For two years, the 404bot worked unchecked, exploiting a flaw in the ads.txt spec that cost advertisers $15 million in wasted video ads. The 404bot served 1.5 billion video ads, according to Integral Ad Science, which revealed the scheme Tuesday with a warning for the industry, including for publishers to audit their ads.txt files. Ads.txt […]
Publishers of all sizes are cutting ties with programmatic resellers. Just as buyers are employing supply-path optimization to eliminate exchanges that provide little value, publishers are removing ad tech intermediaries that clutter their setups or harm monetization. By working with fewer partners, publishers are prioritizing control over their ad setup and site experience over the […]
First there was Ads.txt, then there was App-ads.txt. Now there are Sellers.json and OpenRTB SupplyChain Object Specifications. The two new specs, released for public comment by the IAB Tech Lab on Thursday, are both meant to help advertisers get a better understanding of whether the inventory they’re buying is legit and where it’s coming from. […]
This year’s theme was transparency. Marketers wanted transparency so they could make better decisions. Marketers, agencies and DSPs showed increased interest in the programmatic supply chain. They wanted to know the rules of programmatic auctions and the fees involved in advance, not find out hidden practices afterwards. They also wanted to know where to tread […]
Over a year before the FBI brought down 3ve’s human creators, the ad industry rolled out ads.txt, an anti-domain spoofing standard that slowly throttled the botnet. 3ve visited spoofed domains and sold fake traffic to publishers and, when it was active, was responsible for 1% to 2% of all bid requests, according to Google product […]
“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Matt Harada, general manager of data at Sovrn. Publishers without an updated Ads.txt file are missing out on revenue and stand to lose more in the near future. Despite strong initial adoption of Ads.txt […]
Ads.txt is headed to the app ecosystem. What form will it take? That’s still shaking out. The IAB Tech Lab released guidance on Wednesday with several proposals for how to implement Ads.txt within an app environment. Ads.txt is the Tech Lab’s initiative to reduce inventory spoofing and help advertisers distinguish legit supply sources from the […]
Brad Bender will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference on Jan. 17-18, 2018, at the Grand Hyatt New York. Google’s rallying cry for 2018? Better and possibly fewer ads. While that theory may seem counterintuitive for a company whose revenues come almost exclusively from advertising, rethinking the ad experience may mean recutting standard formats or reducing […]
Ads.txt research released Tuesday shines a new light on the extent of the harm done to major publishers by inventory resellers and lax supply chain standards. A joint study from Google, Amobee and Quantcast that examined Ads.txt data found rampant counterfeit inventory available to DSPs that seemingly came from 16 media companies, including Turner, The […]
Both the adoption of Ads.txt and commercialization of blockchain solutions have the IAB optimistic about the prospects for Ads.cert, a follow-up to Ads.txt that uses cryptographic security measures to authenticate inventory. While Ads.txt helps authorize inventory sources, it doesn’t solve the authentication problem, said Neal Richter, CTO of Rakuten Marketing and co-chair of the IAB’s […]
The ad buyers who will be hurt by the adoption of Ads.txt aren’t giving up without a fight. Publishers are being deluged with emails from “agencies” and “digital marketing solutions” companies threatening to stop buying inventory unless they’re added to the Ads.txt file. The New York Times, Wenner Media, Intermarkets and LittleThings all confirmed to […]
