As you may be aware, the Pontiac Origin portion of our platform is built over the Xandr Invest DSP, now owned by Microsoft. On May 13th, Microsoft announced they we’re sunsetting the Invest DSP on February 28th, 2026. We have already recommended all clients move any Online Video, CTV and Streaming Audio to the Pontiac Bidder. But, we will be rolling out Display and Native advertising as well by the end of Q3. This will give our clients all of Q4 to run tests and prepare for a migration in Q1 2026. We will keep you informed about how to test Display as it becomes available. If you need any assistance moving your Online Video, CTV or Streaming Audio to the bidder please reach out to your Account Executive or request help via the Help Center and someone will come to assist you.

Display Campaign Setup:

To run a Display Campaign on the Bidder, you can do so by automatically creating an Index Curated Deal, by enabling our Curated Deal (Beta) feature! First, start off by following these steps:

1. Upload Creative:
   • If you do not yet have an Advertiser created for this Campaign, first create the Advertiser. Then open the Advertiser and upload one or more of your Display Creatives.
   • The Creative will need to pass the Creative Audit which may take up to 24 hours.
2. Setup a Campaign and then your Line Item:
   • Under the Advertiser, create a Campaign and then Line Item following these recommendations:
   • Inventory Type: In App, Web, or Combined.
   • Start Date
   • End Date
   • Budget Type: Select Spend or Impressions.
   • Bid Type: Select Advanced Bid Controls and input a Default Bid Price and Max Bid for each Deal associated to the Campaign and Lines. Note that only the intersection of Campaign and Line Deals will be shown. Associate Deals the Campaign and Line in the Targeting section at each level or either (one or the other) to set a custom bid for each selected Deal. When new Deals are added to the Line and a custom bid is not set, the bid price will default to the value set in the Default Bid Price field on the Line.
   • Bid Price: In general, we recommend using the price floors for guidance and adding an additional 40-50% to start the bidding. If you are not achieving the desired scale, continue to increase bids.
   • Budget Multiplier: This feature allows the user to specify a multiplier on the daily budget. For example, a 1.1 multiplier will allow the Campaign to adjust the daily budget up to 110% of it’s typical daily budget. The calculation is Budget Multiplier * Daily Budget = New Daily Spend.
   • Enable Foot Traffic Reporting: Optionally, enable Foot Traffic Reporting which allows you to enter specific commercial addresses and track whether users that were served your ads visited those locations. This is available for Banners at a $1.50 CPM, add this additional cost to your bid CPM.
   • Budget Allocation Weight: Establish the budget allocation weight for each Line that sits underneath the Campaign.
3. Targeting and Audiences
   • See below for details.
4. Creatives
   • Associate your Display/Banner Creatives.

This feature enables automatic deal creation in Index Exchange based on a line’s targeting and can be used to run Display Campaigns only. When activated, Pontiac builds a curated marketplace deal in Index that mirrors the line’s targeting parameters and associates it directly with that line automatically.

How to Use the “Curated Deal (Beta)” feature:

• In the Targeting dialog box of the Line, a new tab “Curation” is displayed on the left hand side of the window. Here, the section includes the following text and checkbox to enable the curation:
• This will automatically build a curated deal for you in an external platform which meets your targeting criteria. This usually increases scale.
• Requirements:
  • Exchange targeting includes Index
  • This must be a display campaign where all creatives attached to the line are banner creatives
  • Geo targeting must be more granular than Regions or an audience must be attached that pushed to a curation platform
  • Checkbox: Use Curated Deal (Beta)
• Note that if validation criteria are not met, the line will fail to save and the user will be redirected back to the line setup page.

Additional Notes

• Targeting parameters: geos, device types, creative type (banner), inventory type, livestream flag, and targeted audiences—are pulled directly from the line setup.
• Publisher targeting: All available publishers will be included by default.
• Deal Naming Convention: Each deal follows the format: Pontiac_Curated_Index_Display_LINE_ID