Grigoriy Misilyuk
Vladyslav UkraintsevThe programmatic advertising market is thriving. In 2024, its spending reached $595 billion and is projected to grow by 6-8% for at least the next four years. But not everything is perfect in the fairy tale world.
The volume of programmatic market participants is limited. Although the number of companies is increasing, the momentum at this stage differs from the level of new entrants joining the industry at the beginning of its formation. In addition, the market is consolidating, which further reduces the options for choosing top-notch partners. To sustainably grow revenue in conditions where constant and stable integration of new partners is impossible, advertising players have to comprehensively work on improving the connections they already have.
One powerful tool for automated real-time optimization of bid requests and QPS limits in the ever-changing dynamics of programmatic trading is traffic shaping. This is a must-have for any supply-side and ad exchange platform that wants to grow revenue and optimize server resources. We will compare three traffic shaping solutions: Greenbids.ai, Assertive Yield, and the Traffic Shaping integrated into our white-label SSP + Ad Exchange platform. Spoiler alert: they all work well, but working well is not enough.
Why should you embrace traffic shaping for your programmatic business?
Traffic shaping is a real-time bidding adjustment process that boosts earnings and cuts expenses. In the intricate ecosystem of programmatic advertising, the more demand partners you manage, the more vital traffic shaping optimization becomes. It is also a part of the supply-path optimization process, along with dynamic flooring, A/B testing, and diverse targeting approaches in synergy. Looking ahead, it is one of the pillars of a successful programmatic business.
Greenbids.ai: dedicated traffic optimization
Greenbids.ai is an innovative company whose offer focuses entirely on adjusting bidding with machine learning algorithms. Founded in 2023, Greenbids emphasizes the "green way" in advertising, evaluating the results of offloading servers with its algorithms by reducing the company's carbon footprint.
The biggest attraction of the Greenbids solution is its versatility, which makes it suitable for advertising platforms of any size, including small programmatic businesses with a limited number of demand-side partners. At the same time, it is enough to launch and positively impact bidding with limited server capacities: optimization significantly improves bid rate, starting with optimizing 15% of outgoing traffic sent to a specific DSP. The Greenbids team is noted for its high level of support and favorable partnership fees, which sets it apart from other third-party solutions on the market.
Among the nuances of adopting a solution is its technological flexibility, which results in additional time to tailor it to the specifics of a particular ad platform. Besides, an increase in the percentage of optimized traffic within the horizontal scaling is inextricably linked to managing and maintaining additional servers and involving related services.
Assertive Yield: precision traffic management
Assertive Yield is an ad tech company focusing on scaling long-term profits with advanced global ad revenue management solutions. The company has more than a decade of experience in the industry as a publisher, and from this perspective, in 2021, they launched Assertive Yield's traffic-shaping solution. It is built to empower ad platforms by delivering precision-focused adjustments to auction dynamics.
Assertive Yield offers a well-built and proven technology that allows for rapid implementation on advertising platforms of any complexity and size. It reliably improves bidding performance, sometimes increasing profits by 40% compared to unoptimized trading. Also, with proper balancing and high traffic volumes, the Assertive Yield solution reduces the load on the platform's server infrastructure over the long haul. Based on this, we can testify to the transparency in the positive impact on the programmatic network and the high potential for rapid unified optimization of several related platforms.
A notable feature of the solution, built on a sophisticated machine learning model, is its reliance on a large amount and variety of data for optimization. This makes Assertive Yield's traffic-shaping solution outstanding for large advertising platforms with multiple diverse connections, while the financial efficiency of adoption remains limited to smaller platforms. Traffic is optimized smoothly, regardless of volume, without conflicts and delays in data processing.
TeqBlaze Traffic Shaping: effortless trading optimization
The TeqBlaze team is a group of experts with experience from 2014, when the White Label Solutions department was formed within SmartyAds to develop custom programmatic platforms for launching standalone adtech businesses. In 2024, the prominently successful department was turned into a freestanding company, TeqBlaze, which quickly took a firm place among the industry leaders in state-of-the-art ad tech technologies.
The TeqBlaze Traffic Shaping solution is one of the built-in features of the white-label SSP + Ad Exchange platform. It doesn't require fees and additional servers to be connected and managed, and there is no need for technical support. All maintenance consists of enabling a single toggle and determining the level of traffic to be optimized. It is recommended to start with 15% of the optimized traffic for precise A/B testing. Gradually increasing the amount of traffic to 100% will allow you to track the profit growth and reduce server loads dynamically.
For now, the main limitation of TeqBlaze Traffic Shaping lies in its native nature — optimization cannot be scaled to auctions conducted on other platforms. Also, the solution's built-in nature does not make it an exception among machine learning algorithms that require input historical data to train a model.
Optimization with a single solution is sufficient and optimal for both large and small platforms. Contact us to discuss the potential efficiency and necessity of using multiple traffic-shaping solutions simultaneously. Our experts are also interested in evaluating the effectiveness of the solution you are already using: we are confident that you can achieve even more with simple adjustments to the settings.
Comparison of traffic shaping solutions by business means
To evaluate the efficacy of traffic-shaping solutions, we've focused on six paramount business criteria that determine the success of throttling implementation:
Revenue uplift
Any traffic-shaping solution's primary goal is to maximize revenue by improving the efficiency of auctions and optimizing bid responses.
Integration complexity
Seamless integration minimizes required resources and time, ensuring rapid ROI and scalability.
Customizability and data utilization
Tailored solutions that deeply integrate with platform-specific data often yield more precise optimizations.
Operational efficiency
Reducing server loads and ensuring consistent auction performance is critical for scalability and maintaining a high-quality user experience.
Scalability and adaptability
A traffic-shaping solution's ability to scale with growing platform demands and adapt to market dynamics, such as changes in user behavior or demand partner requirements, ensures long-term viability.
Infrastructure capacities
Effective traffic shaping implementation depends on whether additional servers are required to support the solution, which can increase costs and complexity. Solutions that operate efficiently within existing infrastructure are preferred for reducing overhead.
Assessment factor | Greenbids.ai | Assertive Yield | TeqBlaze |
Revenue uplift | Delivers revenue improvements depending on the quality and volume of historical data. | It is particularly effective for platforms with large-scale inventory and diverse demand sources. | Deep integration with platform-specific data optimizes auctions for maximum RCPM and win rates. |
Integration complexity | API-based integration requires setup and technical alignment with platform-specific needs. | Demands substantial technical resources for customization and calibration during implementation. | A fully embedded solution eliminates the need for external API integration, reducing engineering efforts. |
Customizability and data utilization | Generalized algorithms may underperform in niche use cases or with specific platform requirements. | It allows partial customization but is constrained by external data sharing and platform compatibility. | Native integration provides access to granular data, enabling precise, tailored optimizations. |
Operational efficiency | ML algorithms improve efficiency, though reliance on external systems may introduce some latency. | Precision adjustments improve auction dynamics but require additional calibration efforts. | Reduces server loads and ensures seamless operations without data transfer or latency issues. |
Scalability and adaptability | Scales may still require effective ongoing adjustments for market shifts or partner variations. | Suitable for large operations but slower adaptability to evolving programmatic landscapes. | Designed to grow with platform demands and adapt quickly to changes in auction dynamics. |
Infrastructure capacities | Requires additional server capacity for ML computations and data transfers. | It necessitates dedicated servers to handle ML processing and ensure low-latency results. | Operates within existing infrastructure without additional hardware or server requirements. |
The comparison of traffic-shaping solutions reveals significant distinctions in their implementation, outcomes, and overall business benefits. While both Greenbids.ai and Assertive Yield deliver notable improvements in auction dynamics, their reliance on third-party infrastructure introduces challenges, such as integration complexity, latency, and limited opportunities for fast management. These factors diminish the long-term efficiency of their solutions when compared to seamless built-in optimization.
Also, any optimization solution requires A/B testing on limited traffic volumes before scaling. Please remember that none of the third-party solutions provide a testing framework, and this issue falls on the shoulders of your ad platform's team.
Embedded TeqBlaze Traffic Shaping comes out ahead
The results of this analysis strongly confirm that a unified ecosystem approach with TeqBlaze's Traffic Shaping solution provides the optimal suite for maintaining long-lasting positive outcomes. With superior capabilities under the hood, third-party services are rendered unnecessary, as TeqBlaze meets and exceeds the optimization advantages offered by external solutions.
You can contact us to try our platform and check the results yourself. Even if you already use a ready-made traffic shaping solution, we will show you the technological advantage of our approach and, if necessary, advise you on whether you are achieving the maximum in the established optimization.
