<b>Every passback hop costs ~150ms and shaves viewability. Waterfalls leak time.</b>

<b>Every passback hop costs ~150ms and shaves viewability. Waterfalls leak time.</b>

A passback = when one network can't fill and hands the request to the next. Each hop adds latency before the ad renders; slow ads scroll out of view unseen.

illustrative waterfall depth:
— 1 hop render ~250ms, view 70% ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮
— 3 hops render ~550ms, view 62% ▮▮▮▮▮▮
— 5 hops render ~850ms, view 54% ▮▮▮▮▮

Deep waterfalls trade fill for viewability you can't get back, and viewability sets your price.

So what: replace waterfall depth with parallel header bidding. Latency is a revenue cost, not just a speed metric. ▼ -16% viewability at 5 hops.