What is Header Bidding?
Header bidding is a programmatic technique that enables publishers to sell ad space to several demand sources before an ad server is called. By executing auction processes in the page’s header code, publishers can compare offers and improve their revenue in real time. Advertisers get fast bid responses and access to high-quality placements without dealing with complex systems for publishers. This gives publishers maximum revenue because latency is reduced, and waterfall setups are avoided.
Good examples are integrations of prebid.js that request bids from multiple ad exchanges simultaneously or server-side header bidding implementations aimed at reducing load times.
Related terms: Advertiser and publisher ecosystems sell-side, Ad serving dashboard, programmatic advertising, real-time bidding (RTB) exchange, ad exchange, and the waterfall model.