Overview
For premium media owners like the Guardian, maximising revenue while maintaining control and transparency is essential. These goals are particularly relevant as digital advertising evolves and media buyers seek the most high-quality, cost-efficient supply.
In this competitive environment, legacy pricing models can play a significant role in preventing media owners from achieving their objectives. For instance, when SSPs use traditional static take rates, this can limit auction flexibility and block bids that fall just short of the clearing price, even when they represent real value. As a result, impressions go unsold, buyers miss out on the chance to serve their ad, and media owners miss out on potential revenue.
To solve these challenges, the Guardian’s global programmatic team partnered with Index Exchange to implement Transparent Dynamic Take Rates, which are designed to improve fill rates and yield while providing full transparency.
Solution
Index’s Transparent Dynamic Take Rates automatically adjust pricing on a per-impression basis to optimise win rates and unlock additional demand.
For instance, a $9 CPM bid might not clear if the Index take rate reduces the media owner’s earnings below the floor price for that opportunity. Lowering the take rate on that specific bid can help it win and turn what would have been a missed opportunity into revenue. To balance this, Index may then slightly increase the take rate on a later, higher value bid such as $20.
This ensures that the average take rate stays at the agreed contracted level, while the media owner’s overall yield improves. Index never exceeds the contracted take rate.
This dynamic approach helped the Guardian deliver more impressions without lowering floors, requiring new buyer bids, or changing deal setups.
While other SSPs may have these features, historically, they haven’t always been open about how and when they are implemented. At Index, our Transparent Dynamic Take Rates work entirely within existing commercial terms and can always be fully audited through Client Audit Logs. This not only reinforces, but also strengthens, a media-owner-first model that is built on transparency, alignment, and trust.
Results
The Guardian tested Transparent Dynamic Take Rates against a control group to measure the gains in auction efficiency and revenue. In just one month, the publisher was able to deliver more impressions by flexing take rates in real time based on auction conditions, drive incremental revenue without any changes to floor strategy or buyer setup, and ensure transparency through impression-level auditability.
Results included:
- 4% Increase in revenue
- 45% Increase in impressions served
Transparent Dynamic Take Rates allowed the Guardian to deliver more impressions and monetise inventory that might have otherwise gone unsold. This approach offers a more efficient way to transact, operating entirely within existing contractual terms and never reducing a media owner’s eCPM.
“Transparency is really important to us, and this partnership with Index gave us a level of clarity we hadn’t seen before. The dynamic take rate model made it easy to understand how value was being exchanged, and the team was great at helping us navigate the details. It’s made a real difference to how we think about monetisation and working with partners.”
Dave Strauss, Vice President, Revenue Operations and Strategy
The Guardian
By aligning ad tech fee pricing more closely with buyer value while maintaining full transparency, the Guardian and Index are setting a new standard for how premium media owners can thrive in today’s programmatic landscape.
Transparent dynamic take rates are now live for all media owners across the Index Exchange platform. Get in touch to discover how we can drive more value your business.
