most competitive price ranges for your site. Powered by AppNexus info@appnexus.com AppNexus Inc. All Rights Reserved.

13 NEW YEAR S: A FEW RESOLUTIONS Keep Certain Categories in Mind There are clear opportunities for buyers following Christmas, but these openings decrease heading into January. Average daily RTB spend after Christmas is very stable right before New Year s Eve and then continues to drop immediately into the New Year. (Figure 1.1) On the other hand, CPMs continue to decrease after December 26, however they plateau and stabilize after the New Year. CPMs are at their lowest price on New Year s; for those who don t have to buy during the holiday season, the days following New Year s Day (as well as the day itself) can be a good time to buy. (Figure 1.1) CTR decreases substantially after Christmas through the New Year, and increases immediately afterwards. (Figure 1.2) One possible reason for this increase is that after the holiday shopping madness, people prefer to browse websites without the intention of actually shopping - or clicking on ads. The data also shows that the holiday season s peak conversation rate occurs on New Year s Day. Want to learn more about how header bidding can help your business? Contact us here