Adaptive CPM for Onsite Display Auction Campaigns

Onsite Display Auction line items can target multiple page types and creative formats simultaneously. However, each page type carries its own minimum bid floor, which means managing them manually requires maintaining and monitoring multiple separate CPM bids. When pacing slips or auction conditions shift, course correcting requires manual intervention, often after the opportunity has already passed.

Adaptive CPM automates this process. Once enabled, a controller evaluates the line item every few minutes and adjusts bids across all eligible page types automatically. It takes into account:

• How much the line item has spent versus how much it should have spent at that point in the day

• The remaining daily budget and time left to deliver it

• Auction conditions, bid floors, and page type performance signals

Adaptive CPM balances bid competitiveness against auction participation to keep delivery within your Max CPM ceiling. When inventory costs more than your ceiling allows, the system reduces how often it enters auctions rather than raising bids above it. You may win fewer impressions in those moments, but your Max CPM is never exceeded.

Note: Your Max CPM is the highest bid the system will place — it does not guarantee a specific spend level or impression volume. Actual delivery depends on auction wins, eligible inventory, and pacing.

The result is smoother budget delivery throughout the day, with significantly less manual bid management.

Before enabling Adaptive CPM, confirm your line item meets all of the following:

When Adaptive CPM is enabled, the individual per-page-type CPM fields in your line item setup are replaced by a single Max CPM field. The controller can recommend a lower bid when conditions allow, and it may also adjust how often the line item participates in eligible auctions.

How to Size Your Max CPM

Use the highest CPM bid you currently have set across all targeted page types as your starting point. This gives the controller enough headroom to compete across placements without being immediately constrained by the ceiling. Then monitor delivery, pacing, win rates, and auction conditions before making changes.

You can view and edit your Max CPM at any time from the line item settings. Your Max CPM is a hard ceiling: the controller will never submit a bid above it. The Max CPM is not a guaranteed bid and, where possible, the system will bid progressively lower when pacing, traffic, competition, and floor minimums allow for it.

Give Adaptive CPM time to learn your line item's pacing patterns before making changes:

• Check in regularly in the initial few days. Monitor your enrolled line items each day during the initial period to identify early delivery patterns before adjusting anything.

• Wait 48 hours before tuning. Avoid changing your Max CPM within the first 48 hours. The controller needs time to calibrate to your line item's budget and traffic rhythm.

• Make small, deliberate adjustments. When you do adjust, change your Max CPM by no more than 10–20% at a time. Large, frequent changes make it difficult to assess whether the controller is behaving as expected.

• Provide headroom. Set your Max CPM 15-20% above your target bid. For line items bidding at the bid floor, raise the Max CPM by at least 20% so that the optimizer has headroom to scale bids when underpacing.

• Set an accurate end date. Avoid far-off placeholder end dates (e.g., one year out) as the controller spreads the total budget across the entire flight.