Last month, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Tech Lab introduced ‘ads.txt’ (Authorized Digital Sellers) to help advertising buyers avoid arbitrage of unauthorized inventory and prevent the selling of fake domains.
This ads.txt file is used by publishers, who drop a text file on their web servers that lists all authorized sellers of their inventory. In turn, programmatic platforms check these files to confirm the inventory they are authorized to sell. Advertisers can now verify the safety and validity of the inventory they purchase.
It’s a great move for the industry as it’s becoming increasingly hard to find transparency. The IAB just made it easy for advertisers to see who has direct relationships with publishers. Most importantly, marketers and media buyers can now know exactly which sellers work directly with publishers, and which don’t.
We’re proud to be part of this initiative, as it aligns with our goals for transparency and a safe advertising ecosystem for branded content. In addition to this initiative, we were recently verified by the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), the leading cross-industry body fighting criminal activity in the digital advertising supply chain, and is listed in the TAG Registry.
This verification is one of many steps Taboola has taken in the last six months to enhance industry transparency, giving advertisers and agencies the ability to identify all parties within the digital advertising supply chain. Taboola’s Tag ID can be found in our ads.txt record.
Publishers: How to Declare Taboola as an Authorized Seller
We encourage publishers to participate in this IAB initiative and implement an ads.txt file. We’ve already seen programmatic buyers and DSPs require this information to verify advertising inventory and anticipate that this will become a default in the industry.
An example of the records you need to add to your ads.txt file and place in your root domain is HERE. The value you need to replace backstage_pub_id is your unique Taboola publisher ID. Please note, some publishers can have multiple publisher IDs, one for every “site”. In that case, the publisher will need to implement the ads.txt lines with the relevant backstage_pub_id per site.If you have not received an email from a Taboola representative containing your specific publisher ID(s) and ads.txt records, feel free to contact your account manager or email support at support@taboola.com.
Advertisers: Know Where Your Campaigns Are Running
When you run on Taboola, you can always feel secure that your campaign will show only on authorized sites. Our direct relationships with thousands of publishers ensure that we know where your brand content is going to be placed every time you run a campaign with our network. This is one of many layers of what Taboola has available for marketers.
Here at Taboola, we’re always supportive of initiatives that help make our industry better. For more information on ads.txt, you can find further resources from IAB on their mission and implementation best practices.
Taboola is the world’s leading content discovery platform, serving 360B recommendations to over 1B unique visitors each month on the web’s most innovative publisher sites. To learn more about how Taboola can help you, contact us or start your campaign today.