Reseller paths clicked 2.3x more than direct
Authorized-Reseller CTR was 0.423 percent against Authorized-Direct at 0.184 percent on the same Supply Bench creative. That is an arbitrage signature, not a quality win.
Published 2026-09-09 · Search job: ads.txt reseller vs direct quality
ads.txt Reseller inventory is not automatically worse than Direct, and it is not automatically better. On the 2026-09-02 Supply Bench pull, Authorized-Reseller clicked at 0.423 percent CTR and Authorized-Direct clicked at 0.184 percent. Reseller paths clicked 2.3 times more than Direct on the same creative and format. That spread is an arbitrage signature. It is not a reason to prefer Reseller, and it is not a certified fraud verdict.
If you are comparing reseller vs direct quality, start from the click rate and the authorization mix together. Do not start from the label.
The mix this rate sat inside
Observed spend on the same pull was $195.56 Authorized-Direct, $120.59 Authorized-Reseller, and $0.48 Unauthorized. Direct took more money. Reseller took more clicks per impression. Unauthorized was not the story. ads.txt did not save this buy is the companion piece: 99.85 percent of observed spend was already authorized.
A higher CTR on Reseller would look like a win if CTR were the score. CTR is a trap on remnant display. Leftover inventory is good at producing billed clicks. The question is whether those clicks are people. We cannot answer that from this pull. Creatives carried no IVT add-on. invalid_impressions was zero because nothing was measuring.
Why we call it an arbitrage signature
A reseller path is an extra hop between the publisher and the exchange. Extra hops are where bid shading, stale ads.txt rows, and recycled inventory collect. A 2.3x click lift on that path, against Direct, on one creative, is the shape we have seen when the extra hop is selling something Direct is not. We are labeling the shape, not naming a vendor scheme.
We will not write that Reseller is 2.3x more fraudulent. We will not write that Direct is clean. Direct still sat inside a flight where seven domains produced 41.3 percent of clicks from 4.7 percent of impressions, and where msn.com ran 5.35 percent CTR. Authorization does not remove those hosts. Authorized inventory can still be junk is the shorter sentence.
What we will do with the lever
ads_txt is a real targeting key on this seat. Restricting to Authorized-Direct is a test we can run. It is not a cleanup we have already judged. This page records the baseline: Reseller 0.423 percent, Direct 0.184 percent, same pull, partial coverage of $316.64 from a combined total near $432.
Until an IVT add-on is on the creative and click-to-page-view is joined, we will not promote either path as quality. We will keep both rates next to the domain table and refuse to treat the higher CTR as the better buy.