Header Bidding is an advanced programmatic technique which allows you to call multiple demand partners or bidders to bid on your ad inventory, before sending the ad request to the Ad server. This increases CPMs and Yield of your inventories. It has been used by 71% of the US publishers and proven method of increasing your Ad revenue by 60%. In this slide, you'll learn 'What is Header Bidding', 'How header bidding works', the current state of the technology, and more. At Automatad Inc, we've deployed our 'Header Bidding' solution to 100+ publishers across the globe and seen a drastic increase in the revenue.

1. Header Bidding -
Everything You Need
to Know
By Automatad Inc.

2. Header Bidding
Usually, Publisher use ‘Header
Bidding’ along with Doubleclick
for Publishers (DFP) to increase
their CPM and Yield.
Typically, it’s a bidding process
happening between multiple
parties in just milliseconds.
Header Bidding is an
advanced programmatic
technique, which allows
publishers to make calls to
multiple demand partners
simultaneously, before
sending the ad request to the
Ad Server.
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3. Why Header Bidding?
First things first. Why people
have developed this Header
Bidding?
Header Bidding was
implemented to solve the
inefficiencies caused by the
RTB
(Real-time Bidding (RTB) - where
Advertisers and Publishers trade the
inventories through Exchanges and
Other platforms in milliseconds before a
web page loads).
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4. 1.
What are the
Inefficiencies?
1. Waterfall or Daisy
Chaining
2. Doubleclick AdX Privilege
3. Various RTB Types

5. 1. Waterfall or Daisy Chaining
“Waterfall auctions or Daisy Chaining” is the method
publishers use to maximize their revenue and
improve fill rates.
But in this method, there will be multiple real time
bidding rounds and inventories will be passed from
one Exchange to other until they’re sold. This means
advertisers using Exchanges sitting at the bottom of
the waterfall would be bidding on poor inventories. In
worst case, advertisers only can bid on ‘leftovers’.
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6. 2. Doubleclick AdX Privilege
Doubleclick For Publishers, world’s most used Ad
Server, uses dynamic allocation to jump higher in the
waterfall. It leapfrogged the queue to first bid on
publishers’ inventories.
This made the waterfall more worse for Advertisers
and Publishers were also losing higher bids from the
advertisers.
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7. 3. Various RTB Types
RTB comes in various types. Open Auction lets any
SSPs and DSPs to participate and trade. But these
auctions were preceded by exclusive and private
auctions, where only selected publishers and
Advertisers can participate.
This fragmented the ecosystem and Advertisers
demanded a transparent and ‘equal-footed’ system.
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8. “
Header Bidding solves all the inefficiencies:
Waterfall - Eliminated by a Unified Auction.
AdX Privilege - Eliminated by conducting a
pre-auction before sending the request to the
server.
RTB Discrepancies - Ad Impressions are
available to any advertisers/Bidder at the
same time and anyone can bid on the
impressions.
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Note: Once you learn how it works, you’ll be having a clear idea of the above
mentioned points.

9. How ‘Header
Bidding’ Works?
From conducting a pre-
auction to passing the key
values to the ad server.
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10. When a user loads a web page with ‘Header
Bidding’ code, the code calls the demand
partners/bidders simultaneously (shuffled order)
to conduct an auction.
For instance, once the page starts loading, code
calls the bidders (Ad Exchanges and DSPs) and
says the specs of the Ad Slots and user data (Non-
PII).
Phase I - Calling the Demand Partners
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11. Now, the demand partners/bidders bid on the
available impressions to win. The bidding price
depends on many factors such as inventory
quality, audience data, etc.
The Header of the page contains wrapper which
collects the bid values such as prices, name of the
bidder, and others. This will be send down to the
Ad server along with the usual details (Ad specs
and available user data).
Phase II - Pre-Auction or Header
Auction
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12. After receiving the request, the ad server will
conduct an auction as usual, to determine the
winner of the bid. But in that auction, winner of
the pre-auction or header-auction will be
considered to pick the final winner. (Typically, Line
items in ad server will compete with each other to
get the impressions).
Phase III - Ad Server’s Auction
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13. If any line items in ad server bid higher than the
winner of the pre-auction, that line item’s creative
will be delivered. Else, winner of the pre-auction
will get the impressions and that bidder’s creative
will be delivered.
Phase IV - Winner
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14. Phases of Header Bidding
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Phase III
Ad Server
conducts an
auction for the
impressions
along with the
winner of the
pre-auction.
Phase I
Header
Auction or Pre-
Auction, by
calling the
bidders
simultaneousl
y.
Phase II
Collecting the
bids and sending
the key values to
the Ad server for
the second
auction.
Phase IV
The winner is
determined and
creative from the
winner’s line item
is served.

15. Key points in Header Bidding
1. The winner of the auction will pay ‘1 cent’ more
than the second highest bidder, per second price
auction model. (ex: If winner = $2, second highest
= $1.50, then the winner will pay $1.51).
2. The pre-auction takes place on client-side
(browser). In server-side header bidding, it takes
place on the server.
3. Header Bidding Wrapper (Prebid.js) can send all
the bids or only the winning bid to the ad server.

16. Key points in Header Bidding
4. In ad server, Line items must be created for the
bidders competing in pre-auction to capture bids.
5. The decision is up to the ad server. Not every time,
highest bidder (from the pre-auction) will win. That’s
because it considers the deliverability of direct orders
and days left.
Additional Resource: https://headerbidding.co/what-is-header-
bidding/

17. Header Bidding - Triangle
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Programmatic
Advertising
0203
01
Client-Side Header Bidding:
Header Bidding will happen on
the user’s browser and then, key
values are sent to the ad server.
Server-Side Header
Bidding: Once the
page begin to load,
pre-auction will be
conducted on a
external server rather
than the user’s
browser.
Hybrid: Adopting both
technologies at the same
time. Publishers do it to
balance the
disadvantages
(Matchrate and Latency)
of both techniques.

18. What’s Next in Header Bidding?
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19. Results of Header Bidding
Increase in %
Revenue
Increase
60
eCPM 55
Fill rate 40
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20. 71.6% of the Publishers in US utilize
Header Bidding!
Whoa! That’s a big number!
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21. Open-source
Publishers can use open-source wrappers
Unmatched
Transparency
2x
Increase in CPMs
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22. 22
Automatad Inc.
We are a publisher-focused company and offer a full
stack programmatic monetization suite for publishers
of all sizes.
With over a hundred publishers dispersed across the
globe, our solution have proven to drive 40 percent
more revenue than the traditional solutions.
Need any help with your Ad revenue optimization or
digital content monetization, reach us @
automatad.com
Or mail us at marketing@automatad.com

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