Debunking header bidding in mobile apps

[Music] perfect mine my name is Turkish mama I'm the CEO of IQ zone so the first the guys who don't know what IQ zone is icky zone is a in a polarization platform where we aggregate all and we try and we try and get incremental revenues for some more publisher partners here we we work with some of the biggest publishers in the world including our p7 and some of the guys we've seen previously I guess I wanted to you know as the as the title suggests I think I've heard about in the next in the last couple of hours I've heard about bidding like five times now

and I guess you know I bought an L on the stage I left uh now introducing in a minute but you know enough header bidding has become you know I think it's from a buzzword for for the last year and a half for eighteen months now and I think we see more and more publishers adopting and yeah I want to see you know I want to give the opportunity are now to give you guys a view on what they what it actually looks like from a publishing standpoint it's kind of funny because in one way I was yeah I was actually after seven at one point in time but a year in at Tech is you know it's very different so why don't use it to yourself and we're going to keep dive into the questions sure so before I start can I just get the feeling for the room who of you guys here by show of hands already tested any header bidding solution okay cool so my name is an L so I'm the deputy VP of advertising about

it seven and I'm sure most of you guys know who we are so we did it this world phenomenon called my talking tom so we have more than 8 billion downloads already so we have roughly 350 million monthly active users and we monetize mostly through ads and I think that's about it great so maybe just about buy of information as well I think after seven also built was also known for one of the most sophisticated the mediation platforms in the market so what is just dive into the the actual question so what have you seen in the last 18 what are some of the trends that you've seen in the last 18 months yeah that you can share with the audience so from the monetization side what we are seeing is there is a lot of like talking about header bidding and how everything is going there but when we talk like two

different big developers or companies we still see that the progress is quite slow so we wish we could see things moving much faster so they're like a lot of companies like Facebook and other guys that I really like actively working in this space but we see that things are moving quite slow and I think this is one of the big trends beside the hyper casual gaming that was happening and and why do you think things are moving very slow in the adoption of editing is there specific reasons why you know there's I think because a lot of people think it's it's a complex environment right so with every new thing people are very cautious and what we are seeing is like the adoption is very slow probably because of that but we wish that let's say like its 21st century right so we want to

have everything in real time and it's not the case so we want like to push industry into this direction as well because we see a lot of benefits but I think it's just people are just hesitant to go on board and try it because they are used to do things a certain way they did for a long time so you think people are publishers mainly a bit hesitant because they don't know you know I guess risk the the referees are currently making you know even though it's in fishing it using motor for example right as we as people have been using yes I do because they're making they don't want to break something that's already working and they're going to testing like slowly-slowly and because you probably won't see like the best results until I sell like the majority of demand is already on Heather bidding so when you're just testing with a couple of sources you also see limited results but so far for the cool we see the increase

in yield which is positive you also see the higher prices in the eCPMs which is also good but the adoption is too slow okay and you mention about some of these demands you can you can you maybe mention who is it who are actually which are the active demand Hornets were actually bidding across the different platforms is it few of them or were they you know it's it's it's few of them so we wish that there could be more but we see that a lot of companies are actually developing developing their own solutions and they're going to the right direction so this is positive news I think from the industry and will be good for the whole industry I think great ok so let me let me drill drill you in terms of what outfit seven as a company is doing for header bidding right which as I mentioned you know after someone has it operates its own mediation platform are you guys you're using a third party meter had a bidding solution to achieve the results that you're

looking for are you building your own you know what yeah sure so we have quite sophisticated add mediation system already so we mediate roughly sixty partners in our system and of course you are looking for new innovative ways to improve our system to work on it so what we are doing is evaluating kind of solutions what is there you're looking on top of our current mediation system that we have should be like invest resources to build on top of it should we test with some other third-party providers and see what's working best for us so for us because we don't issue with resources like some of the developers do we like to test a lot of things and arpita's kind of DNA of building things I'm like in house so we are playing a lot with testing different options playing around and we are

working on something like on top of our permanent remediation solutions long okay so basically is using at the moment using a hybrid model which is using your testing other third party mediation Harry building solutions as well as using your own trying to build your own yes and I think this is kinda like intermediate phase where we will go to this hybrid model first because there will still be a lot of let's say networks or guys that will still be on like any mediation similar guys will go with Heather building so you need to have a system that will accommodate both in this like transition period be like fully are to be and everything will be happening so I think we are now closing through this phase that will probably last for I don't know maybe 3 6 12 months it depends of has the industry will go on board okay you're coming back to the demand side one of the things

that we've absorbed you know my keys on and when I speak to a lot with my partners and they were good to understand from your side as well he's had a bidding you know it's it's bit it's a CPM option based way of annajura ting increasing competition whereas a lot of the network traditional networks who I have been in mobile in app have been traditionally buying in with you on on the performance base with a CPI or CPA you know and we what's your view on your you know is that one of the reason why it's taken longer for this demand harness to your violent CPM you know what are some of the challenges near the day tell you or you see for from yeah I think so that's one of the challenges but we want to focus more on like the positive side so like transparency is big for us just to be interesting I meet all the partners that we work with we also do that with our current mediations so we have a

dashboard where they can see where they are positioned in the waterfall they can see all the waterfalls they can see all the data so we are very straightforward around that and also add mediation is not the most efficient way so when you have like real-time bidding for each impression the main sides can actually choose and pick how much they're wanting how much they're going to bathe and and see what works for them and in terms of ROI and things like this so so let me let me just so in terms of like you know format right you know of course reward video is your especially for hyper cacher and casual games or whatever he has becoming a big chunk of their revenues you know banners starting to kind of you know decline in terms of yeah there's enough supply there but in some of CPMs it kind of it's declining what's your what's your view on headed

bidding for you know in terms of format so where do you see that the biggest growth and probably the biggest usage of header bidding is it you know on banners your body video you know ways where do you see the current trends probably the biggest one would be on a report video because also like all the big brands you know like they I go to desktop world the header bidding is there for like four years and it's working really well and in mobile in app world it's totally different story and remember video is actually the probably let's say the best format for games because you can kind of integrate it directly in and like closely top level ads but one thing that we are seeing like interstitials and banners then going away soon because especially banners for example I hear a lot of people talking about banners are dead they're going out but we still get like majority of revenues from banners when

you look at the man they're still buying a lot so they are probably not going away soon but in terms of like your forehead a building specifically are you you know do you see the you know the uplift you know in for example for banners more through header bidding or just by adding more networks you are doing to get a perspective of you know if you're a publisher right now here yeah you have an option you're doing header bidding or doing waterfalls you know what's you know how would you decide on what's the best technique to get you know to get the highest yield but header bidding is definitely way to do it because we see that some of the guys are seeing like twenty thirty percent like increase in yield which is good and also with header bidding you're kinda moving away from buyer sites a buyer side didn't pay any Commission's so it's much better with the let's say the what

they're spending is actually what what you're getting and then just the publisher gets pays the Commission so I think in terms of Heather Billings probably the what the video will see the biggest increase okay you borrow interests be a very interesting point about anything you mentioned earlier is also around transparency do you think header bidding right now is giving that in enough transparency in terms of your you know I guess header bidding also in the desktop world was was meant to bring closer near the buyers and and and sell is much more closer right do you see that happening right now in header bidding or is it I was too far away from you know seeing a lot more transparent data and you know I guess you know let's put the elephant in the room is the fees right doobies yeah you guys see that the header bidding is going to solve that we see that we are going to the right direction we are still far from it but I think we're on the right track and one thing that's

also important for us is the SDK footprint so we built with header bidding the SDK footprint will become like much lower so you won't need to use that many as the case which increases the size of the app and things like this and everyone will basically need to compete to get the impressions so from the publisher standpoint of view this is very positive but the other hand like is the man ready to pay for that because at the end of the day you know you're getting money out of the man so yeah so you also feel that in the future there will be less SDKs you know that a publisher would have the support to get the demand they can we get I hope so because we have a lot of them okay so let me let me ask you and then I'll open up to the the audience later in a minute but one of the things you know with any new technology you go to consider the tech side you've got to consider the

business side but I guess also there's your internally as a team you know you know by with any new technology you go to consider other resources right so are you guys you know what does this mean to you teams your are you building teams around header bidding solutions or are you are you investing in open your current resources do you you know to manager had been yeah okay so for us there is no need for lycra staffing firm for our own case because we already have dedicated team that's working just on that so we have a team that's working on like mediation as a whole and then Heather bidding is just one part of that team so we do all of things internally but I see like if you're like indie or smaller studio then making an investment to build your own tools probably doesn't make sense because it's quite a commitment you need to maintain all

there's the case there are a lot of bugs and just maintaining all that requires for other people so it's probably much better solution to go with like SAS model with someone which has everything in one place and you focus on the things that's you're the best probably like no the games okay and and other other you know of course you know you have powers over here like Nemo puppet fiber and you know you lose your building you know their own versions of header bidding where I mean where do you think the you know what do you think you know if we're sitting here in two years time where do you think you know we'll be in something heavy bidding like you know we still be talking about efficient your transparency or are we talking about okay you know let's me making more money out of this right I hope is it were the second one so in the next two years probably we will get to the like later stage of this hybrid space because when we start with like this hyper phase people with yet more comfortable they will get on board they will start seeing

some good results and good success stories and then you start building from there and then like once couple of big guys adopt that and that and that can kind of push like the whole industry in the right direction so we need to make sure that like all the guys that you mentioned that we have kind of aligned vision to push the industry in the right way and not in to like something that will be like bigger mess than it is at the moment okay so you you you you wish that the industry works together yeah especially on the demand side to get more demand your own boarded and bidding at the same time exactly because it's beneficial for both sides and also like if you had more transparency like I'm sure demand is willing to pay much more if they have everything's as parent they have all the data and they can choose like to spend more if they wish if the ROI is there for them you don't have to sparrin see then they

need to test and like see what works what doesn't work which is not efficient and also likes not time efficient is not cost-efficient okay great so before I open up to the the audience if they have any questions so if you're if you're a publisher right now and you know you how do you consider a header billing solution what is kind of a few features that you need to see you need to have in order to consider ahead of it like it had any your points that you can actually highlight so for us like it's just an spencey so we want everyone to have equal chance of bidding and then not actually VD meaning for the each impression so that means like when you do the request for all the prices are so on you need to get transparent bits and then those bits needs to be actually paid in it's at the time and so I think transparency would be okay and and I

guess less fifty case yes yeah there's always too many SDKs so I think yeah I think I'm one of question I wish we had more time but I guess you open up to the audience because as you said that you're trying to sneak in one though so you were talking about a header bidding my question is the desktop industry is moving more the server-side bidding which makes more sense for the users because it consumes less bandwidth and stuff so do you think mobile will adapt server-side bidding faster than header bidding and you perspective it will be server server side because it's when it comes to the efficiency is better and bear in mind like if you have like a huge back-end you need to have all the connections open so they can do all the

requests in real time and it's a lot of that and just maintaining that it requires a lot of costs so I think that's the way because you need to have always open connection to do it if you do it from the client it's a lot of drain on like resources memory and things like this so you don't want like users to like I said that their phone do not be so efficient or the battery draining and stuff I this I think I'm gonna prank my role to give you one more question thank you state way about internet work we've been a real catalyst for this it's a huge strategic priority what one thing if you had a genie in a bottle what one thing would you ask Facebook to move this forward faster probably good get everyone in the industry on board because I see that Facebook is pushing the things in the right direction it's just moving slowly so if I could do a

magic one thing probably we will have had everything already and everyone will be on board and everything is real time and you don't need like excel sheet reports and stuff - yeah thank you very much guys [Applause] [Music]