Bid Request
What is a Bid Request?
A bid request is a piece of code used in the digital advertising ecosystem to sell display ads and inventory details. It allows ads to be tailored to visitors, enabling multiple advertisers to utilize the same ad space on a publisher’s platform.
Computers process data at incredible speeds, making instantaneous decisions. When visitors arrive at a website or app, a bid request is automatically generated. This request provides information about available ad impressions and consenting visitor demographics (such as age, gender, location, and browsing history).
Bid requests are integral to methods like header bidding, exchange bidding, and real-time bidding (RTB).
Do You Need Real-Time Bidding for All Ad Spaces?
Programmatic buying offers an alternative for advertisers who prefer not to rely on the uncertainties of real-time automated bidding. This method works well for premium display formats, ensuring ad placement location and context.
However, programmatic buying projects an expected audience and does not generate a bid request for each visitor, which means it cannot always guarantee that the audience matches the ad's target demographic.
How Are Bid Requests Used?
Bid requests facilitate the rapid delivery of the right ad to the current visitor. For instance, they can target users who have recently visited your or a competitor’s website or app. Bid requests contain information from ad exchanges about web visitors, such as cookies, tags, pixels, and inventory details, as well as app user information like IDFA.
A company can use bid requests to avoid advertising to recent purchasers and focus on new leads for brand awareness campaigns instead.
Pros and Cons of Using Bid Requests
Real-time bidding enables websites and platforms to display ads based on visitor data rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Advertisers can buy and sell ad inventory on a per-impression basis, targeting audiences with real-time data and setting specific campaign parameters.
However, there is a risk of ads being placed in inappropriate contexts. Algorithms and data from bid requests may not always be accurate, leading to potential mismatches. To mitigate this, advertisers should be aware of potential misplacements and carefully consider campaign parameters.
Real-time bidding is most effective for ads appealing to broad audience segments that are less likely to be context-sensitive. Narrowing campaign parameters can help reduce the risk of misplacements by limiting the types of sites or content that qualify for a bid.
How Does It Work?
When a user visits a web page or app, a bid request is generated, pulling various data points from the consenting user, page, and site analytics. This data is passed to the ad exchange and shared with advertisers.
Advertisers then place real-time bids based on the bid request context. An ad server selects the highest bid and instantly places the winning ad on the page. This process occurs in less than a second as the page loads.
Multiple ad slots on a page can each have different bid requests, allowing various advertisers to find placement opportunities on the same page.
What Information is Provided in a Bid Request?
Bid requests aim to gather as much relevant information as possible for potential advertisers. This can include:
Time of Impression: When the user sees the ad. User Demographics: Known information about the consenting user (gender, age, etc.). Browsing History: Prior websites visited to inform ad targeting. Geo Location: User’s location for relevance to local services or products. Page Information: Content and analytics relevant to ad value. User-Level Data: Useful for remarketing or unique ad views. Not all bid requests can gather all this information. For instance, iOS 14+ users who do not consent may affect the availability of certain data, influencing which advertisers compete for the ad spot.
Key Takeaways
Bid requests enable advertisers and publishers to negotiate mutually beneficial ad deals. They provide the data needed for advertisers to target their ideal audience while allowing publishers to maximize ad spot value.
To summarize
Bid requests facilitate real-time bids for digital or mobile ads. Open auction in programmatic advertising lets companies target their audiences without paying for a specific site. Bid request data helps advertisers engage specific audience groups likely to be influenced by their ads. Bid requests enable a personalized experience by showing ads aligned with user behaviour or interests. Real-time bidding and bid requests ensure a seamless ad loading process, with publishers approving the highest bid for each spot. Advertisers can control the bidding process, setting parameters and capping spend. There is a potential for ad mismatching with automated systems, so careful parameter settings are crucial to avoid poor placements. By understanding and leveraging bid requests, advertisers can optimize their ad strategies and achieve better campaign outcomes.