Traffic Shaping Explained
Traffic shaping is a network management technique that controls data flow to optimize performance and resource utilization. For publishers, mastering traffic shaping can significantly enhance ad delivery, improve user experience, and increase revenue.
Sounds interesting? Read on!
In this article, we’ll introduce you to traffic shaping and share the most effective strategies and best practices to optimize your ad delivery and enhance your website’s performance.
Introduction to Traffic Shaping
Traffic shaping is a network management technique that controls data flow to enhance performance and efficiency. It allocates more bandwidth to essential tasks by prioritizing critical applications or data while slowing down less important traffic. This ensures that key operations run smoothly, especially during limited bandwidth or high-demand periods.
In practice, traffic shaping adjusts the amount and priority of data moving over a network at any given time. Network administrators use it to optimize performance and guarantee that vital applications or users receive the necessary resources.
Traffic shaping typically employs:
- Bandwidth prioritization (allocating more speed to critical tasks)
- Throttling (slowing down certain types of traffic)
- Traffic filtering (screening data to determine which requests are most valuable)
- Rate limiting (setting caps on how often users or applications can make requests).
Why Do Publishers Use Traffic Shaping?
Traffic shaping helps to reduce operational costs and enhance the performance of publisher ad operations by actively filtering out irrelevant or low-value bid requests, which limits server strain and resource consumption during high-traffic periods.
This selective approach optimizes network efficiency, ensuring that valuable traffic receives priority and resources are utilized effectively. Traffic shaping also improves transparency by accurately representing inventory to advertisers, making it easier for them to find and bid on high-value ad placements, which can increase revenue for publishers.
3 Key Benefits of Traffic Shaping
1. Enhanced performance and user experience
Traffic shaping reduces network congestion by prioritizing important applications and ensuring critical services (like streaming or online transactions) operate smoothly and quickly. This improves the end-user experience, allowing users to enjoy faster load times and fewer interruptions.
2. Cost efficiency and resource optimization
Organizations can reduce operational expenses by regulating data flow and allocating bandwidth to high-priority traffic. Traffic shaping makes it possible to manage network resources more effectively, often allowing businesses to delay or avoid expensive upgrades while still meeting demand.
3. Security and network control
Traffic shaping helps filter and control data, blocking unwanted traffic and preventing unauthorized use that could compromise network stability. This added control layer contributes to a more secure, reliable environment, protecting the network and its users from potential disruptions.
What is Traffic Shaping in Adtech?
In adtech, traffic shaping is a strategic approach used by ad exchanges and SSPs to control and optimize the flow of bid requests sent to DSPs. By selectively filtering bid requests, SSPs send only valuable and relevant opportunities to bidders, enhancing efficiency and performance in the ad delivery process.
How does it work?
SSPs evaluate each bid request based on criteria such as the likelihood of DSP interest and participation in an auction. If an inventory slot is unlikely to attract bids from certain DSPs, the SSP filters out these requests, focusing on sending only those that have a higher chance of resulting in successful bids.
They employ predictive algorithms that analyze user data, including IP addresses, device types, and geographical locations. This analysis helps determine the relevance of the bid request to specific DSPs and whether it should be routed to them. SSPs decide where to route each bid request based on the insights gained from predictive analysis.
There are 3 main reasons for doing this:
- Workaround QPS (queries per second) limits. DSPs often set a cap on how many bid requests they can handle per second. Traffic shaping helps avoid exceeding these limits.
- Reduce infrastructure costs. Ad exchanges and SSPs lower operational costs and improve efficiency by sending fewer unnecessary requests.
- Build better relationships with DSPs. SSPs can improve their collaboration with DSPs by not overwhelming DSPs with irrelevant or low-value requests.
What is QPS optimization?
QPS optimization manages the number of requests sent to a system, particularly in contexts like digital advertising or network services.
- In adtech, QPS refers to the maximum number of bid requests DSPs can handle within a second. Optimizing QPS involves strategies to ensure that publishers and exchanges do not exceed these limits, which can lead to system overload and missed bid opportunities.
To achieve QPS optimization, publishers can filter and prioritize bid requests through traffic-shaping techniques. This approach helps maintain efficient operations by sending only the most relevant requests to DSPs.
How does traffic shaping differ from other network and ad delivery optimization techniques?
Traffic shaping primarily focuses on controlling the flow of bid requests and managing network resources to ensure optimal performance, while general optimization techniques like header bidding and SPO aim to improve ad delivery efficiency.
How Does Traffic Shaping Work?
Traffic shaping employs various techniques to control and optimize network traffic flow. Below, we’ve gathered the key techniques.
Bandwidth prioritization
Bandwidth prioritization allocates more network resources to high-priority applications or data types. For publishers, this means dedicating greater internet speed to essential services like ad delivery platforms over less critical apps.
- Example: If your website is simultaneously streaming video content and serving ads, bandwidth prioritization ensures that ad loading is prioritized. This guarantees that ads display promptly, maintaining user engagement and maximizing ad impressions without compromising the video streaming quality.
Throttling
Throttling controls the rate at which data is transmitted across the network by intentionally slowing down certain types of traffic. This prevents network congestion and ensures that critical services operate smoothly.
- Example: During peak traffic periods, a publisher might throttle non-essential processes like large file downloads or background updates. By limiting the speed of these activities, more bandwidth is available for ad delivery systems, ensuring ads load quickly and efficiently for all users.
Traffic filtering
Traffic filtering involves analyzing and screening incoming and outgoing data to determine which traffic is valuable and which is not. This helps publishers send only high-quality, relevant ad requests to advertisers.
- Example: By implementing traffic filtering, a publisher can detect and exclude fraudulent or low-value ad requests, such as those generated by bot traffic. Advertisers only receive legitimate impressions, which improves bid quality and increases eCPMs.
It’s similar to sorting emails by importance–keeping the valuable ones and discarding the rest to maintain a clean and efficient inbox.
Geotargeting and device targeting
Geotargeting and device targeting deliver content based on the user’s geographic location and device. This ensures that ads are relevant and optimized for the user’s context, enhancing engagement and conversion rates.
- Example: If a publisher knows that a significant portion of their audience accesses content from mobile devices in a particular city, they can prioritize serving mobile-optimized ads for businesses in that area. A local restaurant could display promotions to nearby users on their smartphones, increasing the likelihood of attracting customers.
Connection-based shaping
Connection-based shaping adjusts data transmission based on the user’s internet connection type, such as Wi-Fi, broadband, or cellular data. This technique ensures users receive content suitable for their connection speed, improving the overall experience.
- Example: Users on slower mobile networks might receive lighter, faster-loading ads to prevent lag or long load times. Conversely, users with high-speed broadband connections can be served richer media content without negatively impacting performance. This personalization keeps users engaged regardless of their connection quality.
Rate limiting
Rate limiting restricts the number of requests a user or process can make within a specific time frame. This prevents any single source from overwhelming the network, ensuring stability and fair access for all users.
- Example: If a particular IP address makes an unusually high number of ad requests (potentially indicating bot activity), rate limiting can throttle these requests. This protects the network from overloading and preserves bandwidth for genuine users, maintaining accurate analytics and preventing ad fraud.
Common Tools and Technologies For Traffic Shaping
Bot detection and fraud prevention tools
Tools such as IAS (Integral Ad Science) and DoubleVerify help publishers filter out non-human traffic, ensuring that ad views and clicks come from real users, protecting revenue, and maintaining ad quality standards.
How can they help?
These tools identify and block non-human or fraudulent traffic, such as bot-generated clicks or views. By analyzing data patterns and user behaviors, these tools help publishers maintain high standards of ad integrity and credibility.
They ensure advertisers are only charged for authentic interactions, which strengthens advertisers’ trust and long-term publisher relationships. Fraud prevention can also improve performance metrics as ads reach more real users, and genuine engagement improves ROI.
Web application firewalls (WAF)
Cloudflare and AWS Shield can filter malicious traffic, prevent DDoS attacks, and protect against unexpected traffic surges, which can interrupt ad delivery.
How can they help?
WAFs act as a shield between the publisher’s server and incoming traffic, filtering out malicious activity that could threaten site stability. They block DDoS attacks, SQL injections, and other potentially harmful traffic, which safeguards the publisher’s website and ensures ads load reliably.
By mitigating traffic surges and blocking security threats, WAFs enhance site uptime and ad performance, crucial for maintaining steady ad revenue.
Geotargeting tools
Tools like MaxMind GeoIP and Google Ads allow publishers to deliver relevant ads to a user’s region, increasing ad click-through rates and effectiveness.
How can they help?
These tools enable publishers to deliver ads based on users’ geographic locations. By tailoring ads to the user’s region, geotargeting tools improve ad relevance, leading to higher click-through rates and engagement.
For example, a local business ad shown to nearby users is more likely to convert than one shown to a global audience.
Device detection tools
DeviceAtlas and WURFL detect the user’s device type, ensuring ads load optimally across devices to improve engagement and user experience.
How can they help?
Device detection tools identify a user’s device type (e.g., mobile, desktop, tablet) and optimize ads for each format. By ensuring ads are correctly formatted and fast-loading across all devices, these tools improve user experience and engagement, positively impacting ad revenue and user satisfaction on the site.
Adaptive content delivery
Solutions like Google AMP help serve lightweight ads and optimize content for users with slow connections, enhancing user experience and reducing load times.
How can it help?
For users on slow or limited connections, adaptive delivery solutions like AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) serve lightweight ad versions that load faster and consume less data. This technique ensures that even users with slower connections receive a smooth browsing experience, reducing load times and improving engagement on the publisher’s site.
Rate limiting and traffic throttling
Cloudflare Rate Limiting and AWS API Gateway Rate Limiting manage the number of ad requests sent to the server.
How can they help?
Rate limiting tools control the number of ad requests sent to the server within a given period. This prevents server overloads during high-traffic periods, ensuring consistent ad delivery.
By controlling request rates, publishers can stabilize their servers and provide a better, more reliable experience for users and advertisers, which is essential for maintaining performance and protecting revenue during peak traffic times.
Benefits of Traffic Shaping for Publishers
Improved user experience through optimized ad-loading speeds
Traffic shaping enhances how and when ads load on websites, resulting in faster-loading, relevant ads that prevent delays and page slowdowns. This improvement maintains user engagement and reduces bounce rates. By prioritizing high-value and relevant ad requests, publishers send fewer but more targeted bids, increasing ad delivery speed. Users are less likely to abandon pages when ads load swiftly, positively impacting the publisher’s bottom line through increased ad impressions and extended session durations.
Studies show that users view an average of 5.6 more pages when a site loads in 2 seconds compared to 8 seconds. Moreover, increasing load time from 2 to 5 seconds can spike the bounce rate from 9% to 38%.
Optimizing ad speeds through traffic shaping benefits users and publishers by enhancing session quality and retention. Publishers can expect better user engagement, longer site visits, and more page views per session.
Higher fill rates and eCPMs due to efficient delivery of relevant ads
Traffic shaping enables publishers to achieve higher fill rates and eCPMs by filtering out low-value requests and delivering only relevant ads to DSPs. Reducing irrelevant ad requests allows DSPs to focus on competitive, high-quality bids for premium inventory, increasing the chances of receiving higher bids per impression.
Analyzing historical performance data helps publishers predict which demand partners are most likely to respond positively to certain impressions, creating a more efficient bidding process.
When DSPs receive requests, they are more inclined to bid on them, fill rates improve, and advertisers bid more aggressively for valuable placements. Well-targeted ad delivery can increase publisher revenue by up to 50% due to higher fill rates and eCPMs. Efficient ad delivery maximizes revenue and strengthens relationships with advertisers seeking high-performing inventory.
Reduced ad fraud by filtering and controlling traffic sources
Traffic shaping helps publishers avoid sending fraudulent impressions to DSPs through IP filtering, traffic segmentation, and bid request scrutiny. Fraudulent traffic often involves bot activity that generates non-human impressions, hurting the performance and ROI of digital ad campaigns.
Implementing real-time monitoring and analyzing historical data enables publishers to identify and exclude questionable traffic sources, enhancing the credibility and trustworthiness of their inventory.
Ad fraud prevention methods, including traffic shaping, save the industry billions of dollars annually, creating a safer and more transparent environment for ad transactions. A cleaner ad ecosystem improves overall campaign performance, encouraging advertisers to invest more in high-quality publisher inventory.
3 Main Cons of Traffic Shaping
While traffic shaping offers significant benefits for publishers in the adtech industry, it’s important to be aware of potential drawbacks. Here are the 3 main cons that should be addressed:
1. Potential negative impact on user privacy
Traffic shaping often involves analyzing user data and behavior to optimize ad delivery. This can raise concerns about user privacy. Collecting and processing personal data without explicit consent can lead to legal issues and damage the publisher’s reputation.
- What to do? Ensure that your traffic shaping practices comply with all relevant privacy laws. Implement transparent data collection policies, obtain user consent where required, and anonymize data to protect individual identities. Regular audits and compliance checks can help mitigate privacy risks.
2. Complexity and resource requirements
Implementing effective traffic shaping can be technically complex and resource-intensive. It requires sophisticated tools, continuous monitoring, and skilled personnel to manage and adjust the traffic shaping policies. Thus, smaller publishers may find it challenging to allocate the necessary resources regarding technology and staffing.
- What to do? Invest in user-friendly traffic shaping solutions that offer automation and require less manual intervention. Consider partnering with third-party providers who specialize in traffic management. Training existing staff or hiring experts can also help manage the complexity more effectively.
3. Risk of reduced accessibility and potential bias
Traffic shaping may accidentally prioritize certain types of traffic or user segments over others, potentially reducing accessibility for some users. For example, deprioritizing traffic from certain geographic locations or devices might cause slower load times or limited access to content for those users.
- What to do? Ensure that traffic shaping policies are inclusive and regularly reviewed for unintended biases. Use data analytics to monitor the impact on different user segments and adjust policies to maintain equitable access. Strive for a balance that optimizes performance without alienating portions of your audience.
Best Practices for Implementing Traffic Shaping
To summarize and highlight the most effective techniques for traffic shaping implementation, we’ve compiled the top 5 best practices:
1. Prioritize ad delivery traffic
For publishers, ensuring timely ad delivery is crucial for revenue generation. Implement traffic shaping policies that prioritize ad content over less critical data.
You reduce latency and improve viewability rates by allocating sufficient bandwidth to ad delivery, leading to higher CTRs and better advertiser satisfaction. This prioritization directly impacts your bottom line by maximizing ad performance.
2. Analyze user behavior and traffic patterns
Understanding how users interact with your content helps optimize network resources effectively. Use analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics 4) to monitor peak usage times, popular content types, and geographic distribution of your audience.
Analyzing these patterns allows you to adjust traffic shaping policies to accommodate high-demand periods and regions. This ensures a seamless user experience, keeping your audience engaged and more likely to return.
3. Implement quality of service (QoS) for critical services
Quality of service (QoS) settings allow you to assign priority levels to different types of traffic. In adtech, this means prioritizing programmatic advertising platforms, real-time bidding processes, and ad exchanges.
When these services have the necessary bandwidth, you maintain efficient ad operations and maximize revenue opportunities. QoS helps prevent congestion that could disrupt these vital services.
4. Utilize content delivery networks (CDNs)
Using CDNs can significantly improve content delivery speed and reliability. By caching content closer to end-users, CDNs reduce the load on your primary servers and optimize bandwidth usage. This is especially important for publishers handling rich media ads or video content, which require more bandwidth.
Simply put, integrating a CDN (e.g., Cloudflare CDN) into your traffic shaping strategy enhances performance and user satisfaction.
5. Continuously monitor and adjust policies
You can always expect rapid changes in user behavior and technology. Thus, it’s essential to regularly monitor network performance and the effectiveness of your traffic shaping policies.
Use real-time data to identify new trends or bottlenecks, and be prepared to adjust your strategies accordingly. Continuous optimization ensures you avoid issues affecting ad delivery and user experience.
Conclusion
Traffic shaping is an essential strategy for publishers to optimize performance and revenue. It allows publishers to manage network traffic, ensuring that high-priority ads load quickly without overwhelming server resources.
By prioritizing critical data and controlling bandwidth allocation, publishers enhance user experience through faster page loads and more relevant content, leading to increased engagement and longer site visits. Traffic shaping also boosts profitability by focusing on high-value ad placements and minimizing costs associated with low-impact traffic.
Thus, adopting traffic-shaping techniques is crucial for publishers aiming to maximize efficiency, user satisfaction, and revenue.
FAQs on Traffic Shaping
What is the primary goal of traffic shaping in adtech?
The main goal of traffic shaping in adtech is to prioritize and control ad request traffic, ensuring high-quality, relevant ads reach users while maximizing monetization.
How does traffic shaping help reduce ad fraud?
Traffic shaping reduces ad fraud by filtering out suspicious or non-human traffic, which helps ensure ad views and clicks come from real users.
Is traffic shaping suitable for smaller websites and publishers?
While beneficial, traffic shaping can be complex and costly, making it more feasible for publishers with larger audiences or higher budgets.
What technologies are required to implement effective traffic shaping?
Effective traffic shaping relies on tools like traffic filtering software, machine learning algorithms, and data analysis platforms for real-time prioritization and filtering.
How does traffic shaping differ from ad inventory management?
Traffic shaping controls the flow and quality of incoming ad requests, while ad inventory management focuses on managing the volume and distribution of available ad placements.
