Floor price

How a floor works

Every campaign that wants a slot has a price it will pay. The floor removes any that offer less before the choice between the rest is made. When nothing is above the floor, the slot goes to its fallback: another network, a house ad or empty space.

Floors are usually set as a CPM, a price per thousand impressions, even for flat-rate deals, because it is the one unit every buyer and every source can be compared in.

How to set one

1. Find what the slot earns now. Your network's reports give its effective CPM. That is the least a direct sale should pay.
2. Add the direct premium. A buyer choosing your audience on purpose should pay more than an automated auction pays for a reader it knows nothing about. How much more is yours to test.
3. Adjust for position. A slot in the article that readers actually see deserves a higher floor than a footer.
4. Review it. If a slot always sells, raise the floor. If it never sells, lower it or ask whether the slot is seen at all.

Too high and too low

A floor set too low lets a direct deal pay less than the network would have, on every impression it takes. A floor set too high leaves the slot to the fallback and tells advertisers your inventory is not for them. The starting point is always what the slot already earns.

How Pyrobid handles it

Every slot needs a floor before it goes live. The number you type is your price for 1,000 views from the United States, and every other country is priced as a share of it: a $2.00 floor is $1.30 for views from Germany and $0.48 for views from Brazil. Campaigns bidding at or above your floor share the slot in proportion to what they bid, so a higher bid buys a bigger share of delivery rather than shutting everyone else out. Anything unsold goes to the fallback you chose. Whoever runs the network can adjust the country shares for the whole network.