“The Promote Sider” is a column written by the promote facet of the digital media group.
Immediately’s column is written by Emry DowningHall, SVP of programmatic income and technique at Unwind Media.
The Commerce Desk’s OpenPath launch crammed me with nostalgia. Header bidding early adopters would typically speculate in regards to the inevitability of a future the place publishers plugged instantly into DSPs for advertiser demand. In actuality, the final six years have been dominated by regulatory modifications, identification and bird-themed memes as publisher-focused advert tech and format improvements have fallen in need of the momentum we had in 2015.
Sooner or later, supply-path optimization (SPO) threw its hat into the ring as maybe essentially the most mysterious of convention buzzwords. To me, as a writer that has spent 15 years within the open alternate, the SPO idea felt concurrently ambiguous and necessary. The query was, necessary to whom?
The Commerce Desk (TTD) has made it clear that it’s not changing into a supply-side platform. However “offering advertisers with direct entry to premium digital promoting stock” is the catalyst for each SSP connection a writer pursues. OpenPath is the third SPO innovation TTD has debuted – requesting a single provide path in 2020, GPID (International Placement ID, which acts as a constant illustration of an advert unit throughout all exchanges and demand sources) and OpenPath.
No matter the way it’s outlined, OpenPath issues as a result of TTD is as soon as once more transferring SPO from idea to actuality. For those who consider SPO will grow to be a dominant piece of all writer technique, this is a vital announcement, even in the event you’re not within the OpenPath writer launch group. (Ahem, nonetheless ready on my invite for Solitaired.com.)
SPO is an enormous idea. However what does it virtually imply for publishers or yield groups tasked with driving enterprise KPIs? Although there’s no one-size-fits-all reply, I’ll share what I’ve discovered.
Partnership cutbacks create teachable moments
In April 2020, fueled by a COVID financial system, advert tech insolvency considerations and clawback clauses in most SSP contracts, we minimize 40% of our companions and eradicated reseller strains from our adverts.txt. The SSPs weren’t massive income SOV contributors. And, in some instances, we weren’t even positive who to tell that they have been being eliminated. It was an advert tech breakup with nobody to obtain the dangerous information.
The transfer wasn’t a yield driver, however we noticed no top-line KPI affect. Strategically, it was sound. We spent much less power analyzing exchanges that didn’t transfer the needle and extra time on those who did. By driving extra income to our remaining companions, we mattered extra to the SSPs left in our stack.
It wasn’t till a couple of months later that I spotted my mistake. I had did not leverage the companions that we deliberate to maintain to enhance present enterprise phrases.
Our second spherical of consolidation had vital two-way companion dialogue and took for much longer. The remaining companions have been bigger income contributors, and the low-hanging fruit had been picked. Internally, staff members expressed legitimate considerations that this may occasionally negatively affect income if we consolidated an excessive amount of. I bear in mind questioning why SPO seemingly mattered extra to me as a writer than to my alternate companions.
Did they know one thing I didn’t? Did this by some means battle with their enterprise mannequin? How can we derisk our method?
Negotiations with every companion differed barely based mostly on packages and capabilities. We requested a unified income share throughout all Prebid companions for the open alternate with improved phrases for PMP. This was the important factor of consolidation, as a result of unifying rev-share phrases creates a balanced client-side public sale, which is the cleanest approach to consider companion efficiency. We didn’t attempt to drive rev-shares artificially low. We took our lowest present rev-share from a big alternate and requested that companions outdoors of that match phrases.
We additionally tried to establish differentiated worth outdoors the open alternate with every SSP. We researched what we believed to be our companions’ distinctive strengths and requested to be included in these packages. We had conversations to outline distinctive income flowing by the SSP’s pipes, monitoring and driving mutual development.
The necessity to outline SPO technique
I want this expertise yielded a blueprint for publishers to observe, however that’s not the fact. Whereas we noticed no damaging affect to top-line efficiency, it’s attainable (probably?) that much less bid density was offset by extra favorable companion phrases. However breaking even nonetheless felt like a win since we have been extra strategically linked with our remaining companions and had a balanced open market income share for all Prebid connections.
I’ve little doubt that SPO issues. However I acknowledge writer methods current very totally different targets and realities. I not too long ago started a brand new function and took over a stack that hasn’t taken the identical method to SPO that I’ve traditionally. Regardless of an awesome viewers and powerful advertiser KPIs, I anticipate transferring from “pipes to companion” will probably be more difficult attributable to much less scale making my strategic SPO selections more durable.
My plan is to take an iterative method, starting with cautious companion evaluations, understanding and recognizing contributions past web income. Consciously defining this path at the moment extends your runway and adaptability for testing. Writer SPO doesn’t imply the fewest attainable companions or the cleanest adverts.txt. But it surely ought to be an intentional technique that you just personal.
I’ve little doubt SPO investments will matter. I simply can’t say when.
Comply with Emry DowningHall (@EmryDH) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
