By Lou Mastria
Big Idea: Both publishers and advertisers gain by having AdChoices consumer control signals built into Prebid’s open-source header bidding framework.
The Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) AdChoices signal is now part of Prebid. The AdChoices signal has now been added to Prebid header bidding open-source software, so supply chain participants can recognize the consumer choices around interest-based advertising through the programmatic process. By enabling Prebid recognition of the AdChoices signal, any expressed consumer preferences on the DAA’s WebChoices tool and Protect My Choices extension are available in real time.
In practice, this facilitates the purchase of advertising and better communicates consumer choices around interest-based ads by creating another method for making that signal available ahead of the bidding process.
This enablement is a direct result of the DAA’s investment in a technology enhancement that Prebid users have asked for and now have access to inside DAA’s Github repository, within the AdChoices signal specification. By contributing this new feature to the Prebid community, DAA continues its work of providing marketers with choice tools for all of the commonly used identifiers to deliver relevance and responsibility to their consumers.
For Techies: How the DAA AdChoices Signal Gets Applied
The DAA AdChoices Signal (ACS) is now integrated into Prebid.js, a widely used technology used by publishers around the world to support their programmatic auctions. The ACS is written and stored by the DAA WebChoices and Protect My Choices (PMC) tools, respectively, in response to consumer choices and preference requests in those tools.
Beginning with Prebid.js release 11.26.0, web publishers can enable the AdChoices module and include the ACS as metadata in advertising bid requests. For web publishers, the module provides a simple and uniform way to retrieve the ACS and add it to bid requests sent by supply-side platforms. The related OpenRTB community extension gives demand-side platforms (DSPs) a reliable field to locate and read the signal. This helps consumer choices travel reliably across the ecosystem regardless of identifier type being used for targeted advertising.
It is important to note, that the ACS is a richer and more extensible signal than older choice technologies and presents advertising supply chain partners with a reliable method for reading consumer choices and preferences in many of the most commonly used browsers, including Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge.
DSPs are encouraged to decode the ACS’ full contents because it can communicate more than choices. View the Prebid.js integration.
Next Step: SSP and Publisher Testing
This integration creates an important bridge, but it does not generate the ACS or replace the need for transparency. Ad supply chain intermediaries need to still be listed on the WebChoices and PMC tools. The signal originates from DAA choice tools and is stored and made available through the Protect My Choices browser extension.
To arrange testing, please contact Jamie Monaco at jamie@aboutads.info.
More information on technical implementation can be found here: https://docs.prebid.org/dev-docs/modules/adChoices.html
