What is ads.txt?
Authorized Digital Sellers, or ads.txt, is an IAB initiative to improve transparency (fighting ad fraud and misrepresented URLs) in programmatic advertising. Publishers can create their ads.txt files to identify who is authorized to sell their inventory. The files are publicly available and crawlable by buyers, third-party vendors, and exchanges.
This initiative is now available for mobile web inventory (ads.txt) and app inventory (apps.ads.txt). It is supported for Android and iOS.
The app-ads.txt specification is an extension of the original ads.txt standard to meet the requirements for applications distributed through mobile app stores, connected television app stores, or other application distribution channels.
Is ads.txt a brand safety solution?
In other words: are the publishers I'm buying from verified, transparent, and brand-safe?
You can always check any publisher's traffic quality according to the ads.txt downloading a Report from the platform.
By selecting the drill-down parameter ads.txt Publisher, these are the different options that the variable will return regarding the traffic quality:
Unknown: Can't read the ads.txt (or app-ads.txt).
Mismatch: We have access to the publisher's ads.txt but the publisher ID is not found.
All: Indirect relationship between the publisher and the SSP (it works as an intermediary/reseller).
Direct: Direct relationship between the Publisher and the SSP (NOT verified by their sellers.json).
Verified: Direct relationship between the Publisher and the SSP (verified by their sellers.json).