What is ads.txt?
Ads.txt (Authorized Digital Sellers) is an IAB initiative, created to increase transparency in the programmatic advertising ecosystem. Ads.txt is a simple, flexible and secure method for publishers and distributors to show who is authorized to sell their ad inventory.
How do I implement the ads.txt file on my site?
We will provide you with our most up-to-date ads.txt file as a part of your setup. You simply need to upload it to your web server so that it is visible at [Your_URL]/ads.txt. The ads.txt file must be implemented before we send your site over to our SSP partners for approval. If ads.txt is not present, some partners will not accept your site, limiting your access to valuable programmatic demand.
April 2023 update - ads.txt 1.1.
Due to new industrywide requirements, the format of ads.txt is changing to further clarify the relationship between publishers and demand partners.
There are two new additional fields in the list: MANAGERDOMAIN & OWNERDOMAIN.
managerdomain=venatus.com
ownerdomain=XXXXXXXXXXX
MANAGERDOMAIN specifies the entity managing the inventory on behalf of the publisher i.e Venatus, while the OWNERDOMAIN specifies the entity that owns the domain.
We will need you to update the March file with this new doc and populate the ownerdomain field (replace XXXXX with the URL of the company owning the site or the site's URL if there's no parent company).
Venatus hosted ads.txt
Ads.txt files need to be kept up to date, but having to change it manually every time we bring on a new programmatic partner can be a hassle, so we created a simple solution. We are able to redirect to a hosted Venatus ads.txt file, allowing us to manage a master ads.txt file without asking you to ever make any further changes.
If you’d like to use this solution, the first step is that you must use our hard-coded ad tags. Next, you will need to create a 301 redirect on your site.
These redirects need to be created as separate and independent rules in accordance with the IAB specifications that dictate a single redirect only when hosting a remote file of this nature.
Below is the mapping required to achieve this.
http://[your_URL]/ads.txt - > https://adstxt.venatusmedia.com/{Venatus Site ID}_ads.txt
http://www.[your_URL]/ads.txt - > https://adstxt.venatusmedia.com/{Venatus Site ID}_ads.txt
https://[your_URL]/ads.txt - > https://adstxt.venatusmedia.com/{Venatus Site ID}_ads.txt
https://www.[your_URL]/ads.txt - > https://adstxt.venatusmedia.com/{Venatus Site ID}_ads.txt
Please speak to the PubOps team to get the relevant site ID for your site to construct the redirect.
We are aware that some publishers handle ads.txt differently and compile a dynamic list using a supplied endpoint. This will function in the same manner as above and should only require an update to the endpoint URL in the same way to facilitate the required change for Venatus. You will however still need to accommodate any external entries for other partners in your file.
Once the steps above have been completed, contact the team and we will check the implementation is responding as expected.