Share via

Create a bias rule

  • Article

Note

This feature is not available by default. If you are interested in gaining access or discussing potential use cases that may apply to your business, reach out to your Microsoft Advertising representative.

You can create bias rules to make bids appear higher or lower than they actually are, thereby influencing the outcome of an auction.

Create a base rule to affect bids from a specific buyer or buyer group on all of the publisher's inventory.

Create a conditional rule to affect bids from a single buyer or buyer group on specific impressions.

You can define a per-buyer bias by impression frequency, geography, segment, specific placement, category, or placement size. Biases affect the way that the auction operates, but not the amount the winner pays.

For more information on biases and how they work, see Working with Yield Management.

Create a base bias rule

Note

The legacy Bias Rules UI has been deprecated. To create your base rule, use the Yield Management Bias Service.

Create a base rule to affect specific buyer's or buyer group's bids on all of the publisher's inventory.

Note

You can only create one base rule. If a base rule exists, you will not be able to create a new base rule. Instead, you can edit or delete the existing rule.

Base rule details

Enter the basic details for the base rule.

  • Name - Enter a name for your rule. It is recommended to select a name that aligns with your business strategy for ease of use.
  • Priority - The base rule is automatically set to Priority 1 (lowest). This means any existing conditional rules will take precedence over the base rule.
  • Description - Enter a rule description for reference.
  • Additional Options: Code - If you click Additional Options (Advanced) you will have the option of entering a code. Codes may be helpful for networks with distinct internal names/IDs, so that the names/IDs can be associated in Monetize and then extracted for reporting purposes via our API.

Define bias amounts

You can define bias values for specific buyers and for specific buyer groups.

  • Define bias amounts for specific buyers
  • Define bias amounts for buyer groups

Biases can either be positive (preference) or negative (deterrent) values and defined as either a percentage or CPM.

  • Percentage - The buyer's bids will be modified by a certain percent.
  • CPM - The buyer's CPM bid will be modified by a specific amount.

Create a conditional bias rule

Create a conditional rule to affect buyer's or buyer group's bids on specific impressions. You can define a per-buyer bias by impression frequency, geography, segment, specific placement, category, or placement size.

Bias rule targeting

You can target bias rules using profiles created via the Profile Service. The following targeting parameters are applicable to a Bias Rule.

Frequency

You can choose whether to exclusively serve to users with known identifiers or also serve to anonymous (cookieless) users.

Geography

You can target specific countries, regions, metro codes, cities, or zip codes.

Warning

Be careful which geographic targeting options you choose; you may significantly reduce the likelihood of matching an impression. For more information, see the note below.

Important

A note on the accuracy of geographic targeting by IP address

Users of geographic targeting should expect some degree of inaccuracy; though targeting by country is highly accurate, the more specific the targeting, the more imprecise the results. This is especially true when targeting locations as granular as cities, metro codes, and zip codes.

Microsoft Advertising uses the IP lookup service provided by MaxMind. For more information, read about their GeoIP Technology or contact MaxMind directly.

Geographic targeting and boolean logic

When more than one targeting type is selected (e.g. both Region and Zip Code), the set of matching impressions is reduced, sometimes significantly. For example, if both the Boston MA-Manchester NH Metro Code and the City of Manchester, NH are selected, only users who are located in both will be targeted. Therefore, users in the City of Boston will not be included at all. Another example: if both the California Region and Chicago, IL Metro Code are selected, then NO users will be targeted since the Chicago metro code does not overlap with California.

  • Regions are a more granular target than Country. Generally speaking, regions are based upon whatever method the country in question uses to divide itself into parts. For example, regions within the United States are states. Canada is divided into its provinces, and India is divided into its states and union territories.
  • Metro codes are smaller than regions and are only available for US inventory. Available metro codes range from large cities such as New York, NY and Chicago, IL, to smaller cities such as Rochester, NY, Birmingham, AL, and Pittsburgh, PA.
  • A City is different than a Metro Code. It may be larger or smaller, depending upon your selection. Unlike metro codes, cities are not limited to US inventory. Cities from all around the world are represented, ranging from Tel Aviv, Israel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Segments

By default, if you are targeting multiple segments, users must be associated with all of the targeted segments in order for the rule to apply. You can change this to any of the targeted segments via the Profile Service. For more information, see Segment Targeting.

For segments, you can also define the length of time users have to belong to the segment in order for the rule to apply.

Supply

You can target specific placements, content categories, or placement sizes.

Note

If you target a specific placement, this rule will only apply to bids on that placement.

For content categories, you can specify if you want to allow unknown content categories for inventory that hasn't been categorized.