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How a campaign prices a click

Explains: D-019-01, D-B1-15, D-CPC-20, D-CPC-21, D-CPC-25, D-AUTH-09, D-JL-07, D-019-02, specs/007-pricing-modes#req-003, specs/007-pricing-modes#req-004, specs/007-pricing-modes#req-005

A click carries two prices: what the customer is billed and what the publisher is paid when the click is billable and payable (click reasons). The difference is your margin. A campaign's bidding sets only the publisher's price; it never changes what the customer is billed (D-CPC-21).

What the customer is billed

The customer's price for a job is the price the customer's own feed states for that job (or a fixed price set for every job in the feed's mapping), and when the feed states none, the customer's default advertiser CPC. No campaign setting changes it (specs/007 REQ-003, D-CPC-20). A price the feed states that ClickFactor cannot read makes the job invalid instead (invalid_cpc).

What the publisher is paid: five ways to bid

"How we pay the publisher" on the campaign form offers five choices (specs/007 REQ-003). A new campaign starts on Mark down by a percent (specs/007 REQ-004).

  • Pass the feed price through: the publisher is paid what the customer is billed, so margin is $0.00. At $1.20, the publisher gets $1.20.
  • Mark down by a percent: the publisher gets the customer's price less a percentage. At $1.20 and 20%, the publisher gets $0.96 (D-B1-15). Left blank, the percentage is the customer's own Target margin (specs/007 REQ-003).
  • Mark down by a dollar amount: the publisher gets the customer's price less a fixed amount, never below $0.00. At $1.20 less $0.10, the publisher gets $1.10.
  • Use the advertiser's default bid: the publisher gets the customer's Default publisher bid, whatever each job's own price.
  • Set a flat bid for this campaign: the publisher gets exactly that amount, whatever each job's own price.

Every price is worked out to four decimal places, rounded half-up.

The list says which way a campaign bids

The Bidding column reads the mode and its figure, such as "20% markdown", "$0.25 markdown", "Advertiser default ($0.60)", "$1.25 flat" or "Passthrough" (specs/007 REQ-004).

A bid above the customer's price is warned, not refused

The last two choices can pay a publisher more than a job earns. The form then warns, for example "Loses money on 3 of 40 matched jobs — worst case -$0.25 per click", and still saves the campaign: you may mean to pay more to win volume (D-CPC-25, specs/007 REQ-004). A campaign that matches no jobs yet says so instead of showing a margin. Whatever your role, setting a flat bid above $5.00 per click asks you to confirm it before it is saved (D-AUTH-09, specs/007 REQ-005).

When a price change takes effect

Each link in a publisher's feed carries both prices, set by the latest published build that included that link, and a click is priced from its link alone, never at the moment of the click (D-JL-07). Changing a campaign's bidding, or a price in the customer's feed, asks for a new build of the publishers' feeds (D-019-02). From that build on, every click on a link the build includes pays the new prices, even from a copy of the feed the publisher took before the change. If the change moves a job to another campaign, the publisher gets a new link for it, and the old link keeps its old prices for its 24 hours (D-019-01).