Name it “the ocho.”
Prebid 8 is now reside.
The brand new model of header bidding software program makes it simpler to establish particular advert transactions, which may give publishers extra perception into how income is impacted by supply-chain companions.
Prebid 8 additionally provides publishers extra granular management over how they categorical types of consumer consent to downstream companions, and can enable publishers to begin testing Google’s Privateness Sandbox.
One of many key adjustments in Prebid 8 is the overhaul of transaction identifiers. Every bid request now has a novel transaction ID that is still the identical regardless of which bidder it passes by means of.
The purpose is to allow SPO and help sustainability efforts geared toward cracking down on public sale duplication, stated Patrick McCann, Raptive SVP of analysis and chair of Prebid.js, the group accountable for sustaining the open-source code.
However, whereas Prebid is giving the purchase facet a strong software to fight waste, it’s additionally giving the promote facet the flexibility to show it on or off.
Decide-in transaction IDs
In Prebid 8, publishers select whether or not to share the bid’s transaction ID, which is turned off by default.
“The Prebid authorized counsel on the writer committee wished to be sure that publishers have been making this alternative knowingly,” McCann stated. That alternative is open for publishers to keep away from a scenario the place, “swiftly, folks have insights into our stock that they didn’t know earlier than,” he added.
For example, publishers would possibly decide out of offering the transaction ID for bid requests enriched with delicate consumer information, McCann stated, particularly if that information is commingled with a deterministic identifier like an electronic mail tackle.
Some publishers additionally need to keep away from DSPs’ efforts to crack down on public sale duplication and bid jamming, McCann stated.
Whereas DSPs try to keep away from duplicate bid requests to chop wasteful spending and carbon emissions, publishers are nonetheless incentivized to extend bid density by duplicating auctions, thus driving up CPMs. It ain’t fairly but it surely works.
Nonetheless, Prebid’s determination to make transaction IDs opt-in for publishers may perpetuate a market with billions of duplicated advert requests.
And Prebid additionally lacks options to forestall unintentional duplications, like those who happen when ID graphs are utilized a number of occasions throughout a number of wrappers for various advert codecs or demand sources, stated Mike O’Sullivan, co-founder of Sincera, a startup that provides media telemetry information to the advert tech ecosystem, together with the speed at which publishers undertake tech like Prebid and various IDs.
Transaction ID standardization
When publishers do decide to supply transaction IDs for bid requests, the identifiers generally is a highly effective attribution sign.
And with Prebid 8, the transaction ID can be standardized throughout all bidders. That’s in distinction to earlier Prebid variations, during which totally different SSPs may ship totally different IDs for a similar public sale, making it more durable to hint a transaction again to its supply.
With Prebid 8, if a DSP sees 50 bid requests with the identical transaction ID, it is aware of which auctions and which writer the ID is related to. It will assist consumers decide which paths to the stock have been best.
Publishers can even extra reliably use standardized transaction IDs to judge their tech companions’ take charges, McCann stated. They will pull the transaction ID from their very own logs and match it towards DSP or advertiser logs to verify whether or not intermediaries between the client and vendor are taking an even bigger reduce of advert income than they’re imagined to.
Down with GPP
As one other writer carrot, Prebid 8 gives methods to forestall vendor data-sharing actions that might run afoul of privateness rules.
Prebid’s exercise controls are suitable with the IAB Tech Lab’s International Privateness Platform (GPP), which is utilized by publishers to convey whether or not a consumer has opted out of sharing sure information.
“If I’ve a US privateness string sign for a consumer in California with a ‘don’t promote’ sign, then nobody needs to be setting cookies on this consumer,” stated Sincera co-founder Ian Meyers. In that case, the writer may set an exercise management to forestall cookies from getting used.
Exercise controls have been launched in Prebid 7.52, which dropped a couple of weeks in the past. The up to date controls focus on regulatory compliance for the patchwork of worldwide and US state privateness legal guidelines.
Previous to Prebid 8, publishers may solely apply the consent string for US privateness compliance throughout all their bid requests, McCann stated. Now they will forestall consumer syncing or determine which information enrichment or analytics modules are utilized to particular person web page views.
Prebid will proceed rolling out new exercise controls and modules for privateness compliance. The US nationwide module needs to be launched by July 1, McCann stated, adopted by a module for Canada quickly after. These will be a part of Prebid’s already present GDPR compliance module, with one other replace for the brand new GPP 1.1 as soon as that goes into impact.
Publishers nonetheless have to seek the advice of their attorneys to determine which data-sharing actions they should forestall and when, McCann stated, however the modules signify Prebid’s makes an attempt to set defaults.
Digging into the sandbox
Adopting Prebid 8 can also be a means for publishers to check Google’s Privateness Sandbox earlier than it goes absolutely into impact subsequent 12 months (assuming Google holds to its deadline).
Though most Sandbox performance was added throughout the previous couple of updates for Prebid 7, about 30,000 publishers have but to put in any iteration of model 7, based on Sincera. And there are tens of 1000’s that aren’t working model 7.46 or increased, which incorporates Privateness Sandbox options.
Leaping to model 8 will present probably the most up-to-date testing instruments, together with modules for the Protected Audiences API (previously referred to as FLEDGE) and Subjects API.
Publishers can submit a Privateness Sandbox public sale configuration by means of Prebid Server, OpenX or RTB Home to their Protected Viewers API. From there, Google Advert Supervisor will run an public sale pitting Google Adx towards Prebid’s bidders.
However making Privateness Sandbox and Protected Audiences work for the trade goes to be an ongoing problem, McCann stated, alongside making Prebid extra modular. To enhance web page load occasions for model 8, advert pod options and measurement mapping have been moved to devoted modules that may be activated as wanted.
Including loss notifications, which give dropping bidders details about the successful bid, can also be on the roadmap. “Prebid is at an obstacle by not offering loss notifications as a result of they’re invaluable to coach bidding algorithms,” McCann stated. “In order that’s one thing we’re engaged on.”
