BidSwitch and Ads.txt¶

BidSwitch is a technology and infrastructure provider within the Ad Tech space, enabling integrations between Suppliers and Buyers. As it is not a Supplier, it will never appear in an ads.txt file as an approved seller of inventory.

Ads.txt Targeting¶

Buyers can configure their targeting to only pass bid requests with a subset of ads.txt statuses. Within BidSwitch Targeting Groups, open Targeting Groups ‣ [example tgroup] ‣ Targeting ‣ Ads.txt Status to configure each targeting group to allow a mixture of the following statuses to be passed.

Direct The ads.txt entry is direct.
Reseller The ads.txt entry is reseller.
Unauthorized The ads.txt entry is unauthorized. Note: at this moment BidSwitch doesn’t allow for unauthorized ads.txt trading, CTV inventory being the only exception.
Unknown Although an unofficial field, this status maps to 0 in the bid request ads.txt object and means BidSwitch has not yet crawled the publishers ads.txt site to verify the Supplier’s status.

Note

This filter applies to both website (ads.txt) and application (app-ads.txt)
Activate the Apply to Private Deals checkbox if you need to filter private deal traffic by ads.txt status

Bid Request Ads.txt Fields¶

Bid Requests from BidSwitch contain the data related to the ads.txt status of the publisher. Buyers can now use this information in their bidding logic without the need to crawl ads.txt files themselves.

BidSwitch collects data from the ads.txt files
Upon receiving the Supplier Bid Request, BidSwitch will check if that Supplier and Publisher are allowed to sell inventory from the specific site
This information will be provided to Buyers in Bid Requests, see the ads.txt Object section for more details

Note

Some Buyers are not buying any inventory that fails ads.txt authorisation and this applies to both open deals and private deals. This may be the cause of some questions when looking at a Deal’s performance in Deals Insights reporting, see the Deals Troubleshooting Insights section for more details.

Ads.txt Object Properties¶
Value	Type	Description
status	int	Indicates what information the Ads.txt file contained regarding this Suppliers selling relationship with the publisher `1` = direct `2` = reseller `3` = unauthorized
auth_id*	string	Passes the TAG ID if present in the `ads.txt` file, e.g. `8765jfhfg09`
pub_id	string	The unmodified `ssp_publisher-id` for example, `123456789` Note: In the standard Publisher object BidSwitch passes the `publisher.id` field including the SSP prefix, e.g. `aol_123456789`, see the ext.ads_txt Object for more details
supplier_domain*	string	Passes the Supplier’s domain listed in the publisher’s ads.txt file, e.g. `"openx.com"`

{
   "site":{
      "domain":"dailymail.co.uk",
      "publisher":{
         "id":"openx_537120563"
      }
   },
   "ext":{
      "ssp":"openx",
      "media_src":"openx",
      "ads_txt":{
         "status":2,
         "auth_id":"1kjhwk98691",
         "pub_id":"537120563",
         "supplier_domain":"openx.com"
      }
   }
}

Ads.txt Mapping¶

BidSwitch supports Ads.txt through a mapping file enabling the conversion of Supplier names from BidSwitch-specific names to those listed in Ads.txt files.

For any Buyer seeking to leverage Ads.txt, the process would be very similar to a direct connection, except with the additional step of converting the name using the mapping document prior to validation. This mapping can be found in the following formats. You can also read more in the Ads.txt API section.

BSW-SSP Mapping¶
Type	URL
JSON	https://api.bidswitch.com/adstxt/ssp-domains-mapping.json
CSV	https://api.bidswitch.com/adstxt/ssp-domains-mapping.csv

Valid and Invalid SSP Domains¶

In addition to these mapping files, BidSwitch also provides two lists of domains that its Ads.txt crawler encounters daily. In doing so, it also validates whether each Supplier domain in a publishers Ads.txt file exists, or if the domain is invalid.

Valid SSP Domains listed in Ads.txt files¶
Type	URL
JSON	https://api.bidswitch.com/adstxt/ssp-domains-valid.json
CSV	https://api.bidswitch.com/adstxt/ssp-domains-valid.csv

Invalid SSP Domains listed in Ads.txt files¶
Type	URL
JSON	https://api.bidswitch.com/adstxt/ssp-domains-invalid.json
CSV	https://api.bidswitch.com/adstxt/ssp-domains-invalid.csv

Publisher Enforcement¶

Publisher can also ensure BidSwitch only accepts Supplier requests that comply with their ads.txt file. The list of publishers who have requested this is available at from the following URLs.

Publisher Enforced Ads.txt file Settings¶
Type	URL
JSON	https://api.bidswitch.com/adstxt/pub-domains-enforced.json
CSV	https://api.bidswitch.com/adstxt/pub-domains-enforced.csv

Note

The information above was previously available from these files, but they are not as up-to-date as querying the endpoint. If you are using the below files please update your integration to the above resources: