Advertisers are facing a particular — and perennial — challenge regarding how they bid on ads within publisher inventory. Non-parallel auctions have become inefficient in the time they take to address each bidder, costing advertisers the bandwidth and money needed to optimize their tech stacks and ensure they’re securing placements at scale.

At the same time, publishers are finding they must simultaneously work with separate software development kits (SDKs) to manage the bidding process on their end. This puts a strain on the bidding systems, cutting efficiency and lowering publishers’ potential ad revenue yield.

Fortunately, this trend is shifting as new mediation solutions enter the market. Designed to improve ad bidding efficiency, hybrid mediation solutions are allowing publishers to set up configurations and pricing for auctions and advertisers to access real-time, fair auctions and greater ad exposure across multiple networks.

To further unpack these capabilities, ironSource’s senior vice president of product, Nimrod Zuta, recently spoke with Eric Seufert, general partner at Heracles Capital, about how advertisers are using hybrid mediation solutions — and how even in light of emerging benefits, some publishers have been slow to adopt.

Advertisers are moving from single SDKs to hybrid mediation solutions

Advertisers have long turned to SDKs to monetize ads within a mobile ecosystem via SDKs. However, many are finding single SDK solutions lacking in their capabilities and scope.

“Historically, the mediation space within the mobile ecosystem was driven by SDKs with a single line item and price, which later evolved into many line items published from high to low, or the ‘waterfall’ model,” Zuta said.

As vendors like ironSource develop hybrid solutions — the company has introduced one called LevelPlay — the goal is to combine SDK functionalities, connect advertisers with multiple ad networks and maximize campaign effectiveness across inventory in the broader ecosystem.

“Our goal is to increase competition as well as ensure you have a 100% fill rate, meaning every ad opportunity can be filled with an impression,” said Zuta.

Solutions like these integrate multifaceted functions with a dashboard and developer tools that enable advertiser teams to manage their ad stack, networks and revenue more effectively. Hybrid media solutions are helping mobile marketers move toward more effective bidding models.

“In the past few years, we’ve begun transitioning to a unified auction,” said Zuta.

Unified auctions, as opposed to the sequential bidding of waterfall auctions, enable advertisers across multiple networks to bid simultaneously. This places less burden on publishers and opens up more inventory for buyers.

With a unified auction, advertisers can more easily assign and prioritize ads for networks, making the most of their spend.

“The industry name today is mobile ads in a bidding war — which makes an auction in …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron