Is Google Exchange Bidding working? OpenX says yes

The ad exchange OpenX and Google have been partnering on Google Exchange Bidding since 2016, when it was still in private beta. On Thursday, the companies released data about how that Exchange Bidding partnership is going.

OpenX says more than 200 publishers are receiving ads from the exchange via Google’s Exchange Bidding, its answer to header bidding, and that all are seeing higher revenue from those transactions. Publishers that were already using OpenX as a demand source have seen an average revenue lift of 48 percent after enabling Exchange Bidding through the exchange, according to the company.

With Exchange Bidding, buyers submit their final bids in a unified auction, including Google’s own exchange. The highest bid wins. Header bidding came about to keep Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange from being in the “last dibs” position in DoubleClick for Publishers’ (DFP) traditional waterfall sequencing of bids from demand sources that gave it the exclusive opportunity to beat out winning bidders.

“Our partnership allows every demand source to compete fairly within the final DFP auction, representing the first truly unified auction capability the market has ever seen,” said OpenX co-founder Jason Fairchild in a statement.