Here’s your guide to In-App Header Bidding. In this blog, we have covered all the essentials of in-app header bidding and what’s in it for publishers.

Integrated inside an app’s SDK, in-app header bidding assures a uniform auction, spurring competition among bidders from various demand sources for each in-app ad impression and eventually choosing the highest offer on each ad impression.

Only 10% of app publishers make money from the visitors to their apps, despite the fact that mobile app revenue is predicted to reach $900 billion by 2023.

In this blog, we’ve explained why you should leverage in-app header bidding to scale your app’s revenue.

In-App Header Bidding : What Should You Know?

Image Source: PubMatic

The procedure for website and even video header bidding is identical to the one for in-app mobile header bidding. Every impression is subject to a single auction, and each time you are awarded the highest offer.

In terms of mechanics, in-app mobile header bidding differs from a traditional header bidding solution. You use a software development kit (SDK) to initiate the auction rather than an embedded piece of code, as you would with web header bidding.

Following that, the concurrent auction takes place.

The highest bidder contends with direct demand for the right to serve the app user who started the app’s loading. The easiest thing will probably be to learn how in-app mobile header bidding operates. Choosing which SDKs and mediation partners to utilize when implementing header bidding in your app is the difficult part. Mobile app publishers have access to a plethora of mediation partners and SDKs, each of which claims to have its own proprietary ad technology that will produce superior results. None of these can be accurate.

How do you decide then? Choose a companion who will take care of most things for you. Certain platforms do really have access to reliable demand sources. Others provide a solution that is more or less turnkey and can prevent technical difficulties. However, the platform that does it all is the one for you when you find it.

Why In-App Header Binding Usually has the Upper Hand?

Here are some reasons why in-app header bidding is becoming popular:

Transparency

Marketers engage with their DSP and exchange partners to acquire a comprehensive picture of this reach. They aim to estimate, forecast and scale their reach of unique users. But, conventional waterfall models is both imprecise and changeable, making it challenging to make future predictions.

 In-app header bidding allows for equal chance and access to premium, high-performing inventory, giving advertisers considerably greater control over the supply that is most effective for them. Buyers may make educated judgments regarding campaign expenditures and bid optimally to secure maximum results by keeping the targeted campaign goals in mind.

Larger Audience

Access to high-quality content and people at scale is a significant issue that many marketers confront. Header bidding tackles this issue. Let’s examine the conventional waterfall approach, in which inventory is transferred from one ad exchange to another in accordance with historical price (eCPMs).

 The more expensive stock is taken out of the supply pool with each jump down the cascade. In this case, it is quite likely that advertisers affiliated with an exchange that is positioned lower on the waterfall model won’t have access to the same amount of inventory or user scale that they would want to see or for which they would be ready to pay more.

 In a header bidding environment, each exchange has the chance to submit a bid in response to each and every ad request. Platform partners, such as demand-side platforms (DSPs), may therefore, access all of a publisher’s inventory as well as the people who are consuming it. As a result, advertisers are in a better position to target more individuals throughout the inventory pool they select.

Disintermediation

Since waterfall models call demand partners in a hierarchical manner, advertisers are, by default, handled differently for each successive ad request. A marketer will only be able to reach a user if the historical average eCPM of the ad network/exchange they deal with is comparatively greater than the other networks or exchanges.

 This is because real-time bidding for a single user or impression is extremely competitive. Because every user or impression opportunity is solely evaluated based on a prior denomination, such a system is wasteful. This leads to negative feedback loops where advertisers may incorrectly assume that inventory is far more expensive than it actually is, as well as unseen competition in the form of previous eCPMs.

Header bidding enables all partners to have equitable access to premium, high-performing content, regardless of their prior engagement. Through the use of real-time bid answers from advertisers, all auctions are harmonized and cleared. The people and impressions that marketers value the most may now be reached through a genuine, equitable system.

Web Header Bidding vs. In-App Header Bidding

In-app header bidding has emerged as a fair and transparent method of selling and purchasing advertising space. It enables all buyers to simultaneously bid on identical ad inventory, and the highest bidder always wins as opposed to the conventional in-app advertising cascade technique.

This method’s workflow is quite similar to website header bidding. Header bidding wrappers, which are JavaScript elements, are responsible for bid evaluation, ad server communication, and ad calls to the demand partner, are used for website header bidding.

In the end, the real-time auction is always won by the highest bidder, whose advertisement appears on the publisher’s page.

Also Read: Improved Header Bidding Support in GAM

A Summary of How In-App Header Bidding Works

First off, the publisher’s ad stack and demand partners establish a server-to-server link over which all bids are sent. The key distinction between in-app and online header bidding may be found here: Instead of using an external network like HTTP or HTTPS, this communication happens in-app, directly on your smartphone.

In-app header bidding is now referred to as advanced bidding, parallel bidding, and unified auctions to prevent confusion with web header bidding. But how does this affect advertisers’ ability to take effective action?

The embedded piece of code in the site’s header is replaced by an SDK kit in the application.

Conclusion

In 2019, it was anticipated that digital ad spending will surpass that of conventional media, including television, for the first time (including both mobile web and in-app)

Budgets for in-app advertising frequently include a bigger part for programmatic tactics.

In-app funds are typically allocated 66% to programmatic direct or open exchange methods and 34% to direct buy. As a result, over 80% of all programmatic display expenditures in the US and UK now flow to mobile, accounting for the majority of all worldwide programmatic ad spend.

The largest prospects are being seen in programmatic in-app as consumers migrate their spending to mobile platforms. 30% of buyers, according to a recent study, intended to increase their programmatic direct in-app spending by more than 10% in the upcoming year.

As mobile advertising grows, app publishers that want to expand successfully and get a share of the rising brand revenues will turn to programmatic selling via in-app header bidding.

FAQs

What is the main benefit of In-App Header Bidding?

Buyers may see a publisher’s whole inventory with a header bidding code, giving them a greater knowledge of their reach. It also provides buyers access to additional audiences and a better probability of delivering campaigns because bid requests may be issued for every possible impression.

Is Header Bidding the same as Real-time Bidding?

It differs from standard real-time bidding (RTB) auctions in that, In place of each ad exchange holding their corresponding auctions at a considerably less priority in the publisher’s ad server, in header bidding, all the ad exchanges are allowed simultaneously at the highest priority in the ad server.

How does Header Bidding work?

Bids enable people to buy products and services at auctions and other places. It is a competitive procedure in which two or more entities strive to outbid each other by increasing the price they are prepared to pay to get the asset.


Author

Shubham is a digital marketer with rich experience working in the advertisement technology industry. He has vast experience in the programmatic industry, driving business strategy and scaling functions including but not limited to growth and marketing, Operations, process optimization, and Sales.

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