Above the Fold

Is having too many key-values in a bid request to GAM hurt response rates because GAM becomes slower or unable to handle the request?

How do you calculate ARPDAU? How do you calculate ARPU? Which team uses which metrics? One point made worth sharing: sometimes these metrics and how they are calculated serve multiple purposes – shareholders vs day-to-day, and that itself could be an interesting conversation.

There’s a Beeler.Tech project to work with publishers to help create more transparency in the industry, with what we can control, and one area where they have control is who goes into their ads.txt files.

A publisher reported that they’ve been reaching out to demand partners to reduce RESELLER lines. Historically, they capped at 40 entries and required minimum spend thresholds to remain. They have since trimmed every partner to 20 entries or fewer, with no drop-off in revenue.

Don’t advertisers make their own standards bodies and self-regulate? Can’t we do the same thing? Come up with a panel of industry leaders, brand the organization, and say this is how publishers do things?

I’ll start by saying I’ve been frustrated by the lack of progress in identifying which demand partners provide revenue via ads.txt line items. We’ve only had a few contributors. So I asked why this isn’t working. 60% of respondents said they just don’t have time.

“I know this is an old topic, but it came back to mind when AdBlock Plus asked me to take a premium subscription. Why is it that a company can generate revenue by blocking another company from generating revenue for the services they deliver?”

Does operating third-party inventory impact the perception of demand partners? One response so far: Some SSPs require legal authorization, but they saw significant improvements in performance and revenue. It hasn’t negatively impacted demand partner perceptions.

Multiple publishers report a sudden spike in Google flagging direct-sold and house creatives for malware. Alerts started a few days ago, with inconsistent clearing and no explanation. A Google incident was posted, but issues persist.

A discussion on early-November CPMs centered on unexpectedly soft pricing, with multiple publishers stating that levels remained below typical seasonal norms and that the traditional “November pop” has weakened. Several participants pointed to softer open-market demand.