bidding 》》how are #1, #2, #3 etc spots assigned? (8)
Hi STMerz,
Can anyone explain how the bidding triad system works on traffic sources.
For example - lets say on pops the bids are as below:
Spot # 1- taken by affiliate A - bids 0.014
Spot # 2 - taken by aff B - bids 0.013
Spot # 3 - taken by aff C - bids 0.012
In the above scenario, what is the benefit of having the higher spot?
Does it mean aff A gets X% more traffic or higher quality traffic?
How does the traffic source triage it? For example does aff B get every 4th website placement while aff C gets 1 in 10?
If aff A was to randomly bid 0.05, would he just hoover up all the traffic and lose his margin lol
Anyone feel like helping out a lil nooblet? 
I also don´t know exactly how it works, probaby it´s also a bit different from source to source.
Does it mean aff A gets X% more traffic or higher quality traffic?
As an exampe, affiliate at bid position 1 will get his ad shown first for the user for that placement.
The ad of an affiliate with lower bid position will be shown later to the user.
So a better bid position also means that the user didn´t see several other ads from that placement already which can result in better performance.
Higher bids also unlock new placements that often have better quality, when you would bid too low you just won´t get traffic from such placements.
But again, how exactly that stuff works can be diferent from trafficsource to trafficsource.
These are only my own observations, in the end only the sources itself could tell you how exactly their algorithms work.
As twinaxe mentioned, we don't always know how exactly the algo of a particular network works.
I've seen a few scenarions too
Some networks would send every click/visit/pop to the highest bidder, as long as their budgets would allow for that.. there is also the impression CAP that could step in. So as soon as the limits of the highest bidder were reached, the next on in the row would get the traffic.
Some networks also prefer to rotate the ads, so they do not show the same banners or LPs (in case of POPs) to all the users, so they give visits to the second or third bidder too, even when the settings of the highest bidder would still allow for more traffic.
Usually it's some kind of combination and the settings of particular buyers kinda "force" the algo to deliver traffic to the lower bidders too.. budgets/caps/day or week parting etc...
Okay that makes sense guys, thanks.
So in reality it's like SEO or FB in that we can only really speculate on what the algorithm could be and we might notice nuances for each specific traffic source platform + bidding combo... but we'll never really know how it all works.
Originally Posted by nitrousoxide
Basically, it comes down to one thing ... whether it's an A: where they favor the top bid to the max and send all the good stuff to it, or it's the B: where they mix it up for a bit of variety. In case of A, you will notice that high bids bring in significantly better quality traffic, in case of B it's more balanced. With some experience, you will be able to spot this early.
There is more to it for sure, but it's neither rocket science, nor that complicated as in case of SEO.
Roger that, thanks
PopAds, for example, has a second-price bidding auction system -- might be worth reading into if interested e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickre...Groves_auction
https://blog.adphorus.com/the-auctio...y-a38b132be6cf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUN-k_nfDts
Cheers Shishev, I will check out your links...had a sneak peek and one talked about Game Theory...got a brief Microeconomics PTSD flashback 
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