Objective and optimization event
The result the campaign asks for, such as a purchase, a qualified lead or an install. The closer this optimization event sits to the sale the better, as long as it happens often enough for the model to learn from it.
Digital advertising
Search, social and short video, bought one auction at a time.
Most of the spend we handle runs through these auctions. We give them clean signal, ads that meet their rules and a funded balance, and keep every line on one record.
On Monday morning, before anyone touches a bid, we look at three things for every campaign that runs through us. Whether the balance behind it will last the week at the pace it is spending. Whether its ads still meet the rules of the platform they run on. Whether the conversions the platform learns from arrived over the weekend clean, consented and counted once.
An auction can only spend the money that is there, on the ads it accepts, toward the results it can see.
The digital channels, by type
Search, social and the open web we buy, in the auctions where most of it is sold and through deals with publishers for the rest. Streaming, apps, retail media, performance partnerships and messaging we plan and activate with the services, networks and retailers that sell them, and on the lists and tools you own. Television, audio, print and out of home sit in the same plan.
- 01Search and intent6 channels, stages Consider, Convert
- 02Social and creators8 channels, stages Discover, Consider, Convert
- 03Open web7 channels, stages Discover, Consider, Convert, Retain
- 04Video and streaming8 channels, stages Discover, Consider, Convert
- 05Apps and gaming4 channels, stages Discover, Convert
- 06Commerce and retail media9 channels, stages Discover, Consider, Convert, Retain
- 07Performance partnerships4 channels, stages Consider, Convert, Retain
- 08Messaging and CRM3 channels, stages Consider, Convert, Retain
What an auction buys for you
In a self-serve auction you don't book a placement. You set a goal, and the settings below decide what the platform buys toward it. Platforms already bid with their own models, weighing each bid against how likely the ad is to get the result asked for and how people respond to it. We feed them clean conversion signals and true values, and set the limits they bid within.
Bid strategy
The most results for the budget, an average cost the platform should hold, a ceiling on any single bid, or a return on spend to aim at. Each one trades volume against cost, and the plan says which trade it is making.
Budget
Daily or for the whole flight, set for the campaign or for each ad group. A daily budget is an average, and some platforms spend well above it on a busy day and even it out over the week or the month, so pacing is read across the flight.
Audience
Wide, with the conversion signal and the creative doing the targeting, or narrowed with customer lists and exclusions. Lists are hashed before they are shared, and shared only with the consent they need.
Placements
Feeds, short video, search results, and the sites and apps in each platform's network. Each one asks for its own format.
Creative
The signal the auction learns from
A platform's model learns only from the conversions it receives and can match to its own users. A thin, late or doubled signal teaches it the wrong lesson, and the budget pays for the lesson.
The right event
We agree which conversion each campaign optimizes toward, and send that event server to server from a collection endpoint on your own domain, with the consent that travels with it.
Counted once
The browser and server copies of the same conversion share one event ID, so the platform keeps one.
True values
Order value and currency come from the order system, so bids toward value work on the real number.
Leads that became customers
Qualified leads and sales that close later go back from the CRM to the platforms that accept offline conversions, so the auction learns which leads turned into customers.
A campaign, from the first check to the invoice
The same steps on every self-serve platform, from search and social to short video and native, in this order, each one written into the record.
Verify
Your company is identified and checked against anti-money-laundering rules before any spend. More on Trust.
Set up
Before launch we agree how each platform is set up. Campaigns are split by objective, market and budget owner, few enough for each to learn, with access by role and names and link tags that trace each campaign to its line in the plan.
Review
Each ad is checked against the policies of its platform before it goes live, so it reaches the platform's own review ready.
Fund and limit
The campaign runs from your prepaid balance or a sub-balance, with a cap and an alert before it runs out. Budgets move in steps, because a large change can send a campaign back to learning.
Run
The platform bids toward the goal set in the plan, on the conversions it receives server to server. Our agents watch pacing inside the agreed band, and moves beyond it wait for the person who owns the budget.
Pay
We pay the platform from your balance, in the currency it bills in.
Reconcile
Delivered, billed and paid are matched on the line, platform credits included, and one consolidated invoice comes back.
How search, social and the open web are measured
Each platform reports the conversions it saw, and added together they often claim more sales than there were. So each platform's number is read next to your actual orders, and what the ads caused is tested.
The same rules on every platform
Attribution windows are agreed before launch and kept as close as each platform allows for similar goals. Conversions after a view are reported apart from conversions after a click.
Against your orders
Server-side events are deduplicated against your actual orders, so each sale is counted once in our record, whatever each platform claims.
Lift tests on the platforms
Where a platform offers a conversion lift test, a random share of the audience is held back from the ads, and the difference in conversions shows what the campaign added.
Brand terms, tested
Ads on searches for your own name catch demand that often exists already, so what brand terms add is tested before the budget grows.
A blended view
Total revenue against total ad spend across every platform, a blended return read next to each platform's own numbers.
The mix model for the split
The split between platforms, and between digital and the rest of the mix, follows the mix model and experiments. Attribution steers the day inside it.
Questions we get
Who sets the bids?
In a self-serve auction the platform's model sets the bid in each auction. The plan sets the event it bids toward, the bid strategy and its limits, and the budget. The signal it learns from comes from our server-side tracking, counted once and carrying true values.
Which digital channels do you buy, and which do you activate?
Search, social and the open web, in the auctions where most of it is sold and through deals with publishers for the rest. The other digital families are planned and activated with the services, networks and retailers that sell them. The catalog shows how each channel is bought.
Can we run several platforms in several currencies?
Yes. Each ad account is billed in the currency it was created in, and each one is paid from your balance. Currency differences go back to their line in reconciliation, and one invoice covers every platform.
What happens when a balance runs low?
We alert you before a balance runs out, so it can be topped up before campaigns stop. A campaign that stops delivering can lose what it had learned, which is why the alert comes early.
Each platform says it drove the sale. How do you count it?
Each platform credits itself with the sales it saw. In our record each sale is counted once, against your actual orders, and each platform's number is read next to it. Where they disagree, we show both and test where the doubt sits.
Bring us the platforms you run on today.
Tell us where you spend and what each campaign optimizes toward, and we'll show you how it would run through us, from the signal to the invoice.