ATS Direct for Publishers
ATS Direct enables direct media buys between publishers using ATS and marketers distributing their segments via LiveRamp Connect.
With ATS Direct, publishers can deepen their relationships with buyers by offering audience-based direct deals without the need for third-party cookies and command premium CPMs while delivering increased value to marketers with authenticated impressions.
The stack is deployed within the publisher’s cloud with full protection and control of the data - ensuring publishers never see the marketer audience and the marketer never sees the publisher's data.
Caution
ATS Direct is currently in closed beta and is only available for selected publishers.
How it Works
ATS Direct uses tried and tested infrastructure from LiveRamp Connect, a LiveRamp product which enables marketers to manage and segment their data. The segment data from Connect can be transferred as RampIDs directly to the ATS Direct appliance in the publisher’s own cloud environment.
The publisher's appliance is able to look for a matching segment for any given ATS envelope and return it as a key value pair to the publisher ad server for targeting.
See the complete ATS Direct flow below:
Marketers and publishers negotiate the terms of the deal outside of Console.
Once a deal has been settled, the marketer activates the publisher's destination account in Connect and uses that destination account to distribute their segments to Console.
Publisher gets notified when a marketer sends a new audience from Connect to the appliance.
Publisher activates the deal in the ATS Direct section of Console.
An email notification will be sent from Console to the marketer notifying them that the deal has been approved.
Publisher creates a line item in Google Ad Manager with custom targeting set up using the value of the Deal ID (Segment ID for the marketer).
Multi-Region Support
You can run multiple instances of ATS Direct for a single PID and keep the data segregated for analytics purposes. A publisher might want to run multiple instances to ensure that segment data is stored in the appropriate region.
Current supported regions are:
United States (Virginia)
Europe (Ireland)
Australia (Sydney)
ATS Direct and ATS
The Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS) provides a privacy-first, PII (directly identifiable personal data for EU/UK users) authentication solution that improves programmatic addressability across the open web by providing an encrypted, persistent, people-based identifier throughout the programmatic supply chain, starting at the inventory source.
ATS helps publishers recognize known users on their sites in real time, enabling data-informed targeting and increasing the value of your inventory. ATS envelopes are used by ATS Direct to find matching segments. ATS Direct will decode the envelope to a RampID and query the active marketer segments.
ATS Direct and LiveRamp Connect
ATS Direct provides means of facilitating safe transfer of segment data enabling marketers who are using LiveRamp Connect to activate their data in direct deals with publishers using ATS.
LiveRamp Connect is a software application marketers use to upload, manage, and distribute their segment data for targeting, measurement, or personalization. In LiveRamp Connect, each ATS Direct publisher is represented as a destination under “ATS Direct” where the marketer can distribute their segment data directly.
Methods for Implementing ATS Direct
The methods below all require some basic configurations in Console and will only differ when it's time to implement/install ATS Direct in Step 3.
Via ATS for Web (ATS.js)
For a hassle free implementation without dependence on third-party cookies on any website, we recommend implementing ATS Direct via ATS for Web (ATS.js).
Rather than make requests to support or tinker with ATS JavaScript directly, use the Console to easily make your desired selections and updates with confidence. The ATS Direct module in ATS for Web makes it easy and code-free to start using ATS Direct.
Via API Implementation
If you integrate ATS and ATS Direct into properties outside the web or you need to limit added JavaScript on your website, you may prefer to call the ATS Direct API directly, versus including and configuring the ATS.js code.
Direct interaction will let you cut down the weight of the page and potentially make fewer client-side network requests, but does add to the implementation complexity. We only recommend this method if you know what you're doing.