Media Buyers Blog

Bid Shading and First-Price Auctions: Why Your DSP Bids Less Than You Ask

Many media buyers notice something odd when they look closely at their DSP logs. They set a maximum bid of $5.00 CPM on a campaign, yet the bids that actually leave the platform are often lower, and the prices they pay are lower still. It can look like the DSP is ignoring the settings. In most cases...

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Bid shading feature image showing a DSP dashboard lowering bids toward the winning price in a first-price auction.
Brand safety blocklist feature image showing a DSP dashboard with a shield filtering unsafe ad placements.

Brand Safety Blocklists: How Category, Domain and Keyword Blocking Work

Every programmatic buyer has seen it happen at least once. A client’s ad appears next to a story...

CTV programmatic advertising feature image showing a connected TV screen linked to DSP dashboard panels.

CTV Programmatic Advertising: How to Buy Connected TV Inventory Through a DSP

Television used to be bought in advance, in bulk, by the spot. You picked a channel and a...

What is a bid request feature image showing an OpenRTB bid request travelling from a publisher's ad slot to a DSP dashboard.

What Is a Bid Request? Anatomy of an OpenRTB Bid Request for Advertisers

Every programmatic impression you have ever bought started as a small block of data sent to your platform...

Frequency capping in programmatic advertising feature image showing a DSP dashboard limiting repeat ad impressions per user.

Frequency Capping in Programmatic: How to Set It and Why It Saves Budget

Every programmatic campaign has a small group of users who see the ad far more often than anyone...

In-app programmatic advertising feature image showing a mobile app ad placement connected to a DSP bidding dashboard.

In-App Programmatic Advertising: How DSPs Buy Mobile App Inventory

Most media buyers start on the open web. The mental model that comes with it — a page...

Header bidding vs waterfall feature image comparing simultaneous auction bidding to sequential priority-ranked ad serving.

Header Bidding vs Waterfall: What Programmatic Buyers Should Know

Ten years ago, publishers sold the same ad slot one buyer at a time. A direct-sold campaign got...

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