How Do Header Bidding Solutions Work for Small Companies?

| Updated on March 21, 2024

Header bidding is an advanced method of programmatic ad buying. It allows small companies to offer ad inventory to multiple ad exchanges before requesting ad servers. 

According to industry experts, header bidding is better than the waterfall method as the latter prevents small publishers from getting maximum ad revenues. 

Here are a few reasons why the header bidding solution works well for small publishers. 

Better Remarketing 

Header bidding allows small companies to work with more advertising partners. It means they have chances of higher CPMs. Remarketing allows advertisers to remind your customers and website visitors about your products and services. 

If a website visitor leaves your website without purchasing, the remarketing strategy allows companies to retarget customers by showing relevant and visual text ads when they visit other websites. 

There is no doubt remarketing pushes the customers down in the sales funnel and increases the chances of success for small companies. 

More Bidding Points 

In the world of search marketing, the bid refers to the maximum amount an advertiser is willing to pay for each click on the advertisement. In most advertising models where you work with one advertiser or platform, the publisher gets few bidding opportunities that significantly increase advertising costs. 

Header bidding solutions allow publishers to work with more advertising partners. In other words, more advertising partners means more bidding points. Header bidding allows small companies to bid for every small impression and maximize the bid’s value every single time. And, more bidding points translate into more direct sales and maximum revenue. 

Increased Inventory Value

Every publisher wants more exposure for their ads. Header bidding programs allow publishers to work with more advertising partners. It allows your customers to see more of your ads on different websites and platforms. 

Publishers benefit from this strategy as they get bids for every impression, increasing fill rates and CPMs and increasing inventory value.

Immediate Impact 

When you use the header bidding publishing model, you are more likely to see its positive impact on revenue immediately. Since the advertiser optimizes the setup, small publishers instantly experience an increase in bid prices. Furthermore, these advertising solutions allow you to test/swap partners reducing anxiety in the relationships. 

Since many ad networks will reach you with compelling offers, it is easy for you to turn on ads on different platforms. However, you must remember that, since ad networks compete in real-time, you will receive fewer bids from ad networks if you provide a low-value ad inventory. 

Earlier, testing advertising networks was a painful process, and small companies would lose significant ad revenues in these experiments. Now, header bidding automatically penalizes less transparent and margin-hogging networks, making small publishers simple. 

So, small publishers don’t have to rely on margin negotiations or contracts; instead, they can depend on competition between ad networks. 

Attain Greater Control

Small publishers have better control over sources bidding on their space in header bidding. This also allows them to prioritize specific advertisers based on their goals. 

Faster Loading Time 

Programmatic header bidding allows for shorter load times and reduces bidding time. Small publishers can opt for short loading times even for server-side bidding and offer a superior user experience to advertisers. However, it would help if you had a strategy to deal with timeouts when dealing with multiple ad partners. 

GameChanger 

Experts say that top-tier ad networks generally do not work with small publishers or demand high margins from them.  The lower-quality ads with sub-par technology would have direct access to the ad budgets of small publishers. 

Header bidding programs promise easy access, force competition, and reduce time investment at the same time. These solutions allow small publishers to bid on multiple ad exchanges and have a “first look” at the publisher inventory. The competition is a bidding war, and ad exchanges get incentives for taking lower margins from smaller publishers. 

To sum up, these are a few reasons why header bidding solutions work for small publishers.

Also Read: Challenge with Inventory Management Software


John M. Flood

John is a crypto enthusiast, Fintech writer, and stock trader. His writings provide guides to perform your best in the crypto world and stock planet. He is a B-Tech graduate from Stanford University and also holds a certification in creative writing. John also has 5 years of experience in exploring and understanding better about the FinTech industry. Over time, he gained experience and expertise by implementing his customized strategies to play in the crypto market.

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