Basics · also called direct deal, direct sales, reservation
Direct-sold advertising
Direct-sold advertising is ad space sold by a publisher straight to an advertiser or agency through a negotiated deal, usually with a fixed price and guaranteed volume.
Direct-sold means a human sales team at the publisher negotiated a deal with a buyer: this many impressions, on these sections, at this price, between these dates. The agreement is typically written in an insertion order and delivered through the publisher ad server, which prioritises these campaigns over programmatic demand.
Direct deals usually earn publishers their highest CPMs because they can include premium placements, sponsorships, custom formats and first-party audience data. They also give advertisers certainty about where their ads run.
The line between direct and programmatic has blurred. Programmatic guaranteed deals keep the direct deal's fixed price and volume but automate the plumbing via a Deal ID. What is left of "traditional" direct is often homepage takeovers, sponsorships and custom content. Whatever is not sold directly becomes remnant inventory for programmatic channels.
Think of it like this
Direct-sold is like a caterer's standing weekly order with a restaurant, agreed in advance at a set price, versus customers who walk in off the street.
An example
A French newspaper sells a luxury watch brand 5 million impressions on its business section at a €25 CPM for November, worth €125,000.
Related terms
Insertion order (IO)
An insertion order (IO) is the signed contract between an advertiser or agency and a publisher or vendor, specifying what ads run, where, when, in what volume and at what price.
Programmatic guaranteed (PG)
Programmatic guaranteed (PG) is a deal in which a buyer commits in advance to buy a fixed volume of impressions at a fixed price from a publisher, delivered through programmatic pipes.
Remnant inventory
Remnant inventory is ad space a publisher has not sold through direct deals, which is then offered through programmatic channels, networks or house ads, usually at lower prices.
Sell-through rate
Sell-through rate is the percentage of a publisher's available inventory that has been sold, usually through direct or guaranteed deals, over a given period.
Publisher ad server
A publisher ad server is the system a website, app or streamer uses to manage its ad inventory and decide, for every ad slot, which campaign or programmatic buyer gets the impression.