Since we first launched Beeswax's Bidder-as-a-Service™, one of the most compelling and unique capabilities has been the ability for customers to Bring Your Own Algorithm ("BYOA"). Unlike any other DSP or programmatic buying system, with Beeswax customers have the ability to write their own algos, in whatever programming language they want, in their own AWS instance, with their own data.
Last Fall, we extended our BYOA offering through the Beeswax Programmatic Cloud. Instead of writing new code for each algo, we partnered with London-based MediaGamma for entirely bespoke algorithms developed per-customer, and with US-based Cognitiv for deep learning models that are especially adept at driving mobile performance. The Programmatic Cloud gives our customers BYOA without code.
Today, we're happy to announce a third way for our customers to deeply influence the behavior of their bidders through Bid Modifiers and User Scoring.
What's a Bid Modifier?
A Bid Modifier is a useful and powerful tool to de-average the bidding strategy for a given line item or campaign and incorporate feedback on what attributes are driving performance. Any single variable in the OpenRTB request can be selected to "modify" the bid, without the cumbersome need to duplicate line items or otherwise perform adops gymnastics.
An Example:
- Campaign KPI is cost per video complete (CPVC)
- After running for two days, the observed CPCV varies by exchange. On Exchange 1 the CPCV is $10.00, while on Exchange 2 the CPCV is $20.00.
In a standard DSP workflow, there are two ways to optimize this campaign. You can either "trust the algo" of the black box DSP and hope it biases delivery towards Exchange 1. Or, you can duplicate the line item and set the bids and budgets higher for Exchange 1 than Exchange 2. Neither of these solutions is ideal.
With Bid Modifiers, you can easily tell the Bidder-as-a-Service to increase the bid on Exchange 1 without duplicating line items. You simply express a multiplier value for each targeting criteria you want to manipulate:
- Exchange 1: modify by 1.75
- Exchange 2: modify by 0.60
- browser=Safari: modify by 3.2
- etc
You can add up to 1,000 modifying terms on a single line item to control bidding in the most granular ways imaginable, and there's no custom coding language or complexity to learn, it's right in the UI.
User Scoring: Bid Modifiers at the Individual Level
While marketers often talk about the personalized and 1-to-1 nature of digital advertising, in practice most targeting advertising is executed at the user list level rather than the individual level. With User Scoring, marketers can vary their bids automatically based on the value of an individual user.
User scores can be created when firing a segment pixel, when bulk uploading user data into Beeswax's system, or by working with one of our Programmatic Cloud partners, like TruSignal. This light and simple implementation lets our customers achieve advanced personalized bidding with a minimum of technology overhead.
The Future of BYOA
We are looking forward to seeing how Beeswax customers utilize Bid Modifiers along with the custom bidding technologies we have long supported in our cloud. Bid Modifiers will be a key tool for companies looking to own their own bidding logic and allows customers to get started quickly with optimized bidding, with a roadmap towards full customization.
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