Dovekey Auction: Where does the publishers ad server fit in the flow?

[brodrigu]

The recent Dovekey Auction explainer details a new flow where the contextual ad request is encrypted and sent to DoveKey which is then forwarded to the SSP.

However, in a typical page flow today, contextual bids are collected from an SSP and sent into the publishers Ad Server where they can be compared against direct sold campaigns.

Where would a Publisher's ad server fit in the Dovekey flow?

[gangwang-google]

Thank you for your question.

To confirm, the Publisher’s ad server will run the final auction and return the winner ad back to the browser for rendering, is that right?

If I understand it correctly, in the scenario that you described, since the SSP only returns contextual bids, and the publisher only has direct sold (not Interest Group) ads, I am not sure how Interest Group ads serving fits into your scenario. Could you elaborate?

Thanks a lot!

[brodrigu]

If a publisher wants to consider SSP contextual ads, IG ads and their direct sold ads all in the same request, how will this work with DoveKey?

Should the ad server pass the winning direct sold ad to dovekey along with the encrypted SSP request? Will dovekey return some information about the winning ad so it can be passed to the ad server for final auction? Perhaps something else?

[gangwang-google]

Thanks for the followup.

The answer may depend on a few details in your current production setup, including:

1. Is there a SSP’s tag on the publisher's page to generate the ad requests that the SSP receives?
2. What cross-domain identifiers are available for the SSP and its partners to provide IG ads? How much do you expect this to change after 3p cookie deprecation?
3. Which server has the logic to select the most appropriate one among multiple possible house ads or direct sold ads?

Furthermore, in your current production setup, which server does the majority of the following function:

1. Enforce publisher controls, e.g buyer/creative exclusion and pricing rules?
2. Handle billing and payment?
3. Conduct auctions to select winning ads among diversified demands, including IG ads?

Thanks!

[brodrigu]

There is a lot of diversity in how publishers configure their ad serving stack and there will be many combinations of answers for each of your questions.

To fully monetize inventory, all demand should have a shot at winning every ad impression based on configured business rules. To do so, both direct sold ads and IG ads must be part of one or more auctions that compete for any given impression.

From the Dovekey explainer:

The Dovekey server returns the winning bid and snippet to the browser and the ad tag (maybe in the form of an opaque handle) for rendering.

If Dovekey's response is opaque to the publisher, there is no way for it to feed this response into the ad server for participation in a downstream auction. Since an opaque response is a key privacy mechanism of TURTLEDOVE I don't expect this can be changed. Is there some way for ads from the ad server to compete for an impression where Dovekey is utilized? or do you believe they are incompatible?

[gangwang-google]

Hi Brad,

To satisfy applicable privacy requirements, there might be two possible auctions that IG ads may participant

1. In-browser auction orchestrated by the browser in the TurtleDove and/or FLEDGE style.
2. Auction in the Dovekey server that implements an acceptable trust model.

Ads from publishers’ ad servers may participate in either one of the two auctions to compete against IG ads. To do so, one possible setup is to change the labels in the diagram as follows:

1. Replace “SSP” with “Publishers’ ad server”
2. Replace “DSP” with “Demand source”.

Without knowing more applicable constraints, it is not apparent to me why Dovekey server might be incompatible with publishers’ ad servers. Would you like to elaborate? Thanks!

[brodrigu]

I believe publishers would like for 3 types of ads to all compete within the same impression:

1. Direct Sold Ads in the Pubisher's Ad Server
2. Contextual Ads from one or more SSPs
3. IG Ads from Dovekey

Does Dovekey support a configuration where all 3 of these sources can compete?