Adsense plus header bidding? Or header bidding only?

Does one cannibalize the other?

[Evan Salamanca]

I’ve traditionally run both Adsense and a third party header bid provider (currently Playwire). Their rep claims that running their ads alone will provide much greater overall income. I’ve not heard this before and it doesn’t exactly line up with what I’ve heard from my old Monumetric rep when they were the header bid source. I also run some other providers such as media.net, nativo, and gumgum. Has anyone here had experiences with header bids only compared to header bids plus other providers?

[matbennett]

I don't know Playwire's set-up, but you are right to question this. One of the key reasons that header bidding developed was to make Google demand work harder by pushing up prices on dynamic allocation. A typical headerbidding set-up (by which I mean "every vaguely good set-up I have ever seen") will only allow Google to take the impression if it can beat the top header bidder. Removing Google from that equation would be good for header bidding demand partners (and their reps!), as they would win more impressions, but it would mean lower revenue for the publisher.

Another impact would be the impact on fill rate. Most publisher rely on Google to ensure 100% fill and use HB partners to push up the price of the more valuable impressions. Removing them could drop the number of impressions filled and therefore lower rates further.

As I say, I don't know Playwire's set-up, but the above is true for header bidding as a whole. I notice that Playwire pitch themselves as a complete solution. It may be that their rep believes that Playwire have better/more demand and can push rates higher than dynamic allocation could. I'd be very surprised if that was true as a general rule, but they might have insights specific to your inventory that gives them confidence that they could for you. I'd need to be convinced of that though.