As a buyer, your account gives you multiple ways to interact with publishers to match the right ads to the right inventory. You can learn more about the differences between auctions and deals below.
Open Auction
The Open Auction is the standard ad auction for Google partner inventory. It is used to select the ads that appear on publisher's sites and determine how much they can earn from those ads. The more advertisers that bid to appear on publisher inventory, the higher the competition, and the more they can earn.
In the Open Auction, Authorized Buyers matches your targeting with publisher inventory, and seeks the highest bid. Simply put, the buyer with the highest bid wins.
Authorized Buyers determines the auction closing price as the greater of the second-highest net bid in the auction or the reserve price applied to that impression.
For example, if there are three net bids in the auction, a net bid with a $4.00 CPM, a net bid with a $3.75 CPM, and a net bid with a $3.50 CPM, the winning bid would be the $4.00 CPM. In a second-price auction, the advertiser would only pay the second highest net bid of $3.75.
The Open Auction is available to all Authorized Buyers.
Learn more about the auction model.
Private marketplace
The private marketplace includes both Preferred Deals and Private Auctions. These options give publishers a way to interact with a select group of buyers, or even a single buyer.
Private Auctions
Private Auctions are initiated when one specific publisher holds an auction, with a group of select buyers. Unlike the Open Auction, a private auction gives a select group of buyers priority to inventory before it becomes available in the open marketplace.
For example, if a publisher decides to sell most of their inventory anonymously in the Open Auction, Private Auctions can be used to sell some fully branded inventory to a select group of buyers.
Learn more about Private Auctions.
Preferred Deals
Preferred Deals are an option that bypass auctions completely. They are initiated when one publisher makes a deal with a fixed-price CPM, to one specific buyer or advertiser.
Generally speaking, preferred deals tend to warrant higher CPMs because the publisher makes one specific buyer privy to their premium inventory before anyone else. The Marketplace provides a rich shopping experience to discover publisher inventory and strike deals.
Learn more about Preferred Deals.
While publishers have many options to sell inventory to buyers, it's important to remember that Open Auctions tend to generate the most revenue for publishers, since they are open to all buyers.