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Title	Insertions: Priorities

URL Name	Insertion-priorities

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Article Body

Overview

With insertion priorities you can ensure that important (high CPM) insertions are delivered with priority so that they reach their impression/click etc. targets.

How ad selection works

When an ad request is sent to Equativ, the following steps are performed to select and deliver the appropriate ad:

identify all the insertions which could be delivered for the given criteria in the ad request (Website Id, Page Id, Format Id and targeting criteria)
remove the insertions with non-matching targeting criteria from the list (e. g. remove insertions where the geo-targeting does not match the ad request)
based on insertion priority and delay, select the most appropriate insertion from the remaining insertions in the list

Setting the priority

The priority of an insertion is set in the Delivery section.
If your insertion is an in-house insertion, only the priority levels Low and Very low are available. Insertions are in-house when their advertiser has the In-house Ad option set to Yes (more details here).

Exclusive and Very low priorities

The Exclusive priorities are designed for cases, where a placement is sold exclusively to an advertiser. Very low priorities are used for unsold placements (e. g. in-house ads) or any other backup (fallback) scenario.

Both Exclusive and Very low priorities work without pacing: they deliver "as soon as possible", i. e. there is no even distribution of a volume over the insertion's lifetime.

It is strongly recommended to have at least one Very low insertion in your network. Otherwise, a pixel (transparent 1x1 gif) is served in case there is no active insertion from one of the higher priority levels.

The Exclusive/Very low priorities are completely separate; for instance, if you have an Exclusive 2 insertion and an Exclusive 3 insertion, the Exclusive 3 insertion will never be displayed and the Exclusive 2 insertion will receive all the impressions.

Weight and volumes

You can assign a Weight to Exclusive or Very low insertions of the same level. For instance, if you have two insertions on the priority level Exclusive 2, you can assign a weight of 1 to insertion A and a weight of 2 to insertion B. As a result, insertion B will be displayed twice as often as insertion A.

Insertions on the same Exclusive/Very low priority will deliver the same volumes, if they have no defined weight nor volume.

In case of Exclusive 2-4 insertions, the Impressions and Clicks volumes limit the delivery to the defined volume: the insertion stops delivery when the volume is reached; the Impressions and Clicks volumes are not served with pacing – the volumes are not distributed evenly over the insertion lifetime; the insertion may stop before its end date in case the defined volume is reached before.

In case of Exclusive 2-4 insertions, the Maximum impressions per day and Maximum clicks per day limit the delivery to the defined volume for each day: the insertion stops when the specified volume for the day is reached and it resumes delivery at 00:00 of the following day.

If both an Impressions/Maximum impressions per day and a Clicks/Maximum clicks per day volume is defined, the insertion will stop delivery as soon as one of the two volumes is reached.

In case of insertions with the priority “Exclusive 1” and an impression volume, the impression volume will be considered as a minimum volume:

if the defined volume is reached before the insertion end date, the insertion will continue delivering until the end date is reached
if the defined impression volume is not reached at the insertion end date, the insertion will deliver beyond the end date until the defined impression volume is reached

High 1 to Low 4 priorities

The priorities High 1 to Low 4 are designed for insertions where a specific volume (impressions, clicks etc.) needs to be delivered with pacing (Delivery mode: Paced). Pacing means that the volume is distributed evenly over the insertion's lifetime. To ensure that the insertion is not delivered too quickly, delivery is paused repeatedly for short periods of time.
Optionally, High 1 to Low 4 insertions can also be set without pacing, i. e. with Delivery mode As soon as possible. However, in this case, a defined Maximum impressions per day/Maximum clicks per day volume will still be respected.

The following volumes are available:

Impressions
Clicks
Maximum impressions per day / Maximum clicks per day: these daily volumes are considered as goal volumes, not only as volume caps. ⚠ Warning: Use combinations of an overall goal (e. g. Impressions) with a daily goal (e. g. Maximum impressions per day) with caution: the delivery of the insertion will be based on the volume that is furthest behind schedule, which may lead to the overall volume being reached before the scheduled end date; if both a Maximum impressions per day and a Maximum clicks per day volume is defined, the insertion will stop delivery as soon as one of the two volumes is reached. ⚠ Warning: If an insertion's only goal is Maximum impressions per day or Maximum clicks per day, make sure you use the Asap delivery mode only. The Paced delivery mode will prevent it from delivering in this case.
Event volume; e. g. Downloads or other events/actions (e. g. a volume of Likes in case of native ads in social media)

If you combine two or more of the volumes Impressions, Clicks or Event Volume, the insertion will continue delivering until all specified volumes are reached.

The priority groups High, Normal and Low are completely separate. Normal insertions will never be delivered before High insertions and Low insertions will be delivered after Normal or High insertions. The exception is when an insertion from a higher priority group (e. g. High) needs to pause shortly due to pacing. In this case, an insertion from a lower group (e. g. Normal) may be displayed.

eCPM priority

The eCPM priority level is only relevant if you have defined cost data (CPM, CPC, CPE, Flat fee). Regardless of the cost type, eCPM insertions are optimized to achieve a maximum effective CPM. For instance, a CPC based insertion may be shown more often than another CPM based insertion if its click rate and/or price results in a better effective CPM.
If a discount is defined in the cost data of the insertion, the net price will be taken into account by the eCPM optimization algorithm.

Setting the Paced delivery mode in eCPM insertions having a goal volume (impression/click goal etc.) is not recommended. As eCPM insertions are delivered based on their effective CPM, it is most likely that the insertion achieving the highest eCPM will take full priority over competing eCPM insertions, leading to unbalanced delivery.

Notes