At Relevant Digital, March has been full of meaningful discussions, hands-on testing and real-world insights across the ad tech landscape. From evolving header bidding strategies and new supply path dynamics to the growing role of AI and server-side, we’re seeing clear shifts in how publishers approach monetisation.
In this month’s Ad Tech Insights, our team shares what we’re seeing in practice across our client base and the wider ecosystem. Ronny Linder, CPO and Partner at Relevant Digital, explores The Trade Desk’s OpenAds and what it could mean for publishers and the supply chain, while Ken Mathai, Senior Solutions Engineer, shares observations on Amazon’s growing role in header bidding and how publishers are testing different setups.
In addition, Petri Kokkonen, CEO and Partner, reflects on key takeaways from d3con in Hamburg, from AI-assisted content creation to the continued momentum behind server-side.
The Trade Desk’s move with OpenAds is interesting. It’s not unexpected, but it does shift dynamics a bit, especially from a publisher perspective.
Relevant Digital has just launched support for TTD’s OpenAds in Relevant Yield. In practice, this means publishers can run the TTD bidder either in the normal Prebid environment within our wrapper, through the OpenAds wrapper, or even in parallel. All managed directly from Relevant Yield’s no-code UI. We’ve simplified it to basically just a checkbox.
As a tech-agnostic solution, our goal is not to push one setup over another, but to give publishers the flexibility to test and decide what works best for them. We already have a split test running with one of our publishers to compare performance across these different environments and see if there’s any noticeable difference.
So what do we expect?
I expect that TTD will likely prioritise demand flowing through their own wrapper. That would be a natural move. At the same time, I see very little reason why other SSPs would choose to adopt a TTD-controlled “Prebid alternative” unless there is a very clear upside or specific commercial incentive.
Why? Ultimately, SSPs and demand sources are competitors.
In a standard Prebid setup, bidders only see a limited part of the picture. But if you control the wrapper and also act as a bidder, you can see significantly more about what others are doing. Things like which advertisers are buying, when they’re buying, response times, failed bids, eCPMs, formats, bid density across hours, and so on. Essentially, a much broader view of the auction dynamics, similar to what we can report in our HB Analytics module, and more.
I’m not saying this is being used in any specific way. But the possibility is there. And that’s one of the reasons why we’ve historically seen many SSPs prefer neutral Prebid setups over demand-owned wrappers like Amazon TAM, Open Bidding, or similar approaches.
We’ve seen cases where SSPs increase their bidding significantly once moved out of these environments and into neutral setups. We’ve also seen cases where there’s no noticeable difference. So it’s not black and white.
In the end, it’s the publisher’s choice.
If TTD starts focusing more of their demand through OpenAds, then it might make sense to run them in that environment. Or in parallel. Or not at all. That’s exactly why testing matters here.
We should start seeing clearer results soon.
- Ronny Linder - CPO, Partner and Member of Several IAB Tech Lab Task Forces
We’re seeing steady growth in the adoption of Amazon demand across both TAM and Prebid setups, with more publishers evaluating how the Prebid adapter fits into their overall auction strategy. This is also clearly reflected across Relevant Digital’s client base, where some publishers are actively testing Amazon’s performance across different setups.
From our observations, Amazon tends to establish consistent participation once live, maintaining relatively stable bid rates and win rates over time, even across a diverse set of sites and geographies. While eCPMs fluctuate with broader market conditions, the overall contribution remains meaningful, particularly when evaluated at scale.
One key advantage of the Prebid adapter is transparency. Running Amazon alongside other bidders in a unified setup makes it easier to benchmark performance directly and evaluate incremental lift under consistent conditions. This has made it a useful component in controlled testing scenarios, rather than something publishers rely on through a single integration path.
What we’re seeing in practice is less about replacing TAM and more about complementing it. Publishers are increasingly treating Amazon as a configurable demand source—positioning it differently depending on latency tolerance, auction design, and testing goals.
The key takeaway: Amazon’s value today isn’t just in scale, but in how flexibly it can be integrated, tested, and optimised within modern header bidding setups. Our platform, Relevant Yield, supports this approach by enabling easy testing of different setups with HB Manager, while performance can be monitored through HB Analytics without guesswork.
- Ken Mathai - Senior Solutions Engineer
Sunny Hamburg and D3con offered a great atmosphere for meeting industry peers and changing views on digital advertising. It’s pretty much impossible to write any event posts without mentioning AI, so let’s start from that.
And yes, AI is the hot topic for pretty much everyone. From the publisher's perspective, there were positive discussions around AI-assisted content creation. For premium publishers, this does not mean articles written by AI, but AI can offer significant value in the content creation process, personalisation, and distribution.
For example, journalists can run larger background studies for their articles (sources checked, of course) compared to previous, more manual processes. AI can also help with storytelling, providing visualisation tools and, of course, tailoring content for different formats and channels. We are seeing the same in journalism as in coding. A smaller team of journalists with proper AI tools and skills can do more than ever before. And if AI-assisted content creation can generate more audience, it will translate into increased ad sales as well. And everyone agrees that strong publisher brands will be in a good place, even in the era of LLM summaries.
Alongside AI, the ways advertising is executed and its underlying infrastructure are also undergoing transformation. The growth of Prebid server-side implementations is driven by two directions. First, publishers and other ad-funded consumer service providers are increasingly focusing on in-app monetisation. And we see this clearly at Relevant Digital, where we are onboarding in-app implementations in many countries all the time. The second driver of server-side is the increasing implementation in the browser environment as well. Offering steadily improving financial performance, providing better technical performance without limiting the number of SSP-partners, and offering a more data-hygienic way of working. The future will show whether server-side ad stitching will also gain traction in display advertising. Currently, server-side interest is limited to auctions, decision-making, and analytics.
Last but not least, Fernando Machando from Garnett Station Partners reminded us all about the importance of creativity. Endless performance optimisation, thousands of AI creatives won’t bring success if you lack a clear brand and persistence. And creative, impactful messages. And something to remember for us all: Creativity is fueled by curiosity. Stay curious.
- Petri Kokkonen - CEO & Partner, Member of the IAB Finland Board