Table of Contents
Overview
This page defines bid shading and describes some common use cases, as well as providing an FAQ resource.
What is Bid Shading?
The majority of RTB auctions are moving to a true 1st price auction. With a 2nd price auction you can bid your value for the impression, and the auction will ensure you only pay one penny more than the second highest bid. In a 1st price auction, the auction will clear at your winning bid price, and bidding your value for the impression will naturally result in overpaying for some auctions increasing your Average CPM. As such, customers need tools to help bid intelligently into 1st price auctions to reduce Average CPMs while not adversely affecting other goals.
The goal of Beeswax’s Bid Shading feature is to reduce your bid price in 1st price auctions while not meaningfully reducing your win rate or significantly changing the profile of inventory you buy.
Bid Shading is not a bidding strategy, but it can be used in conjunction with a bidding strategy, similar to how pacing works.
Common Use Cases
- Impression Budget with CTR or Viewability Goal
You may be trying to hit an impression goal with a primary KPI of click through rate or viewability rate. By reducing the Average CPM, you can deliver the same number of impressions at a reduced cost.
- Spend Budget with CTR or Viewability Goal
You may be trying to hit a spend goal with a primary KPI of click through rate or viewability rate. By reducing your Average CPM, you can deliver more impressions at the same cost.
- Lower Funnel Performance Goal
If you are trying to achieve a cost per action (e.g. web form completion, purchase, app install, etc.), by reducing your Average CPM and obtaining a similar win rate on performant inventory, your CPA/CPI will also go down.
How to Use the Bid Shading Feature
When you select a bid strategy that allows for Bid Shading, you will have an option to enable bid shading on that Line Item using the Bid Shade toggle. All bidding strategies with the exception of CPC will allow bid shading at this time. The default is set to “No”.
Beeswax will hold out about 10% of the bids as a “control” where we do not bid shade so that you can compare results against the impressions that were bid shaded.
Additional Control for Bid Shading
An additional level of control exists when enabling Bid Shading to determine the aggressiveness of bid shading.
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| More Aggressive | This option will more aggressively bid shade. Customers can expect higher CPM savings with this option, but also a higher reduction in win rate relative to the Control Group |
| Normal (default) | Normal bid shading aggressiveness. This is the default for all Line Items. |
| Less Aggressive | This option will less aggressively bid shade. Customers can expect lower CPM savings with this option, but also a lower reduction in win rate relative to the Control Group |
Reporting
Log Fields
| Field Name | Values | Log files |
|---|---|---|
| bid_shade |
| Bid Logs, Win Logs |
| bid_shade_reduction_micros | Reduction (in micros) that the algorithm reduced your bid price | Bid Logs, Win Logs |
Report Builder Reports
Field Name | Values | Aggregations |
|---|---|---|
| Bid Shade | Not Eligible Control Group Bid Shaded | Performance Report, Bid Performance Report, Inventory Report |
| Bid Shading Fee USD | $ amount in USD | Performance Report |
| Bid Shading Fee | $ amount in the trafficked line item’s currency | Performance Report |
Impact of Supply-Side Bid Shading
Some exchanges have implemented “SSP-side bid shading”, where the SSP shades on behalf of their DSP partners. Beeswax evaluates the performance of said shading on an ongoing basis and has opted into certain exchanges’ bid shading. In these scenarios, Beeswax will not bid shade, and you will not see a difference between the control and bid shaded impressions on said inventory.
For an updated list of exchanges where Beeswax utilizes the exchange’s SSP-side bid shading, please see the list of Supply Partners.
Customer Enablement
To enable the Bid Shading option for your Buzzkey, please contact Beeswax Support.