Google’s has today (April 4) announced the global rollout of Exchange Bidding to all of its DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) customers, including a raft of new features, as the online media giant aims to see off the challenge that header bidding poses to its dominance of the ad serving market. Exchange Bidding offers publishers more options to monetize their display ad inventory by allowing multiple exchanges to compete equally in a unified auction – similar to header bidding – with the latest updates to the Google offering including a provision that offers customers a more holistic view of each adtech partner’s performance. Additionally, Google has announced a host of new adtech partners available to publishers looking to use Exchange Bidding (see chart below) with the latest additions to the list of exchanges including Triplelift Aerserv and Smaato. The announcement was made in a blog post published earlier today. It read: “Exchange Bidding customers can now generate reports across several new dimensions including demand channel, exchange partner, yield group or advertiser on a per-impression level. “Additionally, we have added Exchange Bidding data to the DFP Data Transfer report to give publishers full transparency into every bid on every auction. With these new insights, publishers can make smarter and faster decisions to ensure they’re getting the greatest value from every impression.” The blog post also contains quotes from some of the partners Google has been working with on the early test phases of Exchange Bidding. Alex Payne, Vice Media, VP ad platforms, was quoted as saying: “Consolidated reporting through Exchange Bidding means that we can accurately track performance and trends for our demand partners in respect of our full ad stack.” Meanwhile, Drew Bradstock, Index Exchange, SVP, product, has added: “Index Exchange’s partnership with Google provides new points of entry to publishers across the globe and allows us to rapidly grow our quality app supply.” The blog post concluded: “To ensure publishers continue getting the greatest value for all their ad inventory, we’re expanding Exchange Bidding to more ad formats like video ads and transaction types such as programmatic deals. Both of these products are currently in closed alpha and will be released to beta in the upcoming months.” The rollout has taken place a little under a year since Google first launched Exchange Bidding in open beta (after an earlier 12 month private pilot scheme) with the online behemoth claiming that trials had seen earlier participants bolster programmatic revenues by as much as 40%. “When every millisecond counts, the fastest solutions yield the best results. Relying on client side connections over mobile networks to manage yield can result in annoyed users, lower viewability and lost opportunities. That’s why we challenged ourselves and worked hard to prioritize speed during the closed beta,” read a blog post announcing the earlier roll out, However, these research numbers have since been further built upon, with OpenX – a supply-side partner that has partnered with Google on its Exchange Bidding roll out – claiming that publishers trialing the emergent technology with the pairing have seen an average yield increase of 48% in the 12 months since the two started working together. Furthermore, OpenX claimed that the top 20 publishers using the technology experienced an average revenue lift of more than 130%. The race to challenge the dominance of Google's DoubleClick via way of encouraging publisher uptake of header bidding was one of the distinguishable trends in the online publishing industry over the last 18 months. This concerted effort was exemplified in September when AppNexus, Pubmatic and Rubicon Project announced the official launch of Prebid.org, an independent organization aimed towards helping adtech players and premium publishers challenge the dominance of Google’s DoubleClick with an open-source approach to header bidding.
Google has fully launched its Exchange Bidding system for publishers to help improve ads by allowing multiple exchanges to bid for space. The company said publishers would be able to make better decisions to ensure the greatest value. Google also announced new adtech partners including TripleLift, AerServ and Smaato. Google Ad tech company OpenX, which helped the roll-out, said trials produced a 48% revenue boost with some larger publishers reporting a rise of over 130%.