Header Bidding: The New Code in Mobile App Monetization

Today, header bidding is the most touted topic in mobile ecosystem. It can help ads publishers to crack the secret code of mobile app monetization. One thing that creates problem for publishers and developers is scaling in-app advertising as it often results in wasted impressions or low fill rate.

But header bidding can help them solve this problem. Want to know how? Read on to find out how header bidding is helping publishers maximize in-app monetization.

How header bidding works?
Header bidding helps publishers to control the impressions by intercepting the initial request. In this process, publishers send out an initial ad call to multiple buyers simultaneously before even the page starts loading. In such scenario, buyers can get first look at the ad inventory and then submit pre-bid to server-side mediation.

Publisher use SDK to compare the bid prices received from the ad exchange to determine which ad should be served. Instead of relying on averages and estimates, ads publishers have full transparency into the real value of their app inventory.

Advantages of Header Bidding
There is a diversity of demand in the mobile ad ecosystem. Mobile ad marketplace has diverse ad types such as standard 320×480 banner ads, rich-media ads, native ads, mobile video ads.

With header bidding, publisher can identify the best programmatic buyer and deliver the appropriate ad type. It also helps to drive the ad demand and CPM of any of these ad creatives.

In-app monetization is a high priority for ads publishers. Header bidding for in-app inventory will help them diversify ad demand, reduce wasted opportunities, maximize revenues, and help buyers publish apps with maximum CPM. Review header bidding can help publishers to increase ad revenue. Two things that publishers need to consider for using header bidding method is to review ad serving setup and the buyers they are working with.

Mobile Ad Viewability: A headache for Mobile Advertisers and Publishers

Vewability. Viewability. Viewability. Currently, this is the topic du jour in the entire mobile ecosystem. From mobile advertisers, ads publishers to vendors, everyone is working tirelessly to define what constitutes mobile ad viewability.

What is mobile viewability? It seems like a straight-forward question, but in reality, it requires layers of technology which makes it really difficult to answer what exactly is mobile viewability. If we go by the definition, then mobile viewability is mobile ads that are actually seen by users. Mobile Rating Council of the US defines a mobile ad viewable only when the following criteria are met:

•  Pixel requirement: The advertisement must have greater than or equal to 50% of the pixels on the viewable space of any mobile device to qualify as viewable ad impression.

• Time requirement: Greater than or equal to one continuous second, post ad render.

• Video Time requirement: It is required that 2 continuous seconds of the video advertisement is played to qualify as viewable video ad.

Mobile advertisers want 100% viewability guarantee from publishers. They want publishers to make sure that every impression in a paid campaign is actually viewable to a human audience. However, publishers aren’t currently looking to drive viewability up because they think the yield from the campaign doesn’t make sense right now.

For instance, it is believed that when advertisers pay for viewable ad impressions at a rate of 50%, then publishers see a rise of 100% in CPMs to achieve the same revenue growth as before. However, in reality, the publisher CPM increases in the range of 20-30%, which discourages the adoption of viewability concept from the publisher side.

Advertisers want to invest in ads that could be viewed so that their ad dollars are directed towards measurable metrics. But no ad can be guaranteed 100% viewability. On the other side, if publishers can’t guarantee 100% viewability on inventory, then they can lose the scale that advertisers need, thus creating headache for both advertisers and publishers.

So what should ads publishers do to improve mobile viewability? The answer is simple. Mobile advertisers will have to pay a premium for guaranteed viewability for their mobile ads.