Answer us this. Do you actually care about your ad revenue? Of course you do! And a basic way to make sure you are not missing out on any is by having your ads.txt. file updated and well maintained. Let’s see what this means!
Let’s take a trip down memory lane…. What’s ads.txt again?
Once upon a time, in May 2017, the IAB Tech lab introduced the ads.txt initiative. This was to be a crawlable .txt file with the name “ads” aka Authorized Digital Sellers that was going to be placed on the root domain of the Publisher. Through this file publishers would grant programmatic partners the right to sell programmatic impressions on their site.
Why is ads.txt important?
It’s 2024, we are all about transparency. Having an ads.txt file will identify you as authorized to sell your ad inventory. It’s like having your own blue checkmark on your website.
Ads.txt is a method to prevent fraudulent activities in the programmatic advertising world. A case of this foul play could be domain spoofing, where fake websites are created to look like real ones and trick advertisers into spending their budgets there. Another example is illegitimate inventory arbitrage, where there is an unnecessary amount of intermediaries who all take a share with as a result less money going to the publishers.
By having your ads.txt file updated, you are authorizing selling parties that your AdTech Partners have connected and won’t be missing out on any revenue.
How to manage your ads.txt file
1. Update it regularly: Just like any other “living” document, ads.txt needs to be updated and maintained. There need to be periodic revisions of the validity of its content adding or removing partners as they become relevant or irrelevant.
2. Maintain it organized: Organizing file is structured in a logical way, containing precise information and perhaps even relevant identifiers or notes. This way you’ll be able to easily navigate the file when doing manual maintenance and find the information that you are looking for.
3. Keep in touch with your AdTech Partner: make sure to mantain close personal contact with your tech partners to ensure consistency across ads.txt files. Verify that your partners have listed you correctly in their seller.json files and that their entries match your records.
4. Use of automated tools: It’s not unusual for ads.txt files to be several hundred lines, so make your life easy with the available tools. These can help detect errors, duplicates, and inconsistencies, making the process more efficient. If you are working with a monetization partner, request a redirect URL from them to which you can redirect your /ads.txt. Like this the monetization partners can make fast updates to your ads.txt file without the need for you to do manual updates.
5. Educate your team: Make sure that all the relevant people understand what the ads.txt file is for and the basics of managing it correctly. Ideally you also want to assign someone who is more specialized in the specifics of ads.txt management.
How to keep your ads.txt updated
Come closer, we are going to let you in on a little secret…. You already know why is it crucial for you to keep your ads.txt file updated. The EASIEST way to do so is to rely on an AdTech partner who can host it for you! Yes! That’s an option, and we just happen to have it!
Take advantage of Refinery89 hosted ads.txt! You’ll be sure the latest updates from our database are always live in your file. This way you’ll manage all your personal Ads.txt entries through our dashboard.
All the new updates will be automated including the lines you added yourself permanently. This way you won’t have to manually update the file!
Get a happy fairy tale ending by having your ads.txt file updated
It’s time for you to cash all that revenue you truly deserve.
- Optimize your ad inventory pay off making sure you are authorizing all the right entities to sell your inventory.
- Boost buyer confidence.
- Remain in control by regularly giving your file some maintenance.
Looking for an expert to enlighten you on the arts of ads.txt management? Need help to clear any doubts about it? Write to our account managers and they will assist you personally!
