DIRECT vs RESELLER in ads.txt: what the difference actually costs you
DIRECT means you hold the account with that exchange yourself. RESELLER means a third party is authorised to sell your inventory through their account. It is not a preference — it is a factual claim about who owns the relationship, and buyers price DIRECT inventory higher because it has fewer hands and fewer fees between them and you.
The third field is a fact, not a setting
Every ads.txt data line ends with a relationship declaration:
google.com, pub-0000000000000000, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
appnexus.com, 1234, RESELLER, f5ab79cb980f11d1
Publishers routinely read this as a choice — as though DIRECT were the better
option you should pick where possible. It is not a choice. It is a statement
about who holds the account, and the exchange already knows the answer.
- DIRECT — you have the account with that exchange. They know you, they pay
you, the relationship is yours. - RESELLER — a third party is authorised to sell your inventory through
their account with that exchange. They know the reseller; the reseller knows
you.
Get it wrong and the authorisation does not match. That seller stops bidding,
and — as with every ads.txt failure — nothing tells you.
Why buyers care
The distinction exists because buyers use it to reason about what they are
buying. Two things follow from a RESELLER line:
More hands, more fees. A DIRECT line means one intermediary between the
advertiser's money and yours. A RESELLER line means at least two, each taking a
cut. The buyer's bid buys less of your attention than the same bid on a DIRECT
line.
Less certainty about provenance. Reselling chains are where domain spoofing
lived before ads.txt existed. The mechanism is much healthier now, but a
cautious buyer still treats a shorter chain as a cleaner signal, and some bid
only on DIRECT inventory.
Neither means RESELLER is bad. It means the same impression can clear at a
different price depending on which line carried it — which is worth knowing when
you compare what two networks pay you for apparently identical traffic.
Both, for the same exchange, is normal
A file like this is correct, not a mistake:
google.com, pub-1111111111111111, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
google.com, pub-2222222222222222, RESELLER, f08c47fec0942fa0
You sell to Google directly with your own publisher ID, and a partner also sells
some of your inventory through Google using theirs. Two authorisations, two
lines, both true.
This is why deduplicating an ads.txt "to tidy it up" is a bad idea. Lines that
look nearly identical often are not.
The managed-network case
If you move to a managed network, expect your file to become almost entirely
RESELLER lines, and expect it to get much longer — often dozens of entries,
because the network sells through many exchanges on your behalf.
That is not a downgrade. Their aggregate demand is worth more than your DIRECT
relationships were, which is the whole reason to join one.
What it does mean is that your ads.txt is now largely someone else's
document. They will change it as they add and drop demand partners, and those
changes arrive without notice. A line disappearing during one of those updates
looks exactly like a line disappearing because your CMS overwrote the file.
The practical rule
You do not decide this field. Copy the line the exchange or network gives you,
exactly, including the relationship value and the certification authority ID.
What you are responsible for is that the line is still there tomorrow. A
correct DIRECT line and a correct RESELLER line have precisely the same failure
mode — gone, silently, with
the revenue drop arriving weeks before the explanation.
Frequently asked
- How do I know which one to use?
- Ask who holds the account. If you signed up with the exchange and they pay you, it is DIRECT. If a network, agency or partner sells your inventory through their own account and pays you a share, it is RESELLER. You do not choose — the exchange tells you, and the line they give you already has the right value in it.
- Does DIRECT earn more than RESELLER?
- Usually, for a structural reason rather than a preference. A DIRECT line has one fee layer between the buyer and you; a RESELLER line has at least two. Some buyers also bid only on DIRECT inventory as a quality signal, so the same impression can attract a thinner auction under a RESELLER line.
- Can the same exchange appear as both?
- Yes, and it is normal. You might sell some inventory to an exchange directly while a managed partner also sells through that exchange on your behalf. Both lines belong in the file; they are different authorisations, not duplicates.
- What happens if I put the wrong value?
- The line does not match what the exchange expects, so the authorisation fails and that seller stops bidding. Nothing errors. You simply lose the demand that line was carrying.
- Why does my managed network want RESELLER lines?
- Because that is what they are — they sell your inventory through their accounts. A managed network's lines are almost entirely RESELLER, and that is correct rather than a downgrade. What matters is that the lines are present and accurate.