Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to speak at the annual Green Media Summit in New York City where I joined leaders from Equativ, StackAdapt, and Yahoo to explore how demand-side partners (DSPs) can contribute to minimizing the environmental impact of digital advertising. With increasing attention on the carbon footprint of programmatic advertising, our industry has a unique opportunity – and responsibility – to align sustainability goals with economic efficiency.
At FreeWheel, we’ve been thinking deeply about how programmatic infrastructure can be designed to minimize waste, optimize energy consumption, and create cleaner pathways for transactions. Our discussion at the Summit highlighted key areas where we as an industry can take action.
Tailored Technology:
Reducing Waste Through Customizable Infrastructure
A lot of energy in programmatic advertising is used up by the intense computing required for real-time bidding and data processing. At FreeWheel, we’ve approached this challenge by ensuring that our technology is tailored to buyers’ specific needs, rather than forcing all clients into a one-size-fits-all system.
This philosophy dates back to the early days of FreeWheel DSP (formerly Beeswax), which was designed to provide highly customizable infrastructure. While most DSPs pool all buyers and supply together, we allow buyers to use only the infrastructure they need. This approach reduces unnecessary computation, which in turn cuts down on energy usage and associated costs.
These savings are compounded as more buyers – in particular large agencies and advertisers – are investing in proprietary technology that participates in programmatic advertising in real-time. Those investments have the potential to create significant value for buyers, but they typically come with the significant technical, financial, and environmental cost of having to process the same millions of transactions per second as large DSPs. Using FreeWheel technology, buyers can realize these benefits at a fraction of that cost by only having to process the custom auction volume that is specifically tailored to their needs.
Streamlining Processes:
The Role of Supply Path Optimization in Sustainability
Supply path optimization (SPO) has been a major focus in recent years for reducing inefficiencies in programmatic buying. From a sustainability perspective, SPO is critical in eliminating redundant bid requests and unnecessary intermediaries that drive up energy consumption.
One of the primary causes of bid request duplication today is the slow pace of adoption of the OpenRTB 2.6 standard, in particular support for ad podding. Prior to 2.6, the only way for SSPs and DSPs to transact on ad pods in streaming environments was to create multiple bid requests for various combinations of spot lengths in a pod – significantly increasing the volume of bid requests necessary to fill streaming inventory. The industry is approaching the fourth anniversary of the release of OpenRTB 2.6, but DSP support for ad podding remains elusive.
Another cause of bid request duplication is the fragmentation of relationships between buyers and supply path intermediaries. As buyers have come to rely on several different entities for inventory curation and bundling, those duplicate supply paths to inventory have become entrenched, and DSPs find themselves compelled to process significant volumes of duplicate traffic as a result. A compelling alternative here would be for buyers to take control over curation efforts themselves, consolidating that work in the platform that is closest to the inventory. Not only would that significantly reduce duplicate traffic, but it would also deliver improvements in transparency and economics for buyers.
Connecting the Dots:
Integrating Technology for Cost and Environmental Efficiency
Putting the pieces together, it’s clear that to drive efficiency in programmatic advertising, it’s crucial we reduce unnecessary bid request processing. The holistic approach a sophisticated buyer could take here in streaming might look as follows:
- First, work directly with the ad server closest to the inventory to consolidate the buyer’s inventory curation efforts in a single platform and supply path.
- Second, prioritize sending that inventory to DSPs that support OpenRTB 2.6 podding.
- Third, deploy the buyer’s own proprietary ad decisioning technology in a DSP environment that tailors bid request volume to the buyer’s specific needs.
Collaborative Efforts:
Building Cleaner, More Efficient Transaction Pathways
Sustainability in programmatic advertising can’t be achieved in silos. SSPs, DSPs, and advertisers all need to work together to establish cleaner, more efficient pathways for transactions. At FreeWheel, we are committed to partnering with industry players who add incremental value – not just additional complexity.
If there’s one change I’d like to see across the industry, it’s a stronger focus on doing what’s most efficient in the long term, rather than what’s easiest in the short term. While short-term fixes may seem convenient, they often lead to excessive duplication and waste. Prioritizing efficiency isn’t just a win for sustainability – it’s a win for advertisers, publishers, and the entire digital ecosystem.
As we continue to navigate the intersection of programmatic advertising and environmental responsibility, we have the opportunity to rethink how our technology operates. By embracing efficiency, streamlining supply paths, and collaborating across the industry, we can make programmatic advertising not just greener, but smarter.
