The reality is that the CTV space is still young and unregulated. The data associated with these bid requests is still unstandardized, incomplete, and fragmented. Although app, time of day, postal code, network, channel, title, and series are available fields in the bid request they are usually only partially populated. For example, some requests come in with only network and channel populated while others come in with title and series; some have just one and others have everything. Adding to the confusion, not only is the level of data transparency inconsistent across the industry, but the fields are inconsistently populated within bid requests from the same PMP, publisher, or media owner. (read more in blog written by our CTO, Erik Thorson: Transparency in CTV: Are we ready to take on Linear?)

The Pontiac platform is built to provide full transparency at every step of your media buying process. The following tools allow Pontiac users to be fully informed

• Inventory Discovery Tool: browse available inventory from publisher to title
• Inventory Availability Tool: create granular forecasts for specific inventory, geos, audiences etc.
• CTV Landscape Tool: evaluate transparency levels and data shared by publisher & deal
• Sample Log Data: get access to every parameter in sample bid requests by deal

Search through available CTV inventory to discover Publishers, Networks, Channels, Series, Titles and Genres for campaign targeting. The Inventory Discovery tool is a fully searchable & comprehensive list of all unique combinations seen in the CTV bid requests.

With great inconsistency across the CTV landscape in where and how inventory information is shared in the request, this tool can be used to create well-informed targeting lists and find the variations in formatting for the desired inventory. For example, you may find that when searching for ‘Fox News’ that there are many different ways this could be targeted depending where the inventory is coming from:

• Publisher: fox news
• Network: fox
• Network: fox networks
• Network: fox news
• Network: fox television stations
• Network: foxnewsnow
• Network: fox news channel
• Network: fox_news
• Channel: fox news
• Channel: fox news channel
• Channel: foxnewsnow
• Channel: fox_news

When applying targeting lists to CTV lines or campaigns, the naming conventions will need to be exact matches to the values passed in the bid request, or the impression will not be considered eligible.

Other inconsistencies can be seen in the usage of the different inventory fields. For example, you will see when searching for ‘MSNBC’, in some cases this is passed as the channel, in other cases the network and occasionally it is passed in both fields.

Once you have found values of interest, click on the name in the table to add it to your targeting list and create a forecast report with estimated available impressions, reach, pricing and additional information about where and how this Publisher, Network, Channel, Series, Title or Genre can be purchased.

The Inventory Availability Tool is a forecasting tool designed to provide Advertisers with data and information regarding the inventory that can be purchased through the Pontiac Bidder. Using historical data and delivery trends, sample log data, as well as the Pontiac forecasting formula, Inventory Availability reports provide insights for planning successful media buying strategies. These reports can be utilized to discover & create inventory targeting lists, check the feasibility of a combination of targeting parameters, inform bid strategy, and estimate available scale.

To create an Inventory Availability Report, log in to the Pontiac platform and use the switch in the top right corner to enter the ‘ART’ section of the platform. If you do not see the ‘ART’ button, reach out to the Pontiac Support Team through the Help Center. Once you are in the ‘ART’ section, open the ‘Inventory Availability’ tab. Click the ‘New Report’ button. Give the report a name and select the end date of the report. The start date will automatically populate for 90 days before the end date selected.

Select the ‘CTV’ button to create a forecasting report for the Pontiac CTV platform.

Then select ‘Edit Targeting’ and select one or more targeting parameters for which you would like to create a forecast report from the following:

• Deals
• Exchanges
• Geo: State, DMA or Zip Code. Inventory report data is limited to the United States at this time.
• Livestream: Check the box to filter the report to only content viewed live. If unchecked, the report will include both live and on demand content.
• App Lists: App lists will first need to be created in the ‘Inventory’ tab of the CTV platform. Enter bundle ids
• Device Types: TV, Game Console, Media Player , Set Top Box

Allow or block a list of CTV inventory. The ‘Inventory Discovery’ tool can be used to find ideas & select values to create targeting lists if you do not have pre-selected inventory parameters.

• Channel
• Network
• Publisher
• Genre
• Series
• Title

‘AND’ targeting is applied between the inventory targeting parameters. This means that an impression must contain a value from each list to be eligible. For example, if you apply a Channel list and a Network list, the impression must contain a value from the Network list in the Network field and a value from the Channel list in the Channel field. In the ‘Audience’ section, Pontiac ART audiences can also be selected for targeting.

Associate Audiences

Custom audiences, third party audiences from TransUnion, contextual audiences or ART audiences can be included in these reports to estimate available impressions to these audiences. To add audiences, click the ‘Associate Segments’ button, then drag the desired audiences to the right-hand side of the window to include audience targeting in the report.

Once you have selected the desired targeting parameters, click ‘Save Report’. The report status will appear as ‘Pending’ while the report is generating. Once the status has changed to ‘success’ you will be able to open the report and view the results.

Report Summary:

• Forecasted Available Impressions: This will display the estimated number of daily impressions available with the selected targeting parameters.
• Total Impressions: This number indicates historical delivery on the platform with the selected targeting parameters for the report dates.
• Unique IFAs: Unique device ids seen on the selected inventory, this can be used to estimate campaign reach at the device level.
• Unique IPs: Unique IP addresses seen on the selected inventory, this can be used to estimate campaign reach at the household level.

Chart Data:

Charts will generate for Deals, Exchanges, Channel, Network, Publisher, Genre, Series, Title, Apps, Device Types, Live vs. On Demand and Zip Codes providing a list of available values for each and the number of available impressions, the average floor CPM, the number of unique IFAs and unique IPs. The floor CPM is the minimum bid required to serve on this inventory.

Sample Request Logs:

Sample request logs at the bottom of the report will provide further insight into the combinations of parameters that can be found in a single impression. For example, if you selected a deal in the targeting section of the report to discover the inventory available in this PMP, the charts provide a list of available Networks and a list of available Channels, the Sample Requests show which Networks provide access to those Channels etc:

The CTV Landscape tool provides transparent insights into the data available for targeting and reporting across the accessible publishers and deals through the CTV bidder. With great inconsistencies in the information shared by each media owner across the CTV industry, this tool can be leveraged in the research and planning process to align campaign goals and expectations with available targeting and reporting capabilities.

To measure the level of transparency for CTV inventory, we are evaluating the percentage of bid requests (or impressions) that contain the following information:

• Title
• Series
• Channel
• Network
• Full IP

By aggregating the data in bid requests from the Pontiac CTV Bidder, we can provide full transparency on the level of data shared by each publisher and by each Deal on the platform so you know exactly what you will get out of your campaigns, no surprises!

Reports are sortable by each field, click on the name of a field to order the report from lowest to highest or vice versa. Assess the inventory available with 100% reported rates on the parameters most important to your brand or search for the publishers and deals of interest to see which information they consistently share. Optimize your campaigns towards full transparency using the transparency scores to choose deals or create publisher targeting lists.

Deal Sample Logs

Click on the name of any deal to review 50 sample logs for impressions through that deal ID. This table provides full insight into every piece of information that the bidder receives from the deal provider for each impression to enable users to make fully-informed buying decisions. Troubleshoot delivery issues with full access to pertinent information such as creative bit rate requirements, blocked creative content categories, and more. Delve into common device makes & models, device language, content ratings, and more, for a complete picture of exactly what is in each deal. For more information on the values passed in some of these fields, see here: Log Level Reporting

As the Pontiac bidder receives millions of bid requests each day, we collect a random sample and store the log level data for these requests to provide insight into all available inventory for forecasting & targeting purposes. Pontiac users can export csv files that contain all of the unique combinations across the inventory parameters available for targeting. This tool can be used to create informed targeting or block lists on your CTV campaigns. See Challenges in the CTV Landscape & Inventory Discovery Tool for more information.