Programmatic, step by step quiz
Test yourself on the 100-millisecond auction, DSPs and SSPs, header bidding, first-price auctions, deals and supply path optimization. Ten questions that separate buzzwords from how the pipes actually work. intermediate · 10 questions
Question 1 of 10Score 0
Roughly how long does a real-time bidding auction take, from bid request to winning ad?
All questions with answers
- Roughly how long does a real-time bidding auction take, from bid request to winning ad?
Answer: Around 100 milliseconds, while the page is loading. Real-time bidding auctions typically complete in about a tenth of a second, with each bidder held to a auction timeout. That speed is why latency matters so much; nothing waits for minutes or overnight batches. - Which side of the market does an SSP work for?
Answer: Publishers who want to sell their inventory. An SSP is a supply-side platform: it represents the publisher's inventory (the supply) and runs or connects to auctions. The buyer's tool is the DSP; mixing the two up is the most common programmatic slip. - What problem did header bidding mainly solve?
Answer: The waterfall asked demand sources one at a time, so a higher bidder further down never got a chance. In the waterfall, demand partners were called in a fixed order, so a buyer willing to pay more could lose to an earlier, lower one. Header bidding lets many bidders compete at once before the publisher ad server decides; it still relies on an ad server and does not stop fraud. - What is Prebid.js?
Answer: An open-source header bidding library, now governed by Prebid.org. Prebid is the open-source wrapper most publishers use for header bidding, stewarded by Prebid.org. Despite the name it is not a fraud tool; that is pre-bid filtering. - Two bids arrive: $5.00 and $4.00. In a first-price auction, what does the winner pay?
Answer: $5.00. In a first-price auction the winner pays what it bid, $5.00. Paying $4.01, one cent above the runner-up, is how a second-price auction works, which most exchanges moved away from by 2019. - Why do DSPs use bid shading?
Answer: To lower bids in first-price auctions so buyers do not overpay for what the impression is worth. When the winner pays its own bid, bidding your true value means overpaying. Bid shading models the clearing price and trims bids toward it; it works against floors rather than raising them. - A buyer agrees a fixed price and a reserved number of impressions, delivered automatically with no auction. What deal type is this?
Answer: Programmatic guaranteed. Programmatic guaranteed reserves volume at a fixed price. A private marketplace is still an auction, just invite-only; a preferred deal offers a fixed price but no guaranteed volume. - What does a deal ID do in a bid request?
Answer: Tells the DSP this impression belongs to a pre-agreed deal and its terms. A Deal ID links the impression to the negotiated terms of a PMP, preferred deal or PG deal, so the DSP can bid accordingly. It identifies a deal, not a person, and says nothing about traffic quality. - A DSP receives the same impression from six different SSPs. What is the usual buyer response?
Answer: Apply supply path optimization and keep the most direct, efficient paths. Seeing one impression many times is bid duplication; bidding on all copies inflates prices against yourself. SPO trims to fewer, cheaper, more transparent paths. Duplication alone is not fraud. - In programmatic, what does curation usually mean today?
Answer: Packaging inventory with audience or quality data on the sell side and offering it to buyers as deals. Curation moves targeting and packaging closer to supply: a curator combines inventory and data, then sells it via a Deal ID. It is a new middle layer, which is why buyers ask what fees it adds.