The Role of JSON in Modern Programmatic Advertising

In the complex area of programmatic advertising, trust and transparency are paramount. With publishers, advertisers, and countless intermediaries navigating non-transparent digital supply chains, the industry has been a breeding ground for fraud. A 2019 study examining the global landscape of advertising fraud revealed that nearly USD 22.4 billion was lost to fraudulent activities in the advertising sector that year. Of this total, China was responsible for the lion’s share, contributing approximately USD 18.7 billion.

To combat this, the IAB introduced Sellers.json in 2019, building on the success of ads.txt, to enhance accountability and ensure buyers know precisely who they’re purchasing ad inventory from. This initiative is vital for restoring confidence and integrity in the ecosystem. So, let’s take a closer look at what JSON is and its role in programmatic advertising.

What is Sellers.json?

Sellers.json is a technical specification introduced by the IAB Tech Lab to enhance transparency and trust in the programmatic advertising ecosystem. It allows buyers to verify the identities of entities involved in selling or reselling digital advertising opportunities. By publishing an accessible Sellers.json file, sellers disclose details about themselves, making it possible to identify both the final seller and intermediaries participating in a bid request.

Sellers.json complements the ads.txt initiative, which specifies who is authorized to sell a publisher’s inventory. However, ads.txt lacks visibility into the identities of publisher account IDs within supply-side platforms (SSPs). Sellers.json addresses this by enabling offline lookup and caching of seller information, reducing the size of bid request objects while ensuring consistency. Final sellers can be identified using attributes such as Publisher.name and Publisher.domain, which Sellers.json standardizes.

How ads.txt, and sellers.json Improve Ad Quality

JSON is pivotal in ensuring transparency and fraud prevention in programmatic advertising campaigns by working seamlessly with ads.txt and sellers.json. These tools enable advertisers to verify authorized sellers and validate the identity of those involved in the ad supply chain.

How JSON and ads.txt Work Together

The ads.txt file, hosted on a publisher’s domain or app store page, lists all authorized sellers allowed to offer the publisher’s inventory. JSON bid requests contain critical data, such as the publisher’s domain and the SSP offering the inventory. When a DSP receives a JSON bid request, it cross-checks this data against the publisher’s ads.txt file to verify authorization.

Example Workflow

1. A JSON bid request might include:

{
“site”: { “domain”: “example.com” },
“publisher”: { “id”: “123”, “name”: “Example Publisher” },
“ssp”: “authorized-ssp.com”
}

2. The DSP compares this data with the publisher’s ads.txt file:

authorized-ssp.com, pub-123, DIRECT
unauthorized-ssp.com, pub-456, RESELLER

3. If the SSP or exchange listed in the JSON request does not appear in the ads.txt file, the DSP rejects the bid to block unauthorized sellers and prevent fraud.

This integration ensures advertisers only buy inventory from trustworthy sources, reducing the risk of purchasing invalid or spoofed impressions.

Real-Time Fraud Prevention

JSON data enables real-time fraud prevention by ensuring compliance with ads.txt. Bid requests undergo verification within milliseconds during the auction process. This rapid cross-checking:

• Blocks unauthorized sellers instantly.
• Improves the quality of impressions purchased by advertisers.
• Optimizes Query Per Second (QPS) performance by skipping fraudulent traffic.

A Combined Approach of ads.txt and sellers.json

After confirming that a seller is authorized through ads.txt, DSPs often refer to the sellers.json file. This file provides additional details about the seller, such as their name, domain, and role (DIRECT or RESELLER).

Example Validation Workflow:

1. ads.txt verification: The DSP confirms that the SSP or exchange offering the inventory is listed as authorized in the publisher’s ads.txt file.

ssp-platform.com, 1234, DIRECT
reseller-exchange.com, 5678, RESELLER

2. sellers.json validation: The DSP checks the sellers.json file hosted by the SSP or exchange for further identity verification:

{
“seller_id”: “1234”,
“name”: “Publisher ABC”,
“domain”: “publisherabc.com”,
“seller_type”: “DIRECT”
},
{
“seller_id”: “5678”,
“name”: “Reseller XYZ”,
“domain”: “resellerxyz.com”,
“seller_type”: “RESELLER”
}

3. Decision Process:

If the seller matches in both ads.txt and sellers.json, the bid is accepted. Discrepancies or missing entries lead to bid rejection.

Preventing Fraud and Optimizing Campaigns

This combination of tools ensures end-to-end transparency in programmatic advertising. JSON acts as the carrier for data validation, while ads.txt and sellers.json work together to:

• Prevent fraud: Verifying inventory authorization and seller identity reduces risks like domain spoofing and unauthorized reselling.
• Enhance transparency: Advertisers gain clear insights into who is selling and reselling inventory.
• Improve efficiency: Supply Path Optimization (SPO) helps advertisers focus on direct paths to inventory, reducing wasted ad spend on intermediaries.

JSONs Impact on Queries Per Second

JSON plays a central role in improving how many bid requests a system can handle per second, also known as Queries Per Second (QPS).

Lightweight Data Exchange

JSON is a compact data format. JSON requires less space than bulkier formats like XML, making it faster to send and receive. This lightweight nature is essential in programmatic advertising, where millions of bid requests are exchanged every second. With JSON, DSPs and SSPs can handle this data flow more efficiently, ensuring faster communication between parties.

Faster Parsing for Higher QPS

One of JSON’s key advantages is its parsing speed. Both servers and clients can easily read and process JSON data. This speed is critical for DSPs, which must evaluate numerous bid requests in real-time. By enabling quick parsing, JSON helps DSPs handle more requests, directly boosting their QPS capacity.

Reducing Network Overhead

JSON minimizes network load because its smaller size reduces bandwidth usage. This efficiency allows systems to process more bid requests without increasing resource demands. As a result, DSPs can scale their operations without worrying about hitting bandwidth limits, even during peak traffic periods.

Optimizing CPU Usage

Processing JSON requires less computational power than other formats. Lower CPU consumption means DSPs can handle more incoming traffic without delays or bottlenecks. This optimization enables them to maintain high performance even when managing many bid requests simultaneously.

Enhancing Traffic Quality with JSON

JSON plays a key role in improving the quality of traffic in programmatic advertising. Its structured and efficient format ensures that relevant data is accurately transmitted, helping advertisers target the right audiences and filter out low-quality or fraudulent impressions.

Accurate Targeting with Real-Time Data

JSON facilitates the precise transfer of audience information in bid requests, such as user behavior, device details, and geolocation. This ensures that ads reach the right people at the right time, improving the relevance of impressions. Advertisers can achieve better engagement and campaign performance by avoiding mismatches between ads and audiences.

Strengthening Fraud Detection

With its structured format, JSON makes validating critical details like ad IDs, timestamps, and IP addresses easier. This helps DSPs quickly identify and filter out invalid traffic or fraudulent activities. By doing so, JSON contributes to a cleaner advertising ecosystem where advertisers can trust the quality of the impressions they buy.

Richer Data for Better Bidding

JSON supports adding fields such as viewability metrics or contextual information to bid requests. This extra data allows advertisers to evaluate inventory quality better and bid more effectively. Campaigns benefit from higher-quality impressions, leading to stronger results and a better return on investment.

Real-Time Optimisation

JSON’s lightweight structure allows DSPs to process important performance metrics like win and click-through rates (CTR) faster. This speed enables programmatic algorithms to make real-time adjustments to bidding strategies. Advertisers can focus on high-quality traffic sources, ensuring their campaigns deliver the best outcomes.

The Bottom Line

JSON is a cornerstone of programmatic advertising, driving transparency, efficiency, and improved campaign outcomes. Its lightweight and structured format makes it ideal for processing high-bid requests, enhancing system performance, and increasing Queries Per Second (QPS). By enabling real-time fraud detection and seamless integration with ads.txt and sellers.json, JSON ensures advertisers can trust the inventory they purchase.

Through accurate targeting and enriched bid requests, JSON improves the quality of traffic, allowing advertisers to reach relevant audiences while avoiding fraudulent impressions. It also minimizes network overhead and CPU usage, optimizing the speed and scalability of programmatic platforms.

At DecenterAds DSP, we prioritize transparency tools and quality by partnering only with legitimate advertising sources. Our advanced tools utilize sellers.json to verify seller identities and inventory authenticity, safeguarding against spoofing and fraud. With JSON powering our systems, we ensure that advertisers achieve impactful results while users receive relevant, high-quality ads, enhancing the overall advertising experience.

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