Open Auction

What is Open Auction?

Open Auction is the unbiased auction service run by Meson for an app. Open Auction helps maximize ARPDAU by executing your monetization strategies. Open Auction puts the publisher in the driver's seat and provides controls to manage competition across the waterfall and between ad lines and different types of networks. There are no preset rules on how ad lines will participate, and there are no biases for any network or ad line. You set the rules for the open auction either by format or by ad unit or both. Meson prioritizes the open auction by ad unit over format when it comes to ad serving.

Selecting Open Auction

Open auction can be managed by format or ad unit or both. So when it comes to defining the rules of the open auction, you will have to set the rules by format or ad unit or both. This depends on how you set up ad lines.

• If you set up ad lines only by ad unit, you have to define rules for open auctions per ad unit.
• If you set up ad lines only by format, you have to define rules for open auctions per format.
• If you set up ad lines by both format and ad unit, you have to define rules for open auction per both format and ad unit.

Meson follows the below logic for selecting a targeting group for a request:

• For the geo, select all targeting groups by ad unit, and order by rank in ascending order, shortlist the highest ranked targeting group.
• If no matching targeting groups are identified, then we do the following
• For the geo, select all targeting groups by format, and order by rank in ascending order, shortlist the highest ranked targeting group.
• If no matching targeting groups are identified, then we do the following
• For the ROW, select all targeting groups by ad unit, and order by rank in ascending order, shortlist the highest ranked targeting group.
• If no matching targeting groups are identified, then we do the following
• For the ROW, select all targeting groups by format, and order by rank in ascending order, shortlist the highest ranked targeting group.

Prioritize Targeting Groups

After setting ad lines for different targeting groups, you might end in a scenario where you have multiple targeting groups for the same country(s), because you are using segments. A user can belong to multiple segments and hence it is important to prioritize targeting groups so that a user is exposed to the right set of ad lines. This can be done with open auction where you can drag and drop targeting groups. The order of targeting groups in open auction is the order in which users will be exposed to ad lines. If you have targeting groups only by country in your setup, you don't have to bother about prioritizing targeting groups.

Add Tiers 

Tiers allow you to assign priorities and ranking preferrences to ad lines and networks in the open auction. Tiers also help manage competition between real-time bids and fixed CPMs. Tier names are suffixed with their rank, and ad serving considers this hierarchy. By default all ad lines are arranged within a Backfill tier, you can drag and drop ad lines outside of the backfill tier into new tiers.

To delete a tier, move all the ad lines within the tier to any other tier.

Backfill Tier 

The backfill tier is a catch all tier. The open auction for any impression opportunity will be concluded within this tier, if none of the other tiers have a winner. All real-time bid ad lines will be included in the backfill tier. Ad lines within the backfill tier are always ranked by CPM.

Ranking Ad Lines

Ad Lines within tiers, with the exception of the backfill tier, can be either Rank by CPM or Pinned. Ad serving considers your preferrences within tiers.

• In case of Rank by CPM, the ad lines are ranked based on the fixed CPM or predicted CPM in descending order.
• In case of Pinned, the ad lines are manually ranked. Pinned ad lines will have a rank.

Manage Competition 

To help you better manage competition between real-time bids and fixed CPMs, each tier gives you the flexibility to decide the following

• Do you want real-time bids to compete?
• If you allow, should the competition be limited to the tier or across tiers?
• How do you avoid cannibalization of fixed CPM ad lines, so that tier revenue is maximized?

Within each tier, you can enable or disable all or select real-time bid ad lines.

Within each tier, you can set the bidding strategy to either Highest of Next Tier or Lowest of Current Tier.

• Highest of Next Tier, A real-time bid will have to trump the highest bid of the next tier in the hierarchy, if the tier has no second bid, to win the auction.
• Lowest of Current Tier: A real-time bid will have to trump the lowest CPM ad line within the tier, if the tier has no second bid, to win the auction.

Within each tier, you can set a tier specific floor for ad lines that submit a real-time bid.

• The tier floor helps you manage the win rates of the fixed CPM ad lines.

Activate Targeting Group 

Once you have set up all the above, you need to activate the targeting group so that we consider the newly created open auction definition in Mediation. If the targeting group is not activated, the system will fallback to the next eligible targeting group.

Bulk Actions

Setting up an Open Auction can be a cumbersome process. We have simplified this for you in the context of an App.

Targeting Group Library

All targeting groups created under ad units or formats for an app are accessible from the targeting group library. But not across apps.

To create a copy of a targeting group, just select the targeting group you want to copy and click on Add Targeting Group, and it is copied right into the ad unit or format that is selected.

When we create a copy of the targeting group, we copy the entire targeting group configuration including

• Tiers and Tier Settings
• Ad Lines along with their ranking

The targeting group priority is reset and has to be set again.