Get started with real-time bidding in the private marketplace

The Ad Exchange private marketplace includes both Preferred Deals and Private Auctions. It is designed for both advertisers and publishers looking for more control and pricing certainty and also wanting access to the reach that real-time bidding can provide on Ad Exchange.

You can learn more about the private marketplace, or see developer documentation for real-time bidding using the Get Started guide for developers.

Use the following guide to get started with real-time bidding for Preferred Deals or Private Auctions.

Negotiate and finalize a preferred deal or private auction

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Communicate with the seller and come to an initial agreement

You can search for publishers and publisher inventory using the Marketplace, and obtain contact information in their publisher profile. Preferred deals are initiated as offers, either by you or the seller. Private auctions, however, are only initiated by sellers.

Learn how to discover publishers and publisher inventory, or how to view publisher profiles.

Determine the deal ID

When the preferred deal or private auction is created, both you and the seller receive a notification via email, and in the user interface. The deal ID is included in the notification, and in all bid requests that are passed as part of the deal. This ID is a unique integer and is the same across all ad units that the seller offers as part of the deal.

Set up your bidder and correctly respond to bid requests

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Configure your bidder to identify the preferred deal or private auction

Your bidder must be configured to identify the DEAL_ID in bid requests, in order to correctly respond to preferred deals and private auctions. Also, the FIXED_CPM_MICROS field contains the price agreed upon price for the deal.

Respond to bid requests for the preferred deal or private auction

In your bid response:

• 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 to win the impression. When the MAX_CPM_MICROS field is set to a value less than the agreed upon price (the FIXED_CPM_MICROS field), the bid competes for the impression in the Open Auction.*
• Set the DEAL_ID equal to the deal ID generated with the preferred deal or private auction. If you do not bid on the request using this ID, your bid competes for the inventory in the Open Auction, if available.

_{* Only if the DEAL_ID is not set. If you set the DEAL_ID and bid below the agreed upon price, the response is instead filtered from the auction.}

Ensure correct targeting and that you are bidding with an eligible creative

When responding to a bid request:

• Make sure your targeting matches what was agreed upon when negotiating the deal to avoid being filtered from the auction because of certain publisher blocks. In some cases, publishers may override the blocks they've set up on their inventory for individual deals.
• Use the RTB publisher settings list to ensure you're bidding with an eligible creative.

  When Google receives an impression that is eligible for real-time bidding, identifiers are included in the bid request that correspond to entries in the RTB publisher settings list. Your bidding system can use this list of settings to choose eligible creatives for that request. To be eligible for a given impression, the candidate ad must comply with all the publisher setting entries for which identifiers were sent in the request.

Learn more about publisher block override for deals, or the RTB Publisher Settings list.

 

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You can view bidding activity with RTB Breakout to troubleshoot filtered bid responses by deal ID.