Ads.txt Manager is an internal tool used by the Ad Ops team to streamline the process of updating Authorized Digital Sellers (which prevents unauthorized ad inventory sales) across all BuzzFeed, Inc. properties.
Authorized Digital Sellers (ads.txt) is an industry-standard text file that allows publishers to control who is allowed to sell ads on their sites (i.e. buzzfeed.com/ads.txt).
Prior to Ads.txt Manager, the process to update ads.txt looked something like this:
- Ad Ops sends an email request to Ad Tech to update ads.txt
- Ad Tech team creates a ticket
- Engineer opens a pull request to update the file
- Pull request requires another engineer’s review to merge
- Engineer merges pull request, which triggers integration tests
- Engineer deploys pull requests after tests finish running (back when we didn’t have continuous deployment)
- Ad Tech team sends an email update to Ad Ops that the ads.txt changes have been applied
The work to update ads.txt would pass through the hands of at least 4 people, and had a turnaround time of up to a week. To streamline this process and eliminate potential errors, I designed and built a self-service tool within our existing BuzzFeed Ad Manager that enables authorized users to freely edit ads.txt files. Additional features include version control and email notifications to ensure that right people are always in the loop whenever there is an update.
This is the new workflow using Ads.txt Manager:
- Ad Ops navigates to Ads.txt Manager tool
- User can edit and save the file to apply updates
- ads.txt is magically updated!
This project was a huge success! What started as just a Hack Week project quickly became a priority on our team’s roadmap and a hit with our stakeholders. In 2024 alone, over 200 edits were made using Ads.txt Manager, saving as many as 100 hours.