A Definitive Guide for Prebid Header Bidding

Prebid has the position as a middleman between publishers (website or app owners) and multiple advertising partners (demand partners). It manages a real-time auction where all advertisers compete for the publisher’s ad inventory.

Before we delve into the Prebid, let’s have a quick recap over the header bidding.

What is Header Bidding & How Prebid Facilitate it?

The main function of the Header Bidding is to facilitate the auction from many advertisers to buy the publisher’s Ad inventory to show their ad. Header Bidding disrupts the traditional, single-ad-server model, and offers a real-time auction where multiple demand partners (advertisers) actively compete for your ad space. Prebid in this case will manage the dynamic exchange, ensuring a fair and transparent bidding process.

What is Prebid?

Prebid is an open-source suite of tools that work together to enable header bidding for publishers. This method provides a standardized and efficient way to implement website header bidding and ensure seamless integration with various demand partners and ad exchanges.

This process happens in real-time auctions for publishers’ ad space before it reaches the ad server. As a result, it increases competition among advertisers, potentially leading to higher revenue for publishers.

How Does Prebid Work?

Prebid wrapper uses the Javascript Library for the technology. Being embedded within your website or app, this wrapper acts as the auctioneer, managing all the bidding activities. This is how Prebid works:

1. Intercepting the Request: When a user visits your platform, the prebid wrapper intercepts the ad request before it reaches your ad server.
2. Managing Bidding Activities: With a very high speed process, the wrapper dispatches requests to a multitude of demand partners concurrently. These partners, eager to secure your ad space, respond with their most competitive bids.
3. Decide the Winner: The prebid wrapper instantly evaluates each bid in real-time, ultimately selecting the one that promises the highest return for the publisher.
4. Show the Ad of the Winner: The winning bid is then gracefully presented to your ad server, which takes center stage by displaying the corresponding ad on the user’s screen.

Key Components of Prebid

Below are the Prebid components for specific platforms and environments:

Prebid.js

Prebid.js is the original form of Prebid and also the critical component, which was developed for web-based environments. It’s a specific Javascript library that can be implemented on a publisher’s website to enable header bidding. When there’s a user visiting the website, Prebid.js will start sending request bids from many demand sources real time. Advertisers can compete to get ad impressions, with the highest bid winning and the ads being displayed to the audience.

Prebid Server

Prebid Server, a server-side header bidding solution facilitates reducing latency and reduces page load. Here’s how: 

The header bidding process moves from the user’s browser to the server, reducing latency and page load time. This solution is really suitable for the header bidding which happens in mobile apps or others which are not web-based.

Prebid Mobile

Developed for mobile app developers, Prebid Mobile provides a solution to activate header bidding specifically for mobile apps. This solution enables developers to get higher ad revenue by bring higher CPM.

Prebid Video

With the Prebid Video solution, publishers can integrate Header Bidding for video ad units,  increasing the competition between demand partners and bringing higher CPM for video ad units.

Key Features of Prebid

Open-Source

Utilising the JavaScript Library, Prebid is an open-source that allows publishers to use it freely and modify it to meet their needs. By offering the flexibility, publishers gain full control over their inventories, making the header bidding setup more transparent and independent. 

Various Demand Partners

Due to it’s open source nature, Prebid can be utilized by many demand partners, including Ad Exchanges, SSPs (Supply Side Platforms), and DSPs (Demand side platforms). With numerous demand partners, this solution allows publishers to access more advertisers, ultimately receiving higher revenue through increased competition and CPM bidding.

Multiple Ad Formats

Prebid also supports many ad formats such as display, native, video. By using Prebid, publishers can use many ad formats to get more revenue and higher CPM bids from many sources.

Cross-Platform Support

Prebid not only supports multiple ad formats but also works across various platforms such as websites, mobile apps, and also video. By working with many platforms, publishers can implement a unified header bidding solution across their entire digital property, simplifying management and optimization.

Header Bidding Mediation

With header bidding mediation, publishers have access to combine Prebid with other header bidding solutions. This solution can optimize demand partners competition to get the best bidder for the ad slot.

Benefits of Prebid for Publishers

Higher Ad Revenue

Revenue is the result of this solution, and Prebid potentially can bring the higher ad revenue by providing fair competition among demand partners.

Flexibility and Full Control

Prebid provides publishers full control over their inventories and publishers can decide their demand partners to participate in the auction.

Transparency

Prebid gives publishers the transparency of the bidding process, and the flexibility to allow them to optimize their strategy by looking at the insight to get higher results.

Pros and Cons of Prebid

Pros

• Prebid is an open-source header bidding solution that has a potential to increase competition and yield opportunity by getting various demand partners to bid on an impression at the same time in real-time.
• Publishers have the full control to decide the auction rules and also decide what kind of ads that can appear.
• Prebid is free to use.

Cons

• To implement and maintaining the Prebid may need some higher technical knowledge.
• Due to the variety of demand partners and the fact that only some may be suitable for you, it may require publishers significant efforts to manage relations with many demand partners.
• If the publisher has a huge traffic on their website, Prebid is probably not suitable due to technical limitations and performance constraints.

Prebid vs Postbid

Prebid – This method does the auction before the ad server gets involved. This real-time competition often leads to higher bids.

Postbid – In this process, the ad server takes the initiative, soliciting bids from various partners before selecting the winner. While potentially faster, this approach might yield lower bids due to the sequential nature of the process.

Prebid	Postbid
Auction happened before the ad server is called	Auction happened after the ad server is called
Highest bid winner wins the competition	Ad server calls partner, bid winner selected by it
Higher revenue by increasing competition	Faster page load time
Mostly use in header bidding	Currently becomes an alternative solution
Flexible and transparent	Alternative solution based on strategy

Final Thoughts

Prebid is a powerful tool and also an effective solution for publishers who want more control and transparency to get more ad revenue. However, Prebid also requires some technical expertise to implement and maintain to ensure a smooth process. With the right implementation, publishers not only can get more Ad Revenue but also better user experience.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the meaning of Prebid?

Prebid is an open-source header bidding solution that empowers publishers to maximize ad revenue. It acts as a mediator between publishers and demand sources, facilitating real-time auctions to increase competition and revenue potential. 

2. How does Prebid determine the auction winner?

The prebid wrapper instantly evaluates each bid in real-time, ultimately selecting the one that promises the highest return for the publisher. The winning bid is then gracefully presented to your ad server, which takes center stage by displaying the corresponding ad on the user’s screen.

3. How about the cost to use Prebid?

Prebid is an open-source software and free to use. But there might be costs associated with implementation, regarding developer resources or managed service costs