The average number of ads.txt lines per domain is now 459. This number has grown by 71% since January 2021. The growth itself isn't a problem. You might even be thinking that the ad tech industry is growing, so it makes sense that the number of ads.txt lines would grow as well. But, when you combine this growth with the rest of the industry highlights below, you'll see that something very wrong is going on. Keep reading and follow along...
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Non-existing seats are the strongest indicator of an unmanaged ads.txt file. The growth of non-existing seats show us that publishers still aren't managing their ads.txt files, despite tools and resources such as the Wizard making the process of removing them very easy. If only the average number of ads.txt lines grew, this could indicate that publishers are working with more sellers and that the industry is growing. But, when you combine the growing number of lines with the rise of non-existing seats, you can start to piece together that publishers are not gaining control over their inventory and the state of transparency is only getting worse.
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Since January 2021, the average number of intermediaries grew by 53%. Intermediaries that label themselves as direct, whether due to fraud incentives or by mistake, has grown by 166%. That is another strong indicator that sellers are being mislabeled in the supply chain. Once publishers adopt the ads.txt 1.1 Managerdomain value all other sellers will be represented as "reseller" which will help to put this in order.
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If current ads.txt files represented the actual state of our industry, an average domain would be working with 69 different sellers, a 38% increase from 2021, 26 of which claim to be direct, or, in other words, they are claiming to own or exclusively manage the inventory. There are two problems here: 1. "69 sellers" signifies that every month the domain owner should be receiving 69 separate checks from 69 companies. The reality is very different. Most publishers declare working with up to 30 sellers. And 2. No domain has 26 different owners or exclusive managers. These two problems mislead the buy-side and the publisher whose direct seats are probably being overshadowed by these so-called "direct sellers."
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The average number of ads.txt lines per domain is 459. The actual number is even higher, but we don't include duplicated or invalid lines in our calculations. 139 of these lines (30%) claim to be direct - meaning the sellers behind these lines are claiming to be the domain owners. 139 is a very high number and it proves that there is too much misrepresented inventory in the supply chain.
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