Centro to require sellers.json and SupplyChain Object

Centro this month announced it will require advertising exchanges and advertising networks to adopt sellers.json and SupplyChain Object. Centro says it will block ad intermediaries that do not comply with sellers.json.

According to Centro, the adoption of sellers.json and SupplyChain Object will reduce the exposure of advertisers to ad fraud, block duplicate impressions (to limit bidding against itself for impressions), increase the percentage of media investment going towards working ad spend, and gain visibility on the best-performing ad selling intermediaries.

“Centro’s supply path optimization strategy focuses on minimizing the number of partners it takes to deliver an ad to a publisher and reducing the duplicative efforts of advertisers,” said Ian Trider, director of RTB operations, Centro. “By operationalizing our new requirements in parallel with our ongoing enforcement of ads.txt and app-ads.txt, Centro’s actions clean, shorten and streamline the programmatic ad ecosystem’s supply chain.”

Centro says all major exchanges have already implemented sellers.json and most have implemented SupplyChain Object.

Centro sees that the percentage of inventory sources in an exchange that is coming from another intermediary (versus a publisher directly) varies significantly; outlier intermediaries show nearly 100% of inventory being sold from other intermediaries.

Centro says that most exchanges disclose their sources, but there are a few that label nearly 100% of sources as ‘confidential’ (i.e. not transparent).

See here the AppNexus (Xandr) Sellers.json file vs Google Sellers.json, where not all publishers are disclosed:

“It is illogical for advertisers to spend money through supply paths with multiple parties taking a cut,” said Shawn Riegsecker, CEO, Centro. “Campaigns running through Centro’s technology benefit from our always-on quality practices, where the most efficient and effective channels between buyers and sellers materialize.”

sellers.json and SupplyChain Object are systems designed by IAB, enabling DSPs and advertisers to verify from where they source ad impressions.