Overview

To ensure expected performance on Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) deals, Guaranteed Line Items are available. This line item type streamlines the workflow for setting up a PG campaign and prevents users from applying any settings that may restrict them from responding to all bid requests for the agreed deal. 

Create a Programmatic Guaranteed Line Item

To buy Programmatic Guaranteed deals through the DSP, use the following setup:

Navigate to Line Items > New Line Item > select the Programmatic Guaranteed toggle at the bottom of the create module.

Fill in all required fields (marked with an asterisk):

To match the PG deal settings agreed upon with the publisher:

• Set the Start Date / End Date of the PG deal.
• Target the PG deal ID.
• Set the total budget for the PG deal.
• Set the fixed CPM for the PG deal.

Unlike the normal Line Item view, the Guaranteed Line Item view has several fields omitted, as use of said fields would otherwise reduce the line item’s ability to bid and win against the deal. Omitted fields include:

• • Daily Budget
  • Line Item Presets
  • Flights
  • Pacing
  • Bid Shading
  • Frequency Cap
  • Segment Extension
  • Bid Modifiers
  • Delivery Modifiers
  • Experiments
  • Targeting - The only targeting that is available for Guaranteed Line Items is Deal ID and that is found in the Overview section
  • Bidding Strategy is set to “Flat CPM Bidding” and cannot be changed.
    
    

Click “Save & Continue” to navigate to the Creatives section and associate creatives to the Guaranteed Line Item. You must include all creative sizes that are part of the deal.

Campaign-Level Logic

A campaign can have a mix of Guaranteed Line Items and regular line items. Accordingly, certain campaign level settings could detrimentally affect the Guaranteed Line Item’s ability to buy on a PG deal. For example: 

• A campaign having a daily budget - If this daily budget is reached due to a combination of spend from other line items, the Guaranteed Line Item would be prevented from bidding. Since budget and pacing are determined on the publisher’s side for PG, the Guaranteed Line Item would fail to maintain the expected response rate. 
• A campaign having a frequency cap - Frequency caps are also determined on the publisher’s side for PG. If the line items in the campaign hit the campaign frequency cap for a certain user, a Guaranteed Line Item could then be prevented from responding to a PG deal request from that same user.
• A campaign having a start or end date that makes the campaign inactive during any portion of the expected run of the PG deal.

To deal with the possibilities above, the DSP will apply behind-the-scenes logic to ignore certain campaign level settings only for the Guaranteed Line Items in the campaign.

As such, any Guaranteed Line Item will:

• Ignore campaign budgets (lifetime and daily).
• Ignore campaign frequency caps.
• Ignore campaign start and end dates.
• Ignore campaign bid modifiers.

This failsafe behind-the-scenes campaign logic should ensure PG deal compliance and reduce room for errors that may cause underdelivery. 

What is Programmatic Guaranteed? 

Programmatic Guaranteed is a deal type where publishers and buyers transact a pre-agreed volume of impressions via OpenRTB. The publisher commits to making the agreed volume of inventory available via their preferred SSP/exchange and the buyer commits to responding to all bid requests received at the negotiated CPM.

How it works

Unlike typical deals, the exchange expects a buyer to respond to all bid requests for the agreed deal. When setting up a PG campaign, the following setup needs to be adhered to:

This line item setup applies to users on Buzz 1.0. For users creating programmatic guaranteed campaigns in Buzz 2.0, follow the setup outlined here.

• You must notify your Customer Success Manager that you are planning to run with a Programmatic Guaranteed deal and on what exchange it is occurring. This should happen no less than 3 days before the deal’s start date.
• The line item budget and CPM need to match the parameters of the deal agreed with the publisher. DO NOT use "Spend with Vendor Fees" as a budget type.
• Only the deal ID should be added to the line-item targeting; no other targeting should be applied. You can only have one deal ID per line item.
• The bidding strategy has to be set to ‘Flat CPM Bidding’.
• The deal in your exchange partner must be configured for greater than $0 CPM. The DSP does not honor impressions with a $0 CPM.
• No pacing, bid shading, daily budgets, or frequency caps should be applied.

• Line item must have all the creative sizes that are part of the deal.

• You must confirm with your account representative that your bidder is listening to all traffic from the given deal ID.
• You must allow your Customer Success Manager to confirm the proper setup of the line.
   

Programmatic Guaranteed is supported on an exchange basis, details of which can be found below:

FreeWheel Programmatic Guaranteed Support

FreeWheel has specific requirements for running a Programmatic Guaranteed campaign. There is a unique workflow to make the process as seamless as possible for buyers.

How it Works

To buy on a FreeWheel Programmatic Guaranteed deal:

1. Create a Guaranteed Line Item.
   
   
2. Target the FreeWheel PG Deal ID.
   
   
3. Associate creatives to your Guaranteed Line Item. 

The FreeWheel Programmatic Guaranteed offering requires creatives to be submitted for approval on the exchange. It also requires that creatives be associated with one or more PG Deal IDs. These two things occur automatically for any creatives associated to a Guaranteed Line Item where the targeted Deal ID has the FreeWheel exchange prefix ‘stv/’. The DSP handles this in the background and no further action is required from the user.

Once this happens, you will see in the Creative view FreeWheel as an exchange in the creative approval sidebar:

Clicking on “View History” will reveal the creative<>Deal ID associations:

If an error occurs with submitting the creative or associating a Deal ID, you can see details within the creative approval history. 

Once the Creative<>Deal ID association is established, the DSP will only receive bid requests that match the creative attributes of the approved creatives to ensure a high bid rate. The creative attributes (e.g. duration, video API framework) act as a filter within FreeWheel on the Deal ID requests that get sent to the DSP. 

Beware that any of the following actions will result in the removal of the creative<>Deal ID association:

• Removing the Deal ID on the line item level
• Deactivating the line item
• Deactivating the creative