prebid
commented
9 years ago +1. You're right - header bidding without price can be done through a waterfall in DFP. The latter is actually better without having to make the page wait. We're trying to keep track of this as well, as it indeed affects our implementation for different bidders.
For a bidder that responds with exact price and creative, the implementation can be standard. For a bidder that obfuscates the price or not returning one, the line items have to be setup differently. More can be found here:
djlosch
As described in the docs for prebid, and on appnexus, some exchanges don't actually respond with their true bid value. Instead, they reply with estimates, ranges, or averages.
This defeats the entire purpose of header bidding. Mathematically, there's little difference in this from the days of waterfalls and line item averages... but now it's implemented manually instead of letting DFP do the work.
_If an exchange does not respond with their true bid value for that impression, they should not be supported_. Alternatively, is there a chart that shows who responds with true bid values, and who doesn't?