How to Simplify Your Process with Supply Chain Validation
Since 2017, we’ve seen the success of the ads.txt, app-ads.txt, and sellers.json specifications as means to increase transparency in the programmatic supply chain. These widely adopted standards help buyers verify that they are purchasing inventory from authorized sellers.
Incorrect or missing entries can mean missed revenue or opportunity for unauthorized sale of your inventory. Publishers also need to be aware of how selling partners are representing them in their sellers.json files, as not knowing this can lead to misrepresentations. Buying platforms use the output produced by the supply chain transparency standards in real time bidding systems, which means that proper implementation and constant programmatic validation is needed.
It’s more critical than ever that all parties adhere to the specified formats. That’s why IAB Tech Lab has released a new service to help publishers maintain accuracy and validity of their ads.txt/app-ads.txt files to further improve on the supply chain transparency standards. This new service will run weekly and will automatically check each authorized seller listed in an ads.txt/app-ads.txt file against the referenced seller’s seller.json file. Each test case has a specific alert or notification code to help call attention to entries that may not meet expectations.
You can see the full list of test cases and expected results here: https://dev.iabtechlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Supply-Chain-Validation-for-Publishers.pdf .
We’re thrilled that the Supply Chain Validation service will help publishers manage their files and help the industry better understand the state of the specifications in the market. As we’ve developed this validation service, we have done a full validation run on all domains that IAB Tech Lab crawls. This includes over 3 million websites using ads.txt, 400,000 apps using app-ads.txt, and hundreds of sellers.json files. We will share our findings for common syntactical errors, relationship validations between ads.txt/sellers.json, and more to help with your implementation and monitoring of your supply chain with these tools.
Register now for one of the two following sessions (based on your time zone) and join us for further insights and discussion with our Tech Lab experts:
- August 3, 2021 8AM-9AM PDT / 11AM-12PM EDT / 4PM-5PM BST / 5PM-6PM CET: https://dev.iabtechlab.com/event/state-of-ads-txt-adoption-validating-the-supply-chain
- August 3, 2021 9:30PM-10:30PM PDT / August 4, 2021 10:00AM-11:00AM in India / 11:30AM-12:30PM in Jakarta / 12:30PM-1:30PM in Singapore / 2:30PM-1:30PM in Sydney:https://dev.iabtechlab.com/event/state-of-ads-txt-adoption-validating-the-supply-chain-apac
Publishers, Sign-up now for this new Supply Chain Validation service: Easy process and minimal annual fee* at $99 per domain (*or even less: ask your selling partner for a discount code).
Author
Jill Wittkopp
Director, Product
IAB Tech Lab