Bid Metrics

Bid metrics are displayed on both the Campaign details and the Line details to provide insight into the bid funnel, real time delivery and any issues that may need to be addressed.

• Eligible Requests: Bid requests or impressions that meet the targeting criteria for the Line or Campaign. This considers parameters in the ‘Targeting’ section – deals, geo, inventory targeting lists etc. If you are not seeing any eligible requests, your targeting may not be feasible if there are no impressions that meet all of the selected criteria. See the below section on troubleshooting delivery for more information.
• Bids: Bids placed on eligible impressions. If your Line or Campaign has eligible impressions, but is not bidding there may be additional requirements blocking the bids from being placed. See the below section on troubleshooting delivery for more information.
• Imps: Bids won, the number of confirmed impressions served by the Line or Campaign in the selected time frame.
• Confirmed Spend: Confirmed dollars spent by the Line or Campaign in the selected time frame.

Troubleshooting Delivery Issues

1. Are there any eligible requests? If no, here are some steps to troubleshoot the lack of eligible requests:
   • Check the creative audit status on your ads, this can be seen in the Advertiser screen next to the creative ID.
     • If the status is ‘pending’ (yellow caution symbol) there cannot be eligible requests until your ads are audited by the Pontiac audit team. Keep in mind that the audit process may take up to one business day.
     • If your creative is rejected, it will not be able to serve on the Pontiac platform. Review our creative acceptance policy for more information on prohibited content.
   • Run an inventory availability report with the selected targeting parameters applied. If there are no estimated daily impressions available or the estimate is very low, your targeting may be too restrictive and should be expanded to find eligible impressions that meet your requirements.
   • Check your campaign & line set ups to verify that there are no conflicting targeting parameters. For example, if the campaign was set to target the state of Florida and the line set to target the state of Alabama, the line would not be able to serve. An impression must meet the targeting criteria of both the line and campaign to be eligible.
   • Check sample logs on the deal for publisher b-cats and any specific creative requirements such as duration, bitrate, etc. Verify that your creative meets all platform and publisher specs.
   • If you have content level targeting lists applied, check the deal sample logs to verify that these values are correctly formatted and in the correct field. Values in these lists will need to be exact matches to the values in the bid request (except for capitalization).
   • If you have ‘Require X’ applied on content level fields (require network, require channel, etc), check the deal sample logs for the deals targeted to see if they are passing values in these fields. If they are not populating these fields, you will need to select other deals that pass this info, or remove this setting from targets.
   • Check the deals table in the ‘Inventory’ tab for the ‘last served’ date on the deals being used. If this date is not current, it is possible the deal has expired, but has not yet been removed from the system. Reach out via the Help Center for assistance with this deal.
2. If there are eligible requests, are there bids being placed? If no, here are some steps to troubleshoot the lack of bids:
   • Check deals table for ‘publisher approval’ required column. If the deal requires approval, you will need to submit a request via the Help Center to start the approval process for that deal. Once your creative is approved, this will appear below the creative preview in the section ‘Approved for: ‘ with the publisher name. You can find more info on this here: Creative Audit
   • Check for ‘sensitive categories allowed’ on the targeted deals if your creative has been flagged as sensitive. These creatives will only be eligible to run on deals that have explicitly been marked this category as accepted. You can find more information on this here: Sensitive Creatives
   • Reach out through the Help Center for further technical assistance if you try the above recommendations and are still not seeing bids on eligible impressions.
3. If there are bids being placed, are there impressions being won? If no, here are some steps to troubleshoot the lack of wins:
   • Remove bid at floor price – if you are bidding higher than the floor but have this feature enabled, you will only be bidding at the floor and may be missing out on impressions that could’ve been winning with your max bid.
   • If you do not have ‘bid at price floor’ applied, you may still want to test incremental increases in the bid to see if more impressions can be won at a higher price point.
   • The publishers targeted may have additional specs or creative requirements that are blocking your creatives from serving. In most cases the specs can be found on the publishers website, the sample logs on the CTV landscape report also provide insight into requirements such as bit rates, video protocol (vast version) & more.
   • Reach out out through the Help Center for further technical assistance if you have tried the above recommendations and are still unable to see impressions won.
4. If there are impressions being won, but the line or campaign is not meeting expectations for delivery, the following are suggestions to increase scale:
   • Increase the Budget Multiplier
   • Apply ‘ASAP’ in the Pacing section
   • Increase Frequency Caps
   • A low win rate is most likely due to the bid on the Line, test incremental increases to see how this affects Line delivery.
   • Run an inventory availability report with the selected targeting parameters applied. If there are no estimated daily impressions available or the estimate is very low, your targeting may need to be expanded to allow the line to serve. Can you add additional inventory, expand the geo or audience size, etc? The inventory availability report will also provide insight into the bid floors across the inventory within a deal, geo etc.

Creative audit results will be displayed under ‘Audit Status’ next to the name of the Creative, in the ‘Creatives’ section of the Advertiser, Campaign, or Line. If your Creative is rejected, a red box will appear here. Hover over this symbol to view additional information about the audit status. Pontiac Intelligence is unable to change the audit results of Xandr/AppNexus & RiskIQ. 

Audit results can only be changed by resolving the issue that caused the Creative to be rejected. If you think your Creative was rejected incorrectly, reach out to the Pontiac Team through the Help Center.

• Rejected, Does not display properly: First check to see if there is a preview of the Creative in the green preview box in Pontiac and verify that the Creative fits in the designated area. If it does not fit correctly in the box you may have chosen the incorrect Creative size. You can edit the size then select ‘Save’. The Creative will be sent to audit and this process may take up to one business day to complete.
• Rejected, Fails to render: If you are using an ad server tag, verify that the code you uploaded in Pontiac renders on your end. Check with your ad server that the tag is active and available. Email your Account Manager for additional help.
• Rejected, Creative brand does not match Creative landing page: The brand displayed in the ad should match the brand of the website that the ad is driving users to. In order for this Creative to be accepted, you must change the brand displayed in the Creative, or change the Click URL to drive to this brand’s website. If you are driving to a third-party marketplace or other page that does not depict your branding, such as Amazon, check the ‘Use Alternative Mobile Click Url’ and enter a URL that contains the same branding represented in your ad. The audit team will use this URL to validate the branding represented in the creative. This will not be used as the landing page for the creative. Once you have edited the Creative details, ‘Save’ and close the Creative upload window. The Creative will be sent to audit and this process may take up to one business day to complete
• Rejected, Creative does not click through properly: Your Creative will be rejected if the Creative is clicked and does not open a landing page, if the Creative is clicked and a landing page opens, but no content loads or if the Creative is clicked and a landing page loads, but an error keeps any content from being displayed. In any of these cases you must either update the landing page and then click ‘Reaudit’ or change the Click URL for the Creative and click ‘save’. The Creative will be sent to audit and this process may take up to one business day to complete.
• Rejected, Malicious: Your account will be suspended, you will be notified in writing and an investigation will take place within three business days. Pontiac clients who upload ads deemed malicious will lose access to the platform and forfeit deposited funds.

The IAB category assigned to your creative can be found by clicking on the creative name to open the creative details window. This field is displayed below the creative in the ‘Creative Category’ field:

These categories come from the Open RTB Specs, that can be found here in table 5.1 ‘Content Categories’: Open RTB Specs v2.5

If you believe your creative has been assigned an incorrect IAB category, please submit a ticket through the Help Center. Be sure to include the Advertiser Name and ID associated with the creative in question so we can assist you promptly.