The Header Bidding Trends That Will Impact Publishers Most

Since last year Header Bidding has been a hot topic of conversation among digital marketers and publishers worldwide.

For publishers, Header Bidding is a cost effective and advantageous opportunity for publishers to maximize their revenue simply by making the programmatic buying process more efficient. If you’re not sure how Header Bidding works, read our article which explains how it works.

Or watch this video:

But the question we’re asking today is what the biggest trends in header bidding will be next? Expect to see these trends in Header Bidding unfold this year:

1. Video Header Bidding

Considering the explosive demand for video content among audiences, it’s no wonder publishers would look for ways to streamline and scale up their video revenue stream. Video Header Bidding is a natural next step for publishers looking to capitalize on video and maximize yield.

Many argue that video advertising still requires a great deal of cleaning up and organisation due to the fragmented nature of the new frontier. Video Header Bidding may be a part of this solution. Video Header Bidding no doubt increases competition, but it functions differently from regular display.

Technically, there is no “header” code in a video player. Video players functions as a mediating technology between the website and demand side platforms. But there is significant potential for Video Header Bidding to help add efficiency and transparency into the confusing video landscape, while putting more control back into the hands of publishers as far as partner selection goes.

However, not everyone agrees that Video Header Bidding will work and even argue that the solution can lead to data leakage. More on the other side of the argument, here.

2. Header Bidding Partner Optimization

As we know by now, many vendors are jumping on the Header Bidding band wagon. And while more competition often means more options are made available to publishers, it also means that the landscape becomes more fragmented.  its important for publishers to understand and choose the right partners.

That means asking the right questions. Are the partners providing more or less value to your stack? Will your partner be willing to take on the challenge of integration, and if there are technical on-boarding issues is there a client services team who can service you on demand? Optimizing header bidding partners and separating the winners from the losers will no doubt be on the agenda for publishers the world over and publishers will need to do their due diligence.

3. Server to Server Integration

Header Bidding is going to evolve, this is a given with any technology. The next natural development for Header Bidding is going to be in the form of server-to-server connections. Digiday gives a really great definition of what server-to-server connections are here.

In a nutshell, server-to-server allows for the bidding process to happen on partner ad servers rather than on the publisher’s browser. The result? Publishers can pass along the heavy lifting to a third party. There are benefits like reducing latency and page load times, increase efficiency and allow for more partners to plug in.