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DoubleClick Ad Exchange

Preferred Deals

Preferred Deals in the Ad Exchange UI

Preferred Deal real-time bidder checklist

The Preferred Deals feature is designed for both advertisers and publishers that are looking for more control and pricing certainty and also want access to the reach that real-time bidding can provide on Ad Exchange. Preferred Deals is essentially a match-making process wherein:

  • Sellers provide the URLs or placements they are offering to buyers as Preferred Deals; buyers can then target the preferred deal inventory via the user interface or real-time bidder.
  • Buyers provide a list of their advertiser destination URLs to sellers they would like to create preferred deals with. This allows sellers to ensure the ads won’t be restricted by policy or filters, and so can run on the publisher’s pages.

Preferred Deals allows buyers to have a “first look at inventory,” pre-auction, in which they can bid at rates that have been previously agreed upon.

What RTB buyers need to do

  1. Communicate with the seller and come to an initial agreement offline.
  2. Through interactions with the seller, determine the DIRECT_DEAL_ID, which is generated when the seller creates the ad units, price, and start and end dates for its preferred deal. Once created, the seller shares the DIRECT_DEAL_ID with the buyer. This ID, a unique integer, is the same across all ad units that the seller offers as part of the preferred deal. If the seller changes the start or end date, or the price, then a new deal ID is generated.
  3. Ensure the proper domains are targeted:
    • Vendors the publisher allows on their property (this avoids the buyer being blocked because they’re using vendors the publisher does not allow).
  4. Reconfigure their bidder to be able to identify the new preferred deal fields and determine that they have the right ad unit. Specifically, the bidder must be able to identify the DIRECT_DEAL_ID and FIXED_CPM_MICROS fields that have been set by the seller.
  5. Respond to the seller with the MAX_CPM_MICROS field. (You do not actually need to include the DIRECT_DEAL_ID in the response). In their response, the buyer must set the MAX_CPM_MICROS field to a value that is equal or greater than the value listed as the fixed CPM for that particular ad unit if they would like to win the impression. If the buyer sets the MAX_CPM_MICROS field to a value less than the previously agreed upon rate (the FIXED_CPM_MICROS field), then the buyer will not win the impression. It’s important to note that if the buyer does not bid in the on the preferred deal, they will not be able to bid in the regular auction for the same ad unit. Learn more about bidding logic.
  6. Buyer needs to get the start and end times that the seller set for the preferred deal and set it in their UI accordingly, if applicable.

For more information, see how to Set up Preferred Deals.

In terms of UI configuration, best practice is to have the client set up a separate campaign or at least separate ad group for Preferred Deals only.

Information included in the Preferred Deal ID

Once a seller makes a specific ad unit available to a specific buyer via a Preferred Deal, the associated DIRECT_DEAL_ID includes the following information:

  • Publisher’s property code
  • Buyer network ID
  • Advertiser ID
  • Fixed CPM value
  • Currency code
Any changes to these key values, even after a preferred deal has gone live, will result in a change to the preferred deal ID as well.

The deal ID will greatly simplify buyers responding to preferred deals and also make revenue tracking easier as the number of impressions can be broken up for each deal by its ID. One Preferred Deal ID can match multiple ad units associated to it.

 

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