This year, header bidding is more accessible than ever, thanks to rapid developments in the technology that allows them. Buyers can be highly incentivized by the lower costs of impressions technology fees, while publishers enjoy higher profit margins from their inventory.

Header bidding has revolutionized the auction process. This is a new ad optimization technology that maximizes online revenue by re-inventing how ad networks and exchanges bid for a publisher’s inventory.

By placing code on the header portion of a site, header bidding requests and receives bid prices from all publisher’s ad partners at the same time – every time someone visits the site. It gives advertisers the ability to compete for a greater share of a publisher’s inventory often including that which is direct-sold.

The winning partner is chosen based on their real-time bid value, which is then passed to the ad server where key-values trigger a corresponding line item to serve an ad at that value for that partner. This competition not only gives other networks the chance to be evaluated on the same level as Google but can drive up the CPMs of direct deals as publishers gain a better understanding of the true value of their inventory.

According to Yieldbot, there are nearly 70 ad tech compaines looking to buy ads on web publishers' sites at a given moment using header bidding.

Header bidding enables advertisers to compete for publishers’ reserved and unreserved inventory via an auction that takes place outside of the ad server.

For publishers, the benefits are clear. This monetization tool exposes each impression to programmatic demand before calling the publisher’s ad server, ensuring maximum competition for inventory and significantly increasing publisher yield.

From the buyer’s perspective, the benefits of using header bidding include improved viewability, forecasting and global reach.

Using header bidding, advertisers have access to “premium” inventory that was previously only available via direct deals with the publishers. Now, header bidding gives buyers visibility into the entirety of a publisher’s inventory, and offers them the ability to bid on and win guaranteed placements. By exposing more premium placements to all bidders, header bidding has led to more valuable eyeballs and increased opportunity for conversions.

Accuracy in forecasting is very important for buyers. With header bidding, every enriched impression flows through an exchange operating the bidder technology. This provides buyers with full transparency into all of a publisher’s inventory. With more precise inventory insights buyers have access to better forecasting capabilities, giving them understanding in the true availability of a buyer’s target audience.

Visibility and access into the entirety of a publisher’s inventory offers buyers precision in executing campaigns for niche audiences at a global scale. Header bidding enables buyers to achieve campaign goals in a highly targeted and efficient manner by opening up inventory in smaller global markets, or highly specified ones.

In conclusion, buying from header bidding enabled publishers gives advertisers the opportunity to achieve maximum reach and ensures no users are missed. And they can also access more effectively high value users.