Above the Fold: June 22, 2026

by

Above the Fold: June 22, 2026

BY ROB BEELER

This information is confidential and for the internal use of our partners only. The Above the Fold Report is an amalgamation of the discussions taking place within the Beeler.Tech universe.

Much of what is presented is based on conversations held behind closed doors within the last week. The topics will range from existential threats to publishers down to questions about how to use a specific feature in an ad server. If you are a publisher or someone who works with publishers, all of these provide opportunities to help or learn. The report’s format varies based on the conversations.

Community Feed

Community Conversations

Testing the seller-agent spec: One pub asked if anyone explored IAB Tech Lab’s seller-agent protocol. Another runs a live version wired to their codex, hosted on locked-down AWS, not fully public. They called the state machine and event bus bits complicated but workable. A third asked about sales/buyers off-protocol.

ATT opt-out and identifiers: A pub asked how others handle third-party IDs like RampIDs and UIDs for iOS users who opted out of ATT, and whether systems withhold them. One reply: no authorization, no IDs sent. LiveRamp’s ATS SDK and API require ATT before a RampID envelope is created, so enforcement is built in.

Selling newsletter ads direct: A pub asked if anyone has worked with Paved or similar companies that help sell newsletter inventory directly. One reply: they got their first bite last week, fairly smooth process with good support, though you design the ad yourself. They don’t trust the click reporting, which flagged 85% of clicks as automated for a highly relevant ad, not credible.

GAM forecast adjustments reliability: A pub asked how reliable GAM Forecast Adjustments are, facing an August crunch where the Traffic Forecast outpaces the Inventory Forecast. Replies: fine for a one-time ROS fix, but brutal at scale, hundreds of manual adjustments to set and update. One built a 12-month historical formula tying convertible unfilled to filled impressions by site section. Another made granular seasonality adjustments, averaging two years of month-over-month changes, skipping anything where YoY differed by more than 10%. A third noted GAM now applies its own seasonality on the last 28 days, so changes self-correct within a month. Old hands reminisced about Microsoft Access.

Open Bidding status: A pub gut-checked Open Bidding, noting an SSP told them to run elsewhere and OB volume has gone quiet. Most disagreed: several said SSPs are asking them for OB integrations directly, and Direct Pay OB is ramping well on display. Counterpoint: PubMatic and TripleLift recently paused one pub citing weak performance “but it is not,” and Equativ wants direct payment. That pub thinks OB is on borrowed time until something replaces it. Another left it running for low revenue, asking if there’s any downside. One flagged TripleLift was deactivated by Google in 2024 for GAM small business, source unclear.

Google Refresh Issues: “Another problem with GPT’s own logic for refreshing HAI ads is that if it’s something that came from, say, a Prebid win, it will not change the winning bid KVP when it refreshes the slot, so the same winning ad that was heavy and blocked will render again, only to get blocked again. The end result can look like an ad “rapidly refreshes” or “flickers in and out”. So if you use Prebid or TAM, I recommend having this disabled by default and consider your own solution for refreshing due to HAI.”

Running 300×600 in-app: A pub asked about 300×600 versus 300×250 in-app. Several run it in the first content slot on articles, alongside 970×250 and 728×90. WaPo reportedly does too. One swaps request sizes server-side. Programmatic rates beat 300×250 on iOS and Android, though one mainly uses it for direct-sold.

Metrics beyond RPM for resellers: A pub asked which metrics matter when auditing ads.txt and cleaning up resellers, beyond RPM. One tracks bid density and SOV across core partners, aiming to redirect resold revenue to bolster top partners. They also watch page speed, ad load time, and Prebid timeouts, since more hops mean slower responses, fewer impressions, and more sequential liability if a partner defaults. Plus billing overhead. Another just ran the process; numbers held and page speed improved. A third floated an untested idea: add resellers only on long-tail, hard-to-fill inventory where density is needed, though traffic shaping arguably solves the same QPS problem.

Disputing HUMAN IVT flags: A pub asked if anyone has a direct relationship with HUMAN, since publisher supply gets flagged as IVT when the real issue is unwhitelisted app bundles. Pubs feel handcuffed, relaying through DSP and SSP contacts. One has fought this over a year with verifiable proof of false flags and unjustified clawbacks, but HUMAN wouldn’t acknowledge it to the client, who showed ads without paying. Another, eyeing HUMAN signup for proof, asked if that evidence came from a HUMAN contact. A third said DSP and SSP contacts must dig deeper because HUMAN’s UI surfaces details such as unapproved bundles or user agents.

OneTrust consent bug and inventory: A pub flagged a known bug in OneTrust version 202601.2.0 in which opt-out consent persisted for categories set to respect GPC or DNT signals, even after selecting “Allow All,” because the platform didn’t log a “Confirmed” status unless users manually confirmed their choices. Identified February 24 and affecting all environments, with a fix planned for build 202603.1.0. They asked if anyone’s ad inventory suffered around 2/24. One pub saw a sharp opt-out spike in February, which was investigated with OneTrust but no explanation was found. The poster sourced the bug from OneTrust support and Copilot, noting Copilot has been more helpful than the team.

Developing Discussions

  • Did anyone else get obliterated by Google’s June algo update? Even worse, it seems to have spilled over to our performance on discover + news.
  • Curious if anyone can provide feedback on the GAM 360 server-side unwrapping feature? Sounds great in principle, and curious about the impact.
  • Has anyone been getting reports of a malicious pop-up ad on web under the guise of McAfee/Norton Antivirus? The ad auto-redirects to a new domain with the scan “video” followed by a second auto-redirect to another domain, commonly from Walmart. Spoke to a few SSPs, and most haven’t been seeing it, so we’re having a hard time tracking it down. We have been receiving reports globally since late last week.
  • Anyone see a lot of AI-generated ads, wrt like fake product catalogs that are majorly subtly sexual? And know the culprit? (Looks like it’s Temu).
  • Does anyone know of a legitimate content syndication platforms/partner that can be used to help boost site pageviews?
  • Anyone using Optable on CTV for identity enrichment and seeing good results?
  • We’re in the early stages of testing Audience Extension with our 1P audience segments in DV360, but we’re currently blocked on the final setup. We’ve been told the audience sync must be enabled by a Google account rep, and we don’t currently have one. Has anyone run into this before or have a buy-side/Google contact who could help? We’ve hit a dead end on this operational step.
  • Is anyone else have late payment issues with Microsoft (previously Xandr)? Our May payment is late and we can’t get a response from their support despite filing multiple tickets. This transition to Microsoft has kind of been a nightmare.