In-app bidding best practices
In-app bidding creates a competitive auction where multiple demand sources bid simultaneously for each ad opportunity. Compared to auctions that are manually configured and consist only of non-bidding instances, in-app bidding unlocks real-time competition for your inventory and helps ensure maximum value for every impression.
This article provides some key tips and insights on how to optimize your in-app bidding practices.
1. Maintain updated integrations
A successful in-app bidding strategy starts with strong technical implementation to avoid performance issues and revenue loss.
- Always use the latest SDK versions to ensure compatibility and optimal performance
- Keep mediation adapters updated to maintain compatibility with demand partners
2. Integrate multiple bidding networks
The more bidding networks integrated into an auction, the greater the competition, leading to higher eCPMs and improved overall revenue.
3. Monitor key bidding metrics
To ensure the success of your in-app bidding strategy, analyze essential KPIs that impact auction efficiency and fill rates. These metrics can be found in Unity LevelPlay’s real time pivot.
- Bid requests – Measures how often an ad request is sent to a bidding network
- Interpreting bid requests:
- Bid requests are expected to be nearly equal for each bidding source when breaking by app, ad format, and country
- A difference in bid requests between each ad source when using the app, ad format, or country breakdown could indicate a tech or setup issue or possible network limitations (e.g. COPPA-only networks, networks that only serve in specific geos)
- Interpreting bid requests:
- Bid rate – The percentage of bid requests that receive a valid response, calculated as the number of bid responses / number of bid requests
- Interpreting bid rate:
- During the auction, each ad source can choose whether or not to bid. A bid response is counted when an ad source responds with a valid bid
- Bid responses and bid rate can differ greatly depending on the ad source, due to differences in the ad source’s bidding strategy, tech, and demand. For example, a network may choose not to bid in a certain country or on certain devices
- Bid rate can be evaluated similarly to availability rate for non-bidding instances, as it explains the percentage of time that an ad source has demand available for a specific impression opportunity
- Rather than comparing bid responses and bid rates between ad sources, it is better to evaluate this KPI for each ad source over time, or to compare the ad source’s bid rate between different apps. Talk to the ad source if you see significant fluctuations in bid rate
- A low bid rate does not necessarily indicate low performance but if bid rate is 0% there may be a setup issue
- Interpreting bid rate:
- Win rate – The percentage of bid responses that win the auction. Calculated as the number of times the bidding ad source wins the auction / the number of bid responses
- Interpreting win rate:
- Win rate can be skewed by an ad source’s bid rate. An ad source that doesn’t bid on all bid requests may have a higher win rate than a network that does bid on all bid requests. Therefore we recommend not to compare win rates between networks
- Interpreting win rate:
- Render rate – Measures how often winning bids result in an actual ad display. Calculated as the number of times the bidding ad source shows an impression / the number of bid responses
- Interpreting render rate:
- Render rate differs from win rate because it measures the auction behavior only for auctions which lead to an actual impression
- Render rate can be compared with win rate, where large discrepancies may suggest:
- The network is bidding on less engaged impression opportunities (most relevant for rewarded ads)
- The traffic driver is not engaging or may be poorly placed
- Interpreting render rate: