The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released guidance for ads.txt and app-ads.txt inventory partner domain sharing for the connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) landscape.
In this blog post, we recap app-ads.txt and briefly explain inventory partner domains. We also explain why ads.txt and app-ads.txt, in their current iterations, are inadequate for navigating advertising in the CTV and OTT market, and how our solutions at 42matters can help.
Here’s what we cover (click the links below to jump to the relevant sections):
What Is app-ads.txt?
We’ve touched on this before, but we’ll provide a brief recap for the first-timers. app-ads.txt was developed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) to help companies increase ad revenue and fight ad fraud. It enables demand-side platforms (DSPs) to acquire ad space from authorized suppliers only, by allowing app publishers to declare which companies are authorized to sell their ad inventory.
Here’s how it works. app-ads.txt is a text file that app publishers add to their website. This file lists the ad sources authorized to sell their app’s ad inventory. DSPs that bid on app inventory will then scan a developer’s app-ads.txt file to verify which ad sources are authorized to sell that app’s inventory. With this information, DSPs can ensure that they accept bid requests from approved ad sources only.
What Is an Inventory Partner Domain?
There are three essential pieces to the term “inventory partner domain,” so let’s break them down quickly. Inventory refers to ad space available on a given app or site; partner refers to an entity authorized to host or sell ads on this ad space; and domain refers to the website of the authorized partner. So, in essence, an Inventory Partner Domain refers to the website of an authorized ad partner. As noted above, when an app or site contains ad inventory that is partially owned by third-party partners, they can list these partner domains in ads.txt and app-ads.txt files to declare which are authorized to sell their inventory.
Now, it should be noted that the connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) media market is composed of significantly more complex monetization relationships than the mobile app market. As such, the IAB’s ads.txt and app-ads.txt standards, as currently designed, are insufficient for accommodating these relationships.
To address this, the IAB released guidance for inventory sharing in the CTV and OTT landscape. It provides guidelines and spec enhancements to facilitate support for apps and sites in which multiple entities may have ownership rights over ad space. This multiple ownership-rights model is commonly referred to as “inventory sharing.”
For clarity, IAB’s guidance includes the following example for Virtual Multichannel Video Programming Distributor (vMVPD) apps. These are composed of content distribution agreements wherein one entity, typically a content producer or programmer, gives rights to a content distributor to rebroadcast their content. In such cases, both the producer / programmer and the distributor have ownership of some portion of the ad inventory, where “ownership” refers to the fact that both entities may legitimately originate an ad request inside an app.
Continuing this example, the current versions of ads.txt and app-ads.txt would require the vMVPD app to authorize the producer / programmer, along with their authorized seller and reseller information, in their app-ads.txt file. This makes maintaining the app-ads.txt file substantially more tedious. It also incrementally decreases the security-related benefits that the standards were, in part, designed to facilitate.
How Can 42matters Help?
DSPs and other interested parties can use third-party solutions to view aggregated app-ads.txt data. For instance, at 42matters, we provide app-ads.txt data via the 42matters Explorer (our flagship app market research tool) as well as via our app-ads.txt API and app-ads.txt file dump.
Recently, we enhanced our app-ads.txt APIs and file dumps to handle the sort of complicated monetization relationships outlined above. We’ve added the app_ads_txt.inventorypartnerdomain attribute to the following products:
- App-Ads.txt API for Android Apps
- App-Ads.txt API for iOS Apps
- File Dump of App-Ads.txt for CTV & Mobile Apps
To learn more about 42matters, schedule a meeting with one of our app market experts. We’ll walk you through everything.
