Bidding with In-House Mediation

Bidding Kit 3

In-house mediation is not publicly available

In-house bidding with Audience Network is currently in Closed Beta and is not publicly available. We'll provide further updates if this changes.

As an alternative, you can access Audience Network Bidding through one of the mediation platforms we partner with.

We will stop support for some of our in-house iOS client-side products

Bidding Kit 1, Bidding Kit 2, Bidding Kit 3 - both as a standalone solution and as an adapter for Bidding Kit Server) in Spring 2024.

This means that Audience Network will no longer respond to iOS bid requests coming via these products from this date.

In the Bidding Kit 3 section:

What is it?

Bidding Kit 3.0 is a lightweight SDK that acts as a client side adapter for publishers using Bidding Kit Server to enable bidding and improve yield. It comprises of:

  • Request / Response semantics: Constructs the request and parses the response to and from the Bidding Kit Server.
  • Adapters to various bidders: to enable bidders from a range of demand sources.
  • AB-testing to measure the incremental benefit of bidding to the publisher.
  • Well-defined interfaces between auction and traditional waterfall.

Who can use it?

In-house publishers using Bidding Kit Server.

It is not aimed at publishers using a mediation partner.

How does it work?

  • Bidding Kit 3 provides adapters to various bidders and well defined interfaces between auction and traditional waterfall, making it easier for publishers to make a request to Bidding Kit Server, and get a response.
  • The details of how the auction is implemented and how bidders are contacted for bids is abstracted out from Bidding Kit 3.0.
  • Bidding Kit 3.0 relies on SDK integrations for ad rendering and signal collection. This model enables demand sources to use their own technology, and retain direct relationships with publishers.

Architecture

Bidding Kit acts as a bridge between Bidding Kit Server and the mediation system in your app.

It does not manage ad loading and display logic; your existing system continues to handle this.

In practice, the flow is slightly more complex as Bidding Kit has to integrate with certain aspects of your mediation system. See System Flow for details.

System Flow

The flow works as follows:

  1. Upon launch, the mediation system retrieves waterfall config from server (standard implementation).

  2. For each impression opportunity, client-side mediation calls to Audience Network's bidding kit manager to run the auction logic and dynamically merge results with waterfall. (Auction Manager, Dynamic Merge, and Reporting are internal classes and are used here for illustration purposes):

    • Auction Manager - A first-price client-side auction runs, and a winner is chosen.
    • Dynamic merge - used as the bridge between bidding and the waterfall system, dynamically updates waterfall structure with real-time bids information.
    • Reporting - auction result is reported, including clearing price

  3. Ads are loaded in the background by the mediation system.

  4. Client logic attempts to display an ad (e.g. interstitial/video/etc.)

  5. The mediation selects the demand sources to display the ad based on price and availability

    • Reporting - the final winner is reported to all demand sources

  6. The mediation selects the right adapter and an ad is shown

  7. An ad is displayed and rendered by the appropriate SDK

See Also