Header bidding
What is header bidding?
Header bidding is a programmatic advertising technique where a website’s ad inventory is sold through auctions by placing a piece of JavaScript code in the <head> section. In header bidding, website publishers can auction their inventory to multiple ad exchanges, SSPs, and advertisers simultaneously and get the maximum price possible for each ad impression.
How does it maximize ad revenue?
In header bidding, the auction happens for multiple demand partners at the same time, which means all the ad exchanges, SSPs, etc., bid on the inventory simultaneously. The header bidding setup compares the bid prices to the floor price set by the publisher and chooses the highest bid as the auction winner. For instance, if the floor price is $2, Bidder 1 bids $2.5, and Bidder 2 bids $3.2, then Bidder 2 is selected as the winner.
How does it work?
Here is how header bidding works:
- Publishers insert a JavaScript code called wrapper code in the <head> section of their website.
- The auction starts when a user lands on the website and the web page loads.
- Bidders simultaneously bid on the user impression through SSPs, ad exchanges, etc.
- The bid information is sent to the ad server.
- The ad server selects the winning bid, and the ad is shown to the user.