Table of Contents

About

direct sales is a sale made between a publisher and an advertiser.

Direct sales is also known as:

Mediation

In a mediation, direct sales generally generate the most revenue and is therefore the first sale done in a classic waterfall method but with the advent of header bidding, it may be placed in second position.

Pricing

Direct buys are almost always priced in fixed CPM rates, where the inventory is sold in bulk and all impressions are essentially priced the same (e.g., 10 CPM, or 10 per thousand ad views).

List

You can see if an ad network is an account of the direct type in the ads.txt file.

Type

Action House

Prebid and TAM are considered direct, because they don’t handle payment.

Programmatic

programmatic direct is a direct sales but without the human factor.

Order

Example of direct ad order properties:

  • Name / Description
  • Order Type:
    • Sponsorship: Highest-ranking line item type for fixed-position and time-based campaigns
    • Standard: For impression-based campaigns
    • Price Priority: For unsold inventory.
    • House: Lowest-ranking line item type. Typically used for ads that promote products and services chosen by you.
  • Rate: Price by CPM or CPC
    • CPM: cost-per-thousand impressions. (For some line item types you can set a value CPM, which sets the value at which non-guaranteed inventory competes)
    • CPC: cost-per-click.
    • Currency
  • Goal Percent of Remaining Impressions (???)
  • Start and End Date
  • Banner Size: The Banner (inventory) sizes for the creatives you want to use. (more than one size can be used)
  • Display Creatives:
    • Only one: Show only one creative per page if multiple creatives are associated with this line item.
    • One or more (default): Allow multiple creatives associated with this line item to show.
    • As many as possible: Show creatives in as many ad units as possible on a page. Only use for line items with multiple active creatives.
  • Frequency: Controls the number of times a visitor sees the same ad over a minute, hour, day, week, month, or lifetime.
    • Number of impression per period of time (minutes, hours, day, weeks, months, lifetime)
  • Target Geographically (Country, Province, Municipality)
  • Device Targeting:
    • All Devices
    • Desktop
    • Mobile Highend
    • Mobile Midrange
    • Tablet
  • Ad Position Targeting