How Multi-Size Pricing Works in DFP

Kean Graham

9 years ago

This post was most recently updated on October 21st, 2019

Multi-size pricing is a process in which you maximize your CPM and monetize every size you have on your site by having different pricing rules per size. By doing this, you’ll be able to know and optimize which size earns the greatest and which one earns the lowest. This Ad Exchange feature is available to all publishers but is still in beta.

To give you a clear idea of how this works, imagine there are several advertisers who want to buy a specific size of inventory on your site. They have to bid at least the value minimum CPM for them to be part of the auction. Their bids will only be valid if they match the criteria you have stated on your pricing rule for that size such as Geo, Operating system, Device Category and etc. The one with the highest bid wins and display the ads.

Maximizing Yield

With this technique, you maximize yield because you’ll be able to sell your inventory at a specific value. Putting a minimum value for each of the sizes based on their performance can ensure better returns on CPM.

Improving Fill Rates

Fill rate is also important to keep an eye on. Publishers should aim to have at minimum 50%-60% fill rates to optimally monetize impressions. With multi-size pricing, you’ll more easily be able to achieve optimal fill rates. For instance, if you see the fill rate of a specific ad size dropping, you can adjust the pricing accordingly for that specific size to optimize it differently than other sizes.

While not guaranteed to lift revenue, multi-size pricing can help boost your ad income since you can control the minimum price bid, as well as your fill rates. Other factors such as traffic quality, overall ad optimization strategy, and new techniques to ensure greater competition will encourage higher bids.

How to include multiple sizes in your DFP Inventory

DFP users can easily include multiple sizes in their inventory by following these easy steps:

1) on the Delivery tab, create an order and Ad Exchange line item or edit an existing one in DFP with the inventory sizes you want to use.

2) Generate a multi-size creative with the following options:

For new line items, click “Save and…” and select “Generate multi-size creative”. A single creative is then added to the line item.
If you are just editing an existing line item, click “Save” after you have edited the line item then go to the “Creatives” sub-tab and click “Automatically generate creative”. With this process, all your existing creatives will be archived and will be replaced by a single, multi-size creative

3) “Save” and “Approve” the order

For you to know if the tag you have generated is ready for multi-size pricing, it should contain a single Google_image_size parameter with the list of line item ad sizes you added separated with a comma. The code snipped must contain a tag that looks like this:

google_image_size = “300×50,300×600,250×250”

Remember: Native and interstitial creatives are not for dynamic allocation.

The code is ready for dynamic allocation so there is no need to tweak the tag.

How to set pricing rules for different ad sizes

After you have created the line items on DFP, specified the sizes and generated the creative, you now have to create a pricing rule on AdExchange to target these sizes or ensure that you are targeting the new size you created. To do this follow the steps below:

From the “Rules” tab, click Open auction pricing, then New rule.
Enter a name for the rule.
Select an inventory size to target.
Under “Pricing and Blocking,” set the desired minimum CPM for each branding type.
Save your changes.
Repeat the process for each additional inventory size you want to include.

This pricing rule will only affect the multi-size requests and not any of the unmatched requests. These unmatched requests or the “no pricing rule applied” are the number of impressions which do not pass the minimum CPM price. With regards to the reports, DFP will only show the single creative in the multi-size configuration. So we highly suggest using the Ad Exchange query tool to get a more detailed report on multi-size inventory.

MonetizeMore can help you set up multi-size pricing in DFP. Contact us today for a free consultation to discuss your needs.

Related Reads:

Kean Graham

Kean Graham is the CEO and founder of MonetizeMore & a pioneer in the Adtech Industry. He is the resident expert in Ad Optimization, covering areas like Adsense Optimization,GAM Management, and third-party ad network partnerships. Kean believes in the supremacy of direct publisher deals and holistic optimization as keys to effective and consistent ad revenue increases.