Serving Up Smarter Prebid Yield: From Testing to Automation

In today’s fast-paced programmatic world, though yield optimization is essential, not every publisher wants or needs the same approach. Some prefer to test and tweak with precision, others want data-backed guidance, and some are ready to let automation take the wheel. Magnite’s Demand Manager platform supports a full spectrum of Prebid wrapper optimization strategies — from hands-on A/B testing to fully automated performance tuning. Think of it as a menu of options to match your team’s appetite for control, experimentation, and efficiency.

1. Manual A/B Testing – Total Control, Deep Customization

For publishers who love to get under the hood, manual A/B testing offers complete control over their yield strategy. Whether experimenting with new demand partners, adjusting wrapper configurations, or testing emerging Prebid modules, manual A/B testing provides a sandbox for innovation.

Some use cases include:

• Testing the impact of a new bidder across a portion of the inventory.
• Comparing performance between Prebid modules or Prebid version updates.
• Experimenting with timeout values or other configurations in the wrapper.
• Testing various Universal Identifiers through the User ID Module in Demand Manager’s Control Center.

This flavor is ideal for those with the time and expertise to manage testing cycles. It enables deep customization to define the test parameters, audience splits, and performance metrics that matter most to your business, fully supported with clear controls and robust reporting.

Demand Manager’s manual A/B testing gives our team the flexibility and precision we need to fine-tune our yield strategy. We’re able to test new configurations, experiment with bidder setups, and make adjustments based on what’s working — all without losing visibility or control. It’s empowering to have a tool that matches our hands-on approach while helping us make smarter, faster decisions.

Chiawei Huang, Senior Manager, Programmatic Product Integration, The Weather Company

2. Wrapper Optimization Recommendations – Smart Suggestions, Less Guesswork

Not every team has the bandwidth to design and run tests. Demand Manager’s wrapper optimization recommendations offer a one-click A/B testing feature that uses machine learning to calculate and predict the optimal settings for unique Prebid setups and inventory. Publishers choose which tests to run and when, as well as configure specific settings around what elements of their yield optimization they want recommendations for.

Demand Manager continuously analyzes a publisher’s setup and suggests optimizations, providing predicted impact statistics and visualizations indicating the potential revenue lift from each experiment. It’s a great entry point for publishers exploring automation, offering a guided step toward more dynamic yield management. Common test recommendations include predicted Prebid timeouts for each wrapper, bidder prioritization for optimal revenue to page latency, and bidder order to find optimal-performing demand for a specific slice of inventory.

The optimization recommendations in Demand Manager have been a game changer for our team. They remove the guesswork and provide clear, data-driven guidance on where to focus. We can quickly identify high-impact adjustments without getting bogged down in testing logistics. It’s a seamless way to improve performance while staying strategic and efficient with our time.

Bryan Harris, VP of Product, BuzzFeed

3. Automated Wrapper Management – Always-On Optimization

While there’s a time and place for manual testing — especially when exploring highly specific, niche scenarios — full automation consistently proves to be the most efficient and effective option for most publishers. Automated wrapper management not only frees up valuable time but also typically drives better revenue outcomes. Automation outperforms over time, too, adapting dynamically to market changes, traffic shifts, and bidder behavior at a scale humans simply can’t match. That’s why automated optimization is something every publisher should be experimenting with. It offers smarter, faster yield decisions that work around the clock.

Transparent performance reporting ensures every optimization decision is backed by measurable outcomes, so publishers stay informed with full control to configure their automated wrappers. For instance, they can select which settings within the wrapper to be automated (bidder timeout, bidder order, bidder priority, etc.), and select the constraints for each automated setting (e.g., never set a timeout below 500 milliseconds). They can also set an allocation percentage for the automated wrapper up to 95% of total traffic.

In early results, publishers using full automation have seen meaningful revenue uplift ranging from 3% to upwards of 20%, as well as improved efficiency and reduced operational workload. For instance, Ranker, a website specializing in ranked lists voted on by its users, leverages the automated Prebid wrapper optimization at the bid request level in real time. In its early tests on a subset of international traffic, between April and July 2024, this automation produced a 5% increase in ad spend from Ranker’s demand partners. After seeing positive results, Ranker has since expanded the tool across its entire Prebid display business, which frees up their web dev team to focus on webpage layouts and site updates, while its ad ops team can focus on optimizing direct campaigns.

Smarter Optimization, On Your Terms

Yield optimization isn’t one-size-fits-all, and it shouldn’t be. Whether you prefer to run custom tests, lean on data-driven recommendations, let automation do the work, or a mixture, Magnite’s Demand Manager offers the flexibility to choose the path that best fits your team, goals, and resources. Many publishers blend these approaches, evolving over time as their needs shift. No matter where you are on your optimization journey, Magnite is here to support you with the tools, transparency, and intelligence to help you drive more revenue with less effort.

Ready to explore the right flavor of optimization for your business? Reach out to your Magnite team to get started.