Late last week SpotX announced that it has integrated its recently-launched header bidding solution for video ads with Amazon Publisher Services’ Transparent Ad Marketplace (TAM). To learn more about the integration and the benefits to publishers, SpotX and Amazon, I spoke with Tal Almany, SpotX’s Senior Director, Advanced Integrations who recently joined the company from OpenX.

For those not familiar with header bidding, this is an approach that video providers use to offer their ad inventory simultaneously to multiple demand sources to optimize bidding and monetization. Amazon’s TAM is a header bidding solution that is cloud-based and server side, which means less code is running on the publisher’s site, creating efficiencies. TAM is relatively new to the market, but because it’s from Amazon, it has gained a lot of attention.

By integrating its own header bidding solution with TAM, publishers who were working with TAM, but not already SpotX, now get access to the company’s technology, its Demand Facilitation Team, Curated Marketplaces, verification controls and other self-serve programmatic tools.

Tal said that while SpotX’s ultimate goal is to have publishers use its technology directly, if publishers prefer using TAM, then SpotX is now able to support them as part of a completely cloud-based solution. In this sense, Tal said SpotX made the strategic decision to integrate so that publishers working through Amazon can benefit from access to SpotX's demand sources and platform tools.

Tal explained that SpotX is bringing to TAM’s existing demand pool its own integrations with over 65 demand side platforms (DSPs), creating more buyer diversity for publishers. Importantly, Tal said that over 60% of SpotX’s marketplace is private, which means curated demand, higher CPM and better fill and match rates.

SpotX has gone live in limited scale with TAM, but will be rolled out widely soon. Tal said that for publishers it’s pretty quick to turn on SpotX as an additional option within TAM. Amazon Publisher Services’ GM Ken Leeder said that the “integration will enable broadcasters to unlock higher programmatic CPMs and still deliver a great video experience.”

(Note: SpotX is a Premium Partner for our 3rd annual SHIFT // Programmatic Video & TV Ad Summit on Wed., Nov. 29th in NYC. Early-bird discounted tickets are now available.)