As video header bidding keeps its paramount importance in digital advertising in 2024, the accurate tech implementation grows more crucial than ever – here’s how to streamline it.
In spite of last year’s analysts’ brand suitability concerns, e.g. regarding MFA sites, in 2024 the programmatic advertising niche still demonstrates strong standing in the global digital ad ecosystem. Namely, according to eMarketer’s data, the volume of programmatic ad spend in the US is expected to top 157,000,000,000 USD in 2024, which constitutes over 90% of the total ad spend and reflects ~16% YoY growth (almost 3 times higher than the relevant data in the non-programmatic sector).
Video Header Bidding Grows Stronger vs. OpenRTB
In the video advertising context, programmatic ad buying remains the preferred tactic across major verticals in 2024, too, with video header bidding gradually becoming the more frequently-selected protocol for digital ad transactions, compared to openRTB (per AdPlayer.Pro data).
However, despite its obvious benefits for all parties on the Supply and Demand side, which are known to include the focus on simultaneous bidding instead of the often inefficient waterfalling practices, and the overall cost-effectiveness of adoption, the technical implementation is still considered a major drawback of video header bidding.
Well, let’s see if and how this can change in 2024.
How to Smooth Video Header Bidding Setup
Aside from the potential data leakage and page latency risks, one of the major pitfalls of video header bidding setup on a publisher’s digital properties has always remained the coding.
Namely, as the basic integration flow implies the insertion of the video player JS code into the webpage header, this code must be written accurately, with all parameters configured precisely according to header bidding vendors’ documentation. More importantly, it’s likewise crucial to debug the code prior to launching the auction, in order to minimize errors, hence revenue loss along the way.
On the bright side, with Prebid.js recently turning into the mostly-used header bidding protocol, the setup specifics have been somewhat unified. However, the necessity to manually write the JS script code hasn’t disappeared.
More importantly, many video ad players on the market require publishers’ implementation of Prebid.js on the website in addition/prior to the player code, otherwise the header bidding won’t work.
In this respect, the good news is, the AdPlayer.Pro ad-enabled video player, for example, enables integrating the player JS code with header bidding support without any extra Prebid integration on the publishers’ websites/apps.
And the great news is that the AdPlayer.Pro platform currently enables skipping the entire manual-JS code-writing routine, as well as avoiding multiple code-debugging challenges once and for all. In fact, what an ad-ops user only needs to do is select the Prebid Demand vendor, enter the preferred parameter values, and the platform will compile the final JSON itself.
As for the ongoing bid adjustment, streamlining the workflow and decision-making is also possible. Namely, for ad-ops convenience, the Demand statistics reports in the AdPlayer.Pro dashboard include a separate eCPM parameter, specifically aimed at tracking the exact winning bid price in each auction, enabling them to access multiple auction updates in real time and optimize their bid strategies, if needed, on the go.
If you have any questions or need more information about the AdPlayer.Pro video player and video ad server functional capabilities, available to you, please don’t hesitate to contact your dedicated account manager at AdPlayer.Pro anytime.