Summary

Authorized Digital Sellers, or ads.txt, is an IAB Tech Lab initiative that helps ensure that your digital ad inventory is only sold through sellers who you've identified as authorized. Creating your own ads.txt file is a mandatory step that gives you more control over who is allowed to sell ads on your site. Its primary purpose is to help prevent counterfeit inventory from being presented to advertisers, ensuring you receive the advertiser spend that might have otherwise gone toward that fraudulent inventory.

What Problem Does ads.txt Solve?

The ads.txt project aims to prevent various types of counterfeit inventory across the ecosystem by improving transparency in the digital programmatic supply chain.

How Does ads.txt Work?

ads.txt works by creating a publicly accessible record of authorized digital sellers for publisher inventory that programmatic buyers can index and reference.

1. Publishers Post Their List: First, participating publishers must post their list of authorized sellers (their ads.txt file) to their domain. The file must be hosted under the root domain (e.g., www.mysite.com/ads.txt). 

2. Buyers Crawl and Index: Programmatic buyers can then crawl the web for publisher ads.txt files to create a list of authorized sellers for each participating publisher.

3. Buyers Verify Bids: Programmatic buyers can then create a filter to match their ads.txt list against the data provided in the OpenRTB bid request.
   

   

Example Scenario: Example.com publishes an ads.txt file on their web server listing three exchanges as authorized to sell their inventory, including Example.com’s seller account IDs within each of those exchanges.

File located at http://example.com/ads.txt:

#<SSP/Exchange Domain>, <SellerAccountID>, <PaymentsType>, <TAGID>
greenadexchange.com, 12345, DIRECT, AEC242
blueadexchange.com, 4536, DIRECT
silverssp.com, 9675, RESELLER

A buyer receiving a bid request claiming to be for example.com can verify if the exchange and SellerAccountID in the request match the authorized sellers listed in the example.com/ads.txt file.

Advanced Directives: OwnerDomain and ManagerDomain

The latest ads.txt specifications include new directives to solve challenges related to identifying property owners versus representatives.

• OwnerDomain: This directive should appear once and list the business domain of the owner of the site being monetized. It helps buyers clearly identify the seller that owns the underlying media property, creating a tight link between ads.txt and sellers.json files. We recommend that even publishers with a single domain use this new directive.

• ManagerDomain: This directive addresses challenges for buyers trying to identify the most direct path to buy inventory from sites represented by ad management firms. ManagerDomain gives buyers transparency into this path, preventing the ad management company from being perceived as just another intermediary.

How to Integrate ads.txt on Your Website

There are two primary methods for implementation.

Method 1: Automatic Integration (Easy)

The major CMSs have developed the necessary technology to help publishers with integration.

• For WordPress Sites: It is possible to integrate the ads.txt file very easily thanks to our official plugin, which allows for a one-click implementation. You can also use other plugins like Ad Inserter, Advanced Ads, or plugins made specifically for ads.txt.

• For Other Platforms (Blogger, AdSense): These platforms have special sections within their dashboards for the integration of the ads.txt file.

Method 2: Manual Integration

The integration of the ads.txt file can be quite complex as it requires access to the ROOTS of the site, especially if the site was not created via a major CMS.

1. Get the Content: Copy the complete ads.txt lines from your Moneytizer dashboard. This includes your unique "THE MONEYTIZER DIRECT" line, which is crucial for monetization and allows us to identify your site.

2. Create the File: Create a plain text file named ads.txt.

3. Upload to Root: Upload this file to the root directory of your web server.

Verification is Mandatory: In order for the file to be valid and for banners to be disseminated, the ads.txt file must be visible on the site. For this reason, after integration, you must verify that it is displayed on a page, such as www.mysite.com/ads.txt, so that it is always available for consultation.