Exploration QPS

Overview

Exploration QPS (Queries Per Second) provides Buyers with an ability to explore new inventory while minimizing the risk of a significant decline in traffic quality. This is achieved by allocating a small amount of QPS to a Buyer in order to allow them to create QPS-limited BidSwitch Targeting Groups with an option of disabling SmartSwitch. The QPS amount is calculated individually based on the Buyer’s average spend. Thus, Buyers get to explore new inventory, troubleshoot, and generally experiment with SmartSwitch while minimizing the spend on inventory not yet explored.

Similarly to SmartSwitch, the total Exploration QPS limit is split between Open Auction and Private deals traffic and distributed between the Buyer’s data centers. You can find more information on SmartSwitch and QPS in the SmartSwitch Overview section.

You will not be charged any additional fee for Exploration QPS.

Activating Exploration QPS

To activate Exploration QPS for your account, please go to Settings ‣ Data Center Controls and click on Request Exploration QPS. As soon as your request is approved, you will be able to see the current Exploration QPS limit and distribute it between data centers. You will also be granted an option to disable SmartSwitch for Open Auction and/or Private Deals. For the information on the QPS allowance available to you, please contact your BidSwitch account manager.

You can deactivate Exploration QPS at any time from the Data Center Controls page.

Warning

You cannot use both Exploration QPS and Distribution Fee in the same Targeting Group

Exploration QPS Benefits

  • Exploring new traffic

    SmartSwitch doesn’t send Buyers any significant amount of bid requests on inventory types that don’t fit your usual buying patterns. To explore such inventory, a Buyer can set up a new Targeting Group with Exploration QPS and disabled SmartSwitch, enabling more traffic to explore without the risk of performance decline.

  • Deal troubleshooting

    Set up a Targeting Group with dedicated QPS and a list of targeted Deal IDs to increase the number of bid requests featuring those IDs in order to speed up and ease troubleshooting.

  • Testing with partners

    When a Supplier partner invites you to evaluate new traffic that might interest you, set up a dedicated Targeting Group for this Supplier to let through a small amount of traffic in question.

Recommendations

This feature works best when you limit the scope of your testing to very specific pockets of traffic, particularly if you are going to disable SmartSwitch. We recommend considering the following options when creating a Targeting Group:

  • Spend time up front defining what you plan to test and then build the Targeting Group to achieve it

  • Do not try to run multiple tests within the same Targeting Group

  • Remember that Targeting Groups will have dedicated QPS amounts separate from the overall QPS allocation, so you do not need to turn SmartSwitch off in order to gain the benefit of using Exploration QPS

  • If you want to test the effects of turning SmartSwitch off, it is highly recommended that you use very specifically targeted types of traffic to see the best results, starting with single Supplier Targeting Groups. Some examples include:

    • Deal ID include list

    • Single Supplier + Geography restrictions

    • Single Supplier + Format restrictions