adprime/zeroOpen account
GlossaryArticleOperator-judged

ads.txt

A publisher file that lists who is authorized to sell that domain's inventory. Authorization is not a quality score.

Published 2026-09-09 · Search job: ads.txt advertising

ads.txt is a file a publisher puts on their domain to name which exchanges and sellers are authorized to sell that site's ad inventory. Buyers can target authorized-direct, authorized-reseller, unauthorized, or unknown. On the Beeswax seat behind Adprime Zero those values are targeting keys, not a campaign-level toggle we have historically set.

Authorization answers "was this seller allowed to offer the slot." It does not answer "was the click a person."

Our August 2026 Supply Bench pull (partial coverage of two waves) spent $0.48 on unauthorized inventory. Almost all of the observed slice was already authorized. Reseller paths clicked at 0.423 percent CTR versus 0.184 percent on authorized-direct. ads.txt filtering would not have saved that buy. We still treat authorized-only targeting as hygiene, not as a fraud fix.

We had no IVT vendor on that flight. Do not read the $0.48 figure as "the rest was clean."

Read the test writeup in ads.txt did not save this buy and the dated numbers on the Supply Bench scorecard.

Related

Supply
ads.txt did not save this buy

99.85 percent of observed Supply Bench spend was already ads.txt authorized. Unauthorized was $0.48. ads.txt did not remove the waste we actually found.

Benchmarks
Supply Bench wave scorecard

Dated remnant scorecard from August 2026 Supply Bench waves. Partial coverage. No IVT vendor. Not an industry average.

Glossary
Open exchange

Unreserved remnant auctions across SSPs. The default path our public display tests have actually flown.

Run the next test from chat

Open an account, add prepaid budget, and let an agent create the campaign, rotate creatives, and read the report. No DSP setup, no insertion order, no sales call.

Open accountCursor guide