In the evolving landscape of digital advertising, Google’s Privacy Sandbox is one of the key developments. As the industry navigates toward a privacy-focused future, it is important for all stakeholders to help publishers and advertisers understand and adapt to such new technologies and solutions.
At PubMatic, we have remained at the forefront of audience addressability innovations by investing in building solutions for the new age of digital advertising, accounting for new targeting and identity solutions in market while also working to understand, test, and help influence Google’s proposed solutions for privacy-safe retargeting within Chrome.
As we continue to help publishers and advertisers navigate the Privacy Sandbox environment, and ultimately prepare for the next wave of audience addressability, we are excited to unveil a specialized debug tool for Google’s Privacy Sandbox. This Chrome extension aims to provide unparalleled insights into the workings of the Protected Audience (PA) auctions, which are complementary to the existing OpenRTB-based auction setups and occur within the Chrome browser, leveraging Interest Groups stored on the user’s device.
Our new solution helps to bridge the gap in understanding and optimizing PA auction processes, ensuring transparency and efficiency. It is designed to shed light on various components of the PA auction, offering a comprehensive overview for publishers and advertisers:
AD UNITS: Greater visibility into the configuration of each ad unit / ad slot
(PubMatic’s debug tool for Google Privacy Sandbox PAA, available via Chrome Web Store, provides greater visibility into the configuration of each ad unit / ad slot for publishers participating in Protected Audience auctions. Uncover the participating SSPs/DSPs, along with useful bid details, interest group insights and more.)
- Auction Activation: Determine whether the PA auction is enabled for a specific ad slot
- Demand-Side and Supply-Side Partner Identification: Identify which supply-side platforms (SSPs) are invited to the auction by the publisher, and understand which demand-side platforms (DSPs) were invited by each SSP
- Bid Details: Examine the bid details, including rendering URL and metadata, of the bids submitted by each DSP from interest groups
- Interest Group Insights: Gain detailed insights into the interest groups participating in the auction
- Bid Comparisons: Compare the highest bids received by each SSP from invited DSPs in the PA auction, alongside the highest contextual bids submitted in the Prebid JS auction
- Overall, Winner: Discover the winner of the overall auction, encompassing bids from top sellers and the highest contextual bids
CONFIG: Granular-level insights about your Protected Audience auction configuration
(PubMatic’s debug tool for Google Privacy Sandbox PAA, available via Chrome Web Store, offers granular-level insights about publishers’ Protected Audience auction configurations. Drill down to the component auction configs for each SSP, as well as the Prebid auction signals.)
- Configuration Insights: Review the PA configuration set at the ad slot level by the publisher, extra signals passed on by Prebid in the PA auction, and the auction configuration set by each SSP
TIMELINE: Detailed breakdown of all PA auction events with attributed timelines
(PubMatic’s debug tool for Google Privacy Sandbox PAA, available via Chrome Web Store, provides a detailed breakdown of all PA auction events with attributed timelines, arming publishers with the insight to drive efficient PAAPI auction processes.)
- Efficiency Analysis: Analyze the time spent on each task within the auction process, including the total time spent
- Additional Data: Access IGbids and other buyer data per DSP, offering a deeper understanding of auction dynamics
As the digital advertising landscape continues to evolve, tools like this will be helpful to ease the transition to privacy-enhancing technologies such Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox. By providing a detailed view into the Protected Audience auctions, we are not only supporting the advertising community but also contributing to the broader goal of a more private and user-friendly web.
We will continue to collaborate across the buy and sell-side to identify growth opportunities for Privacy Sandbox testing and successful cookieless advertising. We will also be collaborating with the Prebid community on integrating this tool with Professor Prebid. Please get in touch for a demo of our debug tool and learn more about how we can help you navigate the future of addressability.
