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Playbooks · Inventory pricing

Lock a fixed price and volume with programmatic guaranteed

This job produces a signed Programmatic Guaranteed deal at a fixed CPM and fixed impression volume for a defined flight, expressed as a live Deal ID attached to a guaranteed-priority line item. It feeds the go/no-go decision on whether committed spend fits the campaign budget before trafficking starts.

What you need first

  • Rate card CPM for the target placement and audience segment, from the publisher or SSP rate card
  • Forecasted available impression volume for the flight dates, from publisher ad ops or the SSP forecasting tool
  • Volume discount grid with tier thresholds, from the publisher's commercial terms
  • Campaign budget cap and flight start/end dates, from the media plan
  • Deal ID setup requirements (targeting, floor, priority settings), from the SSP or DSP deal desk

The procedure

  1. Pull the base CPM for the target placement and audience from the rate card
  2. Confirm the forecasted deliverable volume for the flight dates from publisher ad ops, setting the ceiling on committed impressions
  3. Select a committed impression volume that clears a specific discount tier on the grid
  4. Apply the tier discount to the base CPM to get the net fixed CPM
  5. Multiply net CPM by committed volume to get total committed spend, and compare it against the budget cap
  6. Create the Deal ID in the SSP with the fixed CPM and fixed volume locked in
  7. Attach the Deal ID to the DSP line item with priority set to guaranteed, not biddable
  8. Verify price, volume, flight dates and targeting on the live Deal ID match the agreed terms before activation

Worked through with numbers

Rate card CPM for NL desktop+mobile display, W25-44, is €8.50. Publisher forecast shows 5,000,000 impressions deliverable to that segment over the 4-week flight. The discount grid gives 8% off for commitments in the 2-5M impression tier. Committing to 3,000,000 impressions clears that tier: net CPM = 8.50 x 0.92 = €7.82. Total committed spend = 7.82 x 3,000,000 / 1000 = €23,460 against a €30,000 budget cap, leaving €6,540 headroom. Since spend lands under the cap, the buyer can either bank the headroom as a buffer or go back and negotiate the committed volume up before the Deal ID is cut.

Where it goes wrong

  • State the discount as applying once the committed volume clears the tier minimum, not once it's merely close to it — a 1,900,000 commitment stays in the lower tier and the discount doesn't apply
  • Set the Deal ID priority to guaranteed, not biddable — a biddable PG deal competes in auction and routinely loses to higher bids, which defeats the fixed-price guarantee
  • Cap committed volume at what the forecast says the publisher can actually deliver, not at what the budget alone would allow — over-committing volume produces under-delivery and make-goods instead of a clean fixed buy
  • Lock the flight dates inside the deal object itself, not just in the media plan — an unlocked deal can re-price if the rate card updates mid-flight

How to know it is right

Recompute net CPM x committed volume by hand and confirm it lands at or under the budget cap, with the live Deal ID showing guaranteed priority and the exact price, volume and flight dates agreed before it goes to trafficking.

Terms used

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