This is the first product launched under The Fyber Group's new, unified branding in which the parent group has absorbed and sunsetted two of its acquired brands: Inneractive and Heyzap.
Fyber claims that Fairbid is the first and only mechanism that achieves "true header bidding" for in-app advertising.
Header bidding, also known as advance bidding, is a technology that allows a publisher to offer its inventory simultaneously to multiple ad exchanges. This eliminates what is known as "the waterfall", a system where the publisher offers its inventory to ad exchanges one by one, starting with its top-ranked ad exchange and "waterfalling" remaining inventory down the list.
The waterfall hurts the publisher because it may result in premium inventory sold at lower prices, whereas header bidding would allow the best price to be derived thanks to a simultaneous auction.
Header bidding is a hard solution to provide for web, but it has been nearly impossible for in-app inventory, Fyber's head of product marketing Alon Golan told Campaign.
"If you're talking a fair auction, with low latency, run parallel and includes all sources, it's been impossible as you have companies like Facebook that say, I want to be a part of it but I have to have my software development kit on the code and will trade our native units only with our own metrics," Golan said. "We've solved this by partnering with Adcolony and Tapjoy. We let them keep their code in the app, and in the meantime, have the submit price bids server-side through real-time bidding like everyone else. We decoupled their code from their ad prices."
Fyber claims that it was also able to achieve this solution because it's a supply-side platform and is looking out for publishers – in this case the app developers – and not the advertiser.
The process used on Fairbid is called "programmatic mediation" – a process which seeks the best price for publishers. By partnering with in-app advertising networks AdColony and TapJoy, Fairbid is able to develop the capabilities for buyers to place bids in real-time. All impressions are awarded based on price, assuming the buyer meets the publisher’s standards for brand safety.
Fairbid is beneficial for publishers because it drives higher yield as it awards the highest bidder. Publishers will also no longer need to spend time managing and optimising the demand waterfall.
"FairBid makes no judgement as to which is the better buying mechanism. The industry needs a solution that eliminates the unfair "first look" given to some buyers in a waterfall-based auction, and finally brings a state of header bidding – that has been proven successful for desktop – into the in-app environment," Offer Yehudai, president at Fyber, said. "At the end of the day, demand is demand."
This article has been amended to take out the mention of Facebook as a partner of Fyber FairBid. Facebook is a partner of Fyber, and the company was mistaken when speaking to them as part of the FairBid reference.
