Connect Ad Server / Direct Campaign Server into Prebid Server to make it a complete ad stack #4676
Description
Objective
Make Prebid Server act as a primary ad server / decision making mechanism to enable GAM-less integrations yet enabling both bidding and direct campaigns monetization.
Background
At some point court rulings seemed to imply that Google will be forced to split GAM and AdX where GAM would continue being an ad server, inventory management system and direct campaign delivery engine, while AdX could become an independent bidder connectable to Prebid Server or elsewhere. If that would become a reality - it would make GAM a far less necessary component than it is now - it would mean that some publishers could use adx as a bidder and they would not need GAM at all (no hustle with multi-Line Item order creation, no creatives management, etc. etc.).
However even if AdX remains in GAM forever, it may still be appealing to some publishers to integrate raw Prebid Server, f.e. if they don't depend on AdX demand so much. If Prebid Server is integrated as a primary ad server it still may be desirable to be able to serve direct campaigns. This leads to a question how to hook a Direct Campaigns Ad Source or Ad Server into the Prebid Server. Initially the discussion was revolving around writing an Ad Server as part of Prebid Server, but then it shifted towards (what is more natural for Prebid Server) rather implementing an adapter interface that would allow Prebid Server to connect any 3rd party Direct Campaigns Ad Source or Ad Server and let it treat that 3rd party component as a black box provided the 3rd party handles all the complexity like impression tracking, ad pacing, frequency capping, real-time campaign decisioning etc. so Prebid Server remains just a pipe - as this is what it does best.
Documents
- The High-Level Requirements work-in-progress proposal document. The discussion outcomes are captured in this document primarily - please read it before contributing, voicing an opinion or asking a question.
Open Questions
The design captured in the above document is far from perfect. The questions that are worth addressing:
- Should we allow connecting more than one direct campaign source? This seems to be unnatural and unnecessary for most situations as now it is usually GAM as a single direct campaign source and Prebid Server, so not sure it should be different without GAM. However if we allow more then 1 direct campaign source - then a more sophisticated (numeric) priority system may be needed to be able to resolve priorities between these sources, not just between a direct campaign source and bidders.
- What are the implications for the clients: Prebid.js, Prebid SDKs? Ideally it should be transparent to the clients - they should be able to render a "bid" regardless of whether it came from a bidder or a direct campaign source - that's the whole point of adapter interface, but maybe there is something we are overlooking.
- Reference implementation: there is a suggestion that a simple direct campaign server should be implemented (f.e. allowing to define campaigns via .json files) leaving outside of the Prebid Server, but connected through this direct campaign adapter interface (DC adapter?) to demo the set up for Prebid.js and Prebid SDK. Is there a ready server that can be used for reference or indeed we have to create one from scratch?
Credits
This is an initial community effort and if there is some demand for this feature - we expect the contributor list to grow. The initial contributors to the documentation and discussions above: