Why publishers use PMPs, and what they want from buyers
Part of Curated deals and PMPs
The short answer
Publishers use private marketplaces to sell inventory on their own terms: they choose which buyers may bid, set floors per deal, decide how much site and data detail to reveal, block unsuitable ads and rank favored buyers ahead of the open auction. In return they expect buyers to bid steadily at fair prices, with clean creative and clear requests.
Key takeaways
- A PMP lets a publisher pick its buyers, which an open auction does not.
- Floors, deal priority and transparency settings let a publisher price and present inventory differently for each buyer.
- Publishers protect their pages with advertiser, category and creative rules that can also apply inside private deals.
- A deal request can be declined for price, inventory already committed elsewhere, blocked categories or a scope too narrow to deliver.
- Buyers get better answers when a request states the brief, formats, markets, flight dates, seats and how success will be judged.
Why do publishers create private marketplaces?
In an open auction a publisher's impression is offered to any eligible bidder. IAB's 2013 paper Programmatic and Automation: The Publishers' Perspective (opens in a new tab), drafted by a taskforce of publishers, describes the open auction as one in which there is usually no direct relationship with the buyer, and in which advertisers are often unaware of what publisher they are buying on. A private marketplace changes that relationship.
Definition
- Invitation-Only Auction
- IAB's 2013 name for a private auction: very similar to an open auction, except that the publisher restricts participation to select buyers or advertisers through allow lists and block lists. Buyers are still expected to bid.
The same paper says a publisher may expose different information, such as transparency or data, through deal IDs to add value for that select group of buyers, and that a publisher may choose not to take part in the open auction at all. Google Ad Manager's Private Auctions overview (opens in a new tab) states the goal in present day terms: Private Auctions let publishers control the sale of their non-guaranteed inventory by inviting specific buyers to bid at set minimum floor prices.
For a buyer this framing matters. A deal is not a favor the publisher grants; it is a sales channel the publisher designs to earn more from some inventory, or to protect it, than the open auction would. A request that shows how it serves those goals gives the publisher a reason to say yes.
What do publishers gain from PMP deals?
| Publisher goal | Mechanism | Documented in |
|---|---|---|
| Choose the buyers | Invite named buyers; in the bid request, wseat lists buyer seats allowed to bid and wadomain lists advertiser domains allowed to bid | Ad Manager Private Auctions; OpenRTB 2.6 Deal object |
| Control price | A floor per deal, or a fixed price where Deal.at is 3 and bidfloor is the agreed deal price | OpenRTB 2.6; Ad Manager Preferred Deals |
| Favor some buyers | Deal priority lets publishers favor certain buyers, even if their bids are lower | Ad Manager Private Marketplace deals |
| Decide what to reveal | Transparency from blind to full URL, and optional first party data, set per buyer | IAB 2013 Publishers' Perspective |
| Protect the page | Advertiser, category and creative rules; Ad Manager's sensitive category blocks apply to Private Auctions | Ad Manager Block sensitive categories |
| Keep a fallback | Inventory a deal does not buy can go to private auctions or the open auction | Ad Manager Preferred Deals overview |
Price control has a detail buyers should know. Ad Manager's pricing rules page (opens in a new tab) says pricing rules centralize auction floors for non-guaranteed demand, apply to Private Auctions, and do not apply to Programmatic Direct campaigns. Private Auctions also have an optional deal level setting that lets a deal skip pricing rules that might block monetization. A publisher can therefore price one buyer's private auction differently from the network wide floor, in either direction.
Publishers also measure whether a deal earns its place. Ad Manager offers revenue lift metrics for Preferred Deals (opens in a new tab), which compare the estimated revenue of an active deal with what the same inventory would have earned without it, and says this can give a better idea of a campaign's value the next time the publisher is in negotiations with a buyer. A buyer whose deal shows little lift can expect a harder renewal.
What do publishers expect from buyers in a PMP?
A publisher that sets up a deal gives up some flexibility: it reserves floors, priority or visibility for one buyer. It expects that investment to be used. The expectations below follow from how deals are set up and measured on the sell side.
What a publisher looks for from a PMP buyer
- The buyer bids on the deal once it is live, rather than leaving an active deal ID untargeted.
- Bids reach the agreed floor or fixed price, so the deal can show lift over the open auction.
- Creatives arrive on time, in the agreed formats and sizes, and pass the publisher's ad content rules.
- The seat IDs and advertiser domains named in the request are the ones that will bid.
- Targeting in the buying platform does not narrow the deal so far that it cannot deliver.
- The buyer reports problems early and says why a deal is underspending before the flight ends.
- Renewal decisions are explained, so the publisher can adjust price, inventory or formats.
Why might a publisher decline a deal request?
A declined request can be about fit, not about the buyer. The reasons below map to settings the publisher controls, so a revised request can succeed.
| Reason | What sits behind it | What a buyer can change |
|---|---|---|
| Price below the publisher's floor | Pricing rules and deal floors protect the value of the inventory | Offer a price model the publisher accepts, or a smaller, more valuable slice of inventory |
| Inventory already committed | Guaranteed and higher priority deals take the impressions first | Move dates, widen formats or accept a non-guaranteed deal |
| Advertiser category blocked | The publisher blocks some ad categories or advertisers across its sites | Ask which categories are blocked before sending the creative brief |
| Scope too narrow | A few sections, one format and one region may not produce enough impressions to be worth setting up | Add sections, formats or markets, or extend the flight |
| Too much detail requested | The publisher may limit how much URL or audience detail it reveals | Ask for domain or section level reporting instead of full URLs |
| Format not supported | The requested sizes or video placements are not on the pages | Match the request to formats the site already runs |
How can buyers make a deal attractive to publishers?
Six steps to a deal request publishers want to accept
- Lead with the brief. Say what the advertiser sells, to whom, in which markets and languages, and why this publisher's content fits.
- Name the formats and flight. List sizes, video placement types and dates, so the publisher can check inventory before replying.
- State the price model. Say whether you want a private auction with a floor or a fixed price deal, and in which currency.
- Give the seat and advertiser domain. Send the buyer seat ID and the advertiser's domain, which become wseat and wadomain on the deal.
- Say how success is judged. Name the measures and the count of record, so the publisher knows what renewal depends on.
- Commit to activation. Give a date the deal will be targeted and a contact who will raise delivery problems.
A clean request also helps independent and small publishers, which may have no dedicated sales team to chase a vague ask; a complete request lets them answer from their own SSP. For deal setup on the buyer side, see our guide to adding a deal ID and the deal sheet checklist.
What does the publisher side look like on a real request?
Fictional example
A regional business publisher weighs a request for an online MBA program
An unnamed university's online MBA program wants display beside business, careers and regional economy coverage in Colorado and Utah, in English. Its agency sends a deal request to an unnamed regional business news publisher in Denver.
The first request asks for a fixed price below the publisher's floor on the careers section only, for two weeks, with full URL reporting. The publisher's ad operations lead declines: the section is small, the price sits under its pricing rule, and it reports at domain and section level only.
The agency revises the request into a private auction across the business, careers and economy sections for six weeks, at the publisher's floor, with section level reporting, its seat ID and the university's domain. The publisher accepts, sets up the deal and gives it priority over the open auction for the flight.
How does PlacementGraph help buyers approach the right publishers?
Frequently asked questions
Do publishers earn more from PMPs than from the open auction?
Not automatically. A deal earns more only if buyers bid above what the open auction would have paid for the same impressions. That is why Ad Manager reports revenue lift for Preferred Deals, comparing an active deal's estimated revenue with what the inventory would have earned without it.
What happens to impressions a PMP buyer does not take?
They can go to the next demand in line. Google Ad Manager says inventory a Preferred Deal buyer does not secure can move to Private Auctions or the Open Auction, and that an unfilled Private Auction can fall back to the Open Auction, giving the publisher another way to earn revenue.
Why do some publishers sell only through private deals?
IAB's 2013 publisher paper notes that a publisher may choose not to participate in the open auction and run only invitation-only auctions. Possible reasons include control over which advertisers appear, protecting price levels and keeping site detail away from anonymous buyers.
Can a publisher see which advertiser is bidding in its PMP?
Partly. A deal can restrict bidding to named buyer seats with wseat and to named advertiser domains with wadomain, which tells the publisher who is allowed to bid. Whether it sees each individual advertiser depends on how the deal and the buying seat are set up.
Sources
- Programmatic and Automation: The Publishers' Perspective (opens in a new tab)IAB, 2013
- Private Auctions overview (opens in a new tab)Google Ad Manager Help
- About Private Marketplace deals (opens in a new tab)Google Ad Manager Help
- Preferred Deals overview (opens in a new tab)Google Ad Manager Help
- Pricing rules (opens in a new tab)Google Ad Manager Help
- Measure revenue lift for Preferred Deals (opens in a new tab)Google Ad Manager Help
- Block sensitive categories (opens in a new tab)Google Ad Manager Help
- OpenRTB 2.6 specification, Deal object (opens in a new tab)IAB Tech Lab, OpenRTB repository
Researched and written by PlacementGraph Research. Read how we research, source and update these pages. Corrections: diana@placementgraph.com.