Home The Big Story The Big Story: Dream A Little (Bid) Stream

The Big Story: Dream A Little (Bid) Stream

SHARE:
The Big Story podcast

Programmatic auction dynamics can be arcane, even for the most technical among us.

Google has Open Bidding (nee Exchange Bidding), Amazon’s got Transparent Ad Marketplace (TAM) and Prebid predates them both, not to mention a host of other wrappers on the scene.

But what do buyers, exchanges and publishers have to say – and, more importantly, need to know – about the three most dominant auction solutions, and what are the main differences between these approaches to header bidding?

“It’s very complicated,” says Sarah Sluis, who shines much-needed light on the topic this week on The Big Story and in a detailed explainer piece.

Despite the complexity, publishers have been jumping in feet first, although Sluis points out that buyers aren’t necessarily as enthused: “A lot of DSPs are not big fans of the fact that they have to look at all this inventory. Not only are they seeing the same impressions from 20 exchanges, they’re seeing the same impressions from 20 exchanges times three … 60 bids for a single impression.”

Also in this episode, we check in with James Hercher on location in San Francisco at Dreamforce, Salesforce’s annual conference extravaganza where he was in the room when CEO Marc Benioff was interrupted during his keynote by a protester objecting to Salesforce’s contract with US Customs and Border Protection.

And the team weighs in on customer data platforms – Salesforce has got one now and so do all the marketing clouds. But is what they’ve got to offer new or just a way to take advantage of the CDP buzz?

Must Read

Comic: Header Bidding Rapper (Wrapper!)

Microsoft To Stop Caching Prebid Video Files, Leaving Publishers With A Major Ad Serving Problem

Most publishers have no idea that a major part of their video ad delivery will stop working on April 30, shortly after Microsoft shuts down the Xandr DSP.

AdExchanger's Big Story podcast with journalistic insights on advertising, marketing and ad tech

Guess Its AdsGPT Now?

Ads were going to be a “last resort” for ChatGPT, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman promised two years ago. Now, they’re finally here. Omnicom Digital CEO Jonathan Nelson joins the AdExchanger editorial team to talk through what comes next.

Comic: Marketer Resolutions

Hershey’s Undergoes A Brand Update As It Rethinks Paid, Earned And Owned Media

This Wednesday marks the beginning of Hershey’s first major brand marketing campaign since 2018

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters
Comic: Header Bidding Rapper (Wrapper!)

A Win For Open Standards: Amazon’s Prebid Adapter Goes Live

Amazon looks to support a more collaborative programmatic ecosystem now that the APS Prebid adapter is available for open beta testing.

Gamera Raises $1.6 Million To Protect The Open Web’s Media Quality

Gamera, a media quality measurement startup for publishers, announced on Tuesday it raised $1.6 million to promote its service that combines data about a site’s ad experience with data about how its ads perform.

Jamie Seltzer, global chief data and technology officer, Havas Media Network, speaks to AdExchanger at CES 2026.

CES 2026: What’s Real – And What’s BS – When It Comes To AI

Ad industry experts call out trends to watch in 2026 and separate the real AI use cases having an impact today from the AI hype they heard at CES.