What do DIRECT and RESELLER mean in ads.txt, and what do they not mean?
Part of Supply path transparency
The short answer
In ads.txt, DIRECT means the publisher directly controls the seller account on that advertising system. RESELLER means the publisher has authorized another company to control the account and resell its ad space. Neither label grades quality or price: a reseller can be a site's most direct path, and a DIRECT line can be mislabeled.
Key takeaways
- DIRECT describes who controls a seller account, not the number of hops, the fees taken or the quality of the site.
- RESELLER is still an authorized relationship; unauthorized sellers are the ones missing from the file altogether.
- Since ads.txt 1.1, MANAGERDOMAIN lets a publisher name a sales house as its primary or exclusive seller, whose path can be the most direct route.
- A label deserves trust only when the exchange's sellers.json agrees with it and points back to the site's owner or manager.
- Buying platforms turn the labels into settings, so a direct only rule is a choice with reach consequences, not a neutral safeguard.
What does DIRECT mean in an ads.txt line?
The third field of every ads.txt record is the type of account or relationship. The ads.txt 1.1 specification (opens in a new tab) says a value of DIRECT indicates that the publisher, as content owner, directly controls the account named in field two on the system named in field one, and adds that this tends to mean a direct business contract between the publisher and the advertising system. The field is read without regard to capital letters, and the specification leaves room for other types in the future.
Definition
- DIRECT (ads.txt account type)
- A declaration by the publisher that it directly controls this seller account on the exchange or SSP. It is a statement about account control, made by the publisher.
Buying platforms paraphrase the label in terms of ownership. Google's Display & Video 360 help (opens in a new tab) explains DIRECT as a seller that directly owns the inventory being monetized, and RESELLER as a seller that resells inventory owned by another entity. Both readings point at the same question a buyer cares about: on this account, is the money going to the owner of the site, or to someone selling on the owner's behalf?
What does RESELLER mean, and who are the resellers?
The specification defines RESELLER as a publisher authorizing another entity to control the account and resell its ad space through the named system. That other entity can take several forms. IAB Tech Lab's ads.txt 1.1 implementation guide (opens in a new tab), released in August 2022, describes the main ones and how they are expected to appear in the files and in the bid request.
| Relationship | How the guide describes it | How it tends to show in the files |
|---|---|---|
| Manager or sales house | An external, designated monetization partner, usually paid a percentage of what it sells for the publisher; can be global, per country or limited to a subdomain | A MANAGERDOMAIN variable, a DIRECT line on the manager's own system and RESELLER lines for the manager's seats on exchanges |
| Proprietary placement provider | Ad units for which the publisher delegates monetization control to an intermediary, which may send requests to buyers directly or through reselling exchanges | A DIRECT line on the provider's system, plus RESELLER lines where exchanges resell it |
| Inventory partner | A company that owns or has the rights to sell a portion of ads in an app under an inventory sharing agreement, mainly in CTV and streaming | An INVENTORYPARTNERDOMAIN variable pointing to the partner's own ads.txt |
| Owner that also resells | One company selling its own sites and other publishers' sites | A BOTH entry in sellers.json; the guide recommends OWNERDOMAIN and separate seats |
What do DIRECT and RESELLER not tell a buyer?
Because the labels are short and appear on every line, they invite more meaning than they carry. Each reading below is worth testing against what the specification and the implementation guide actually say.
| Reading | What the documents support |
|---|---|
| DIRECT means a single hop to the publisher | No. In the guide's managed monetization case, the path runs publisher, manager, exchange, buyer, and is still called the most direct route to the inventory |
| DIRECT means lower fees | No. Neither ads.txt nor sellers.json carries fee or price information |
| DIRECT means a quality site | No. The label describes account control; a site built to resell traffic can post DIRECT lines |
| RESELLER means the site lost control of its inventory | No. The publisher authorized the reseller by posting the line |
| A DIRECT label is always accurate | No. The guide asks publishers to validate that every DIRECT entry refers to an account they directly control, and asks SSPs to check the field more strictly |
How should each label agree with sellers.json?
The publisher writes the label; the exchange writes the sellers.json entry. Each side can check the other. The implementation guide's validation logic is simple: if the entry's domain equals the site's OWNERDOMAIN, the seller is the owner; if it equals the MANAGERDOMAIN, the seller is the manager; any other domain makes the seller a reseller of the inventory. The guide also notes that SSPs know what relationship they have with their publishers and can easily check whether field three is declared correctly.
| ads.txt label | sellers.json entry | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| DIRECT | PUBLISHER, domain equals OWNERDOMAIN | The owner's own account; the cleanest pairing |
| DIRECT on a manager's system | PUBLISHER in the manager's sellers.json | The owner's account inside the sales house that manages it |
| RESELLER | INTERMEDIARY, domain equals MANAGERDOMAIN | The declared manager's seat on an exchange; the guide treats it as the most direct path |
| RESELLER | INTERMEDIARY, any other domain | An authorized reseller that is not the declared manager |
| DIRECT | INTERMEDIARY | A mismatch; ask the publisher which company controls the account |
| DIRECT | BOTH | Ambiguous on its own; use OWNERDOMAIN to tell owned from resold |
How does MANAGERDOMAIN change which path is most direct?
The implementation guide explains why version 1.1 added MANAGERDOMAIN: buyers want to minimize the number of hops to a piece of inventory, and when a publisher outsources most of its monetization, the most direct route may run through a reseller. The variable takes a root domain and, optionally, a two letter country code, so a publisher can name one manager globally and another for a single market. The guide also tells buyers how to treat declarations that do not add up.
MANAGERDOMAIN checks drawn from the implementation guide
- The publisher names a manager only when a single entity manages the majority of its inventory.
- If the same inventory is sold both by the owner's own accounts and by the declared manager, the MANAGERDOMAIN entry is likely mis-marked.
- If a manager is declared but significant inventory still arrives through other sources, those sources may be treated as resellers, with extra verification because some non exclusive uses are not abusive.
- Two MANAGERDOMAIN entries for the same country are treated as if no manager were declared for that country.
- For inventory the manager sells, the manager's domain is expected on the originating node of a complete SupplyChain object.
Should a buyer buy only from DIRECT sellers?
Buying platforms make the choice explicit. Display & Video 360 offers three authorized seller options at the partner, campaign, insertion order or line item level: Authorized Direct Sellers and Resellers; Authorized Direct Sellers only; and Authorized and Non-Participating Publishers, which also bids on publishers that have posted no file. Unauthorized sellers are blocked under all three. When checked in October 2026, the help page was not consistent about the default: one passage calls Authorized Direct Sellers and Resellers the default for new campaigns, while its bidding table marks Authorized Direct Sellers only as the default set at the partner level, so confirm the setting in the account.
A direct only setting is simple to explain to a client, but it removes every site whose most direct path runs through a sales house, a video player partner or an inventory partner. A more precise rule is to prefer a confirmed DIRECT path where one exists on a system the team buys through, to accept a confirmed manager path where the site declares one, and to judge other reseller paths on whether the supply chain object arrives complete and whether the path adds a format or market the direct path lacks.
What does a DIRECT and RESELLER review look like on a real plan?
Fictional example
Continuing education programs in Wyoming
A fictional community college promotes evening and online courses to adults in Wyoming, beside local news, career advice and community sites. Its trading desk normally runs with Authorized Direct Sellers only, and that setting excludes several local sites the planner wanted.
The planner reads their files. A Cheyenne community news site declares a regional sales house in MANAGERDOMAIN, and that house's seat on the exchange is a RESELLER line whose sellers.json entry carries the manager's domain. By the implementation guide's logic it is the site's most direct path, so the desk moves those sites to a separate line item set to Authorized Direct Sellers and Resellers.
A Casper career site lists the exchange as DIRECT, but the exchange's sellers.json types the account INTERMEDIARY under a network's domain. The planner keeps the site off the deal until the publisher confirms who controls the account.
How does PlacementGraph show direct and reseller paths for each site?
Frequently asked questions
Does DIRECT in ads.txt mean the same as PUBLISHER in sellers.json?
They are related but come from different parties. DIRECT is the publisher's statement that it controls the account. PUBLISHER is the exchange's statement that the named entity owns the inventory and is paid directly. A DIRECT line on the owner's account normally lands on a PUBLISHER or BOTH entry.
Why can the same exchange appear on both DIRECT and RESELLER lines in one file?
Each line is about one account, not one exchange. A publisher can hold its own DIRECT account on an exchange while a sales house or placement provider it works with holds a separate RESELLER account on the same exchange. Read the account ID on each line, not just the exchange domain.
Who decides whether a line says DIRECT or RESELLER?
The publisher writes and hosts the file, and each partner can supply the line for its own account. The implementation guide asks publishers to confirm that every DIRECT entry is an account they directly control, and suggests SSPs validate the field more strictly, since they know their own relationship with each publisher.
Are DIRECT and RESELLER the only allowed values?
In ads.txt 1.1, yes. The specification defines only those two account types, says the field should be treated as case insensitive, and notes that other types may be added in the future. A line with any other value in field three does not follow the current specification.
Sources
- ads.txt Specification Version 1.1 (opens in a new tab)IAB Tech Lab, Supply Chain Validation repository
- ads.txt 1.1 Implementation Guide (August 2022) (opens in a new tab)IAB Tech Lab
- sellers.json specification (opens in a new tab)IAB Tech Lab, Supply Chain Validation repository
- Authorized Digital Sellers (opens in a new tab)Google, Display & Video 360 Help
Researched and written by PlacementGraph Research. Read how we research, source and update these pages. Corrections: diana@placementgraph.com.