Dive Brief:
- Header tags are a key trend in programmatic advertising, giving publishers the opportunity to make more revenue off ad inventory.
- Without header tags, only one advertiser at a time can bid on the inventory, but header tags allow multiple advertisers to bid on the same inventory at the same time.
- Data from billions of ad impressions in Index Exchange’s programmatic marketplace revealed the rise in header tags in programmatic advertising.
Dive Insight:
"They [advertisers] all compete side-by-side, in real time, against each other for that inventory on that page for that impression. What that [header tags] does is unify all of the demand. This enables buyers to truly compete for inventory and pay the fair price for very specific impressions," Lizzie Komar, director of research at Index Exchange, told Ad Age.
According to Index Exchange, between Q1 and Q2 this year use of header tags by publishers grew 68%. And open bidding is better for publishers’ bottom lines than waterfall bidding where only one advertiser bids on inventory at a time. Header tag rates are 166% higher in open exchanges and 46% higher in private exchanges.
Komar said, "This has resulted in a significant rise in overall publisher revenue. As competition swells and buyers have more opportunities to reach and buy their high value audience targets."
Though programmatic advertising is gaining traction, the format is still somewhat misunderstood.
Eric Bosco, CEO of programmatic ad firm ChoiceStream, explained to Marketing Dive that one of the benefits of applying the medium is the ability discover new audiences.
“Using the real-time insights generated from your programmatic buy, marketers can evaluate what's working best — which geographies, times of day, audience segments, publishers — to narrow their target accordingly, so they're paying only for highly effective ads," he said.
