The secret to an effective exchange is ensuring that the supply you send to your demand is 1) what they want, and 2) what they can afford.

The best way to find this out is by discussing the needs of the demand partner, with your demand partner. There is no alternative to this.

However, Bid Rate can help us learn about what your demand partners think about your current traffic.

In the Limelight system, you will find two bid rates, the first is Opp_Bid_Rate which gives you the percentage of opportunities from your suppliers that are receiving a bid, the second is Req_Bid_Rate which gives you the percentage of Bid Requests sent to your demand that is receiving a bid.

When a demand partner bids on your supply they are signifying that they are interested in that supply. The more of this supply you provide to your demand partner, the more bids you will receive, the more likely they are to win the auction and so the more likely they are to deliver an impression. Therefore having a healthy bid rate can make a positive difference to your fill rate and as such your revenues.

The simplest way to improve your bid rate is to send your Demand Partners more supply that is of interest to them.

As previously stated, there is no replacement for picking up the phone to your demand partner. However, using the Attributes review page in the dashboard report (Page 5) we can learn a lot about the type of supply your demand is after. By using the filters you can see what Ad Sizes, Geos, Operating System and Device Types your demand is bidding on. To put a long story, short supply that is receiving no, or very few bids is simply not adding value to your demand, and as such not adding value to your exchange,

As such you should provide your supply partners instructions around the type of supply you do not wish to receive. Ensuring that you are getting as much supply as possible that is adding value to your system.

You can also do this at a much granular level by using pages 8 – 11 whereby you can create blocklists and allow lists based on Bundle, Site, Creative ID or SSPID.

You can of course also do this on the demand side by adding many layers of pre-targeting in your demand rules.

However, you should remember that whilst this can increase your req_bid_rate it could stop some opportunities from being passed onto your demand partner and so decrease your opp_bid_rate as well as your overall opp_fill_rate. Therefore, it is still important that any pretargeting you do on the demand side is replicated on your supply side. Whilst also keeping in mind the needs of all of your Demand Partners.

One aspect that is often overlooked when optimising Bid Rate is the price of your supply, something we will look at in more detail when we look into win rate. However, if you are passing supply to your Demand partner with a Bid Floor that is too high it is unlikely to bid on it. As such the use. of page 4 of the Dashboard Report will help you control these bid floors so they are more attractive to your demand partner. However, once again this is no substitute for a discussion with your Demand Partner around price.

It is also important to remember that the world of programmatic advertising is forever changing. As such the requirements of your Demand are also forever changing. As a result, you must continuously update your optimisations to meet your demand partners needs.

If you have any further questions about bid rates  please feel free to contact a member of the Limelight Client Success Team.