Serving Ads

Overview

The process of selecting an ad for display to an end user is determined by a range of factors - the rules are encapsulated in an auction model and depend on the type of advertising product.

CPM Auction model

In order to deliver the contracted number of impressions for purchased CPM products, cX ad will give preference to those campaigns with lagging burn rates.

A CPM contract defines the number of impressions to be delivered over a period of time, allowing the burn rate to be calculated at any point in time. If actual burn rate is less than the expected burn rate, preference will be given to the campaign in an attempt to deliver the required number of impressions.

Rank model

Steps:

1. Required burn rates are calculated for all campaigns whose creatives have been selected

2. Probability of selection for display is then calculated for each campaign. Campaigns with a high required burn rate are more likely to be selected for display.

If more than one creative is required for the impression request, the process is repeated for the remaining campaigns.

Characteristics of the rank model include:

• The number of creatives associated with a campaign does not influence the selection

• An impression request response can only contain one creative from a given campaign

• Candidate creatives from a single campaign have an equal, random chance of selection

• A high required burn rate gives a greater chance of selection but does not guarantee selection

CPC Incremental potential yield auction model

Ranking and costing of ads is performed on the basis of

• Bid amount

• Click-though rate

• Potential yield of competing advertisements in the auction

The cost never exceeds the bid amount and is never lower than the configured minimum CPC value.

CPC Increasing yield location boosting auction model

This model has similarities to the increasing yield model, but gives preference to listings that are more relevant to the user's location. This model is most appropriate when the user's location is known.

Locations are maintained in a location hierarchy.

This model will only return ads whose locations are matched by the user's selected or actual location. Location operators include:

• Exact - advertiser location exactly matches search location

• Belongs - advertiser location belongs to the search location

• Contains - advertiser location contains the search location

• Surrounds - advertiser location surrounds the search location

• None - ad does not contain location and is not returned

Listings may receive a percentage boost depending on the location.

CPC Position stabilised auction model

Ranking and costing of ads is done according to

• Bid amount

• Click through rate

• Potential yield of competing ads in the auction

Yield is maximised within the limits of the bid amount and the configured minimum CPC value. A premium is placed on higher click through rates.

Optimising yield

Click through rates are used to optimise yield from ad creatives. Click data for each creative belonging to an advertisement in an AdSpace is used to determine the ranking of the creative. By selecting the highest-ranking creative for display, yield will be optimised.

Floor price adjustment

A minimum price per keyword may be set by a business owner. The minimum price per keyword will be used as the floor price in a CPC auction when the search keyword is fully covered by the minimum bid and keyword match type.

De-duping advertisements

Advertising prevents the display of duplicate ads from the same source by campaign, ad and display domain.

De-duping by campaign

Ads are de-duped by campaign is done when an AdSpace requests more than one ad. Two advertisements from the same campaign will not be shown to the same AdSpace or AdSite (when the Impression Request API call is for an AdSite) for CPC, CPM and Tenancy products. The higher ranking ad will be displayed.

De-duping by ad

Two instances of the same ad will not be shown to the same AdSpace or AdSite (when the Impression Request API call is for an AdSite).

De-duping by display domain

Two instances of the same ad will not be shown to the same display domain's AdSpace or AdSite (when the Impression Request API call is for an AdSite). The advertisement with the higher ranking will be selected.

Prefixes

The case of a URL or prefix is ignored.

Prefixes like www1 and www are ignored. URLs like www1.cxense.com and www.cxense.com are considered identical.

Protocol prefixes like http, https and ftp are ignored.

Highlighting keywords

If a search keyword matches a keyword associated with an ad, the keyword may be highlighted when the ad is displayed. Keyword aliases and synonyms may be created.

Matched keyword highlighting

Any matched keywords found in the advertisement title, description or URL will appear in bold face in the ad.

Search keyword highlighting

Any search keywords found in the advertisement title, description or URL will appear in bold face in the ad.

Embedding search terms

Placeholders may be inserted into the title, description or URL of an advertisement to allow the advertiser to display a matched keyword or term to the end user.

This is done by adding {keyword} into the creative, for example;
Buy the best {keyword} for the best price
or
Find the cheapest flight to {keyword}

Synonym matching

A business owner may define certain keywords to be synonyms of each other. The synonym will be considered to match the search keyword when the original term is searched for.

Last updated: December 20, 2021