With the growth of exchange-based buying and real-time bidding, media buyers are becoming increasingly sophisticated at optimizing their bids. In tandem, we’ve heard from our publisher partners that they would like to better manage their minimum CPM, sometimes called the reserve or floor price, which dictates the minimum price at which buyers can purchase their inventory.

But setting the best minimum price can be tricky. Setting it too high can price publishers out of transactions, while setting it too low can sometimes leave money on the table. Many publishers optimize their minimum CPM using a trial and error approach, which can be time consuming and potentially costly.

Today, we’re happy to announce the launch of Minimum CPM Recommendations for DoubleClick Ad Exchange publishers. This feature automatically recommends an optimal minimum cpm for each eligible ad slot in the Ad Exchange auction. It also automatically generates a graph that provides better visibility into how different floor prices might affect a publisher's bottom line.


To deliver these recommendations, we created an algorithm that analyzes all historical transactions for each publisher's ad slots, also taking into account factors like traffic patterns, to better understand and predict supply and demand trends. As always, we are also careful to ensure that individual advertiser bids are not exposed and that the integrity of the Ad Exchange auction is protected. Initial results with early beta testers indicate an average 20% revenue lift for adopted recommendations.

Ad Exchange publishers can take advantage of these insights today directly from the My Ads tab. If you’re not already using Ad Exchange, contact your publisher sales representative to learn more about all of the ways that DoubleClick Ad Exchange can help you profit on your terms.

Posted by Nemo Semret, Software Engineer