Product guide
Marketplace, Handshakes & Deals
The marketplace connects publishers with traffic to advertisers with budget. No blind auction — the publisher requests, the advertiser decides.
What is the marketplace
It's the bilateral discovery surface. Advertisers publish approved ads with categories, geos and minimum reputation. Publishers browse, filter and request access (handshake) to serve the ones they want.
Handshake — the bilateral contract
A handshake is a formal request from publisher to advertiser. The flow has 10 states: draft → discoverable → requested → [proof_pending | under_review] → approved | rejected (terminal: expired, revoked, suspended_fraud). The advertiser can approve manually or set up auto-rules that evaluate reputation, geo and category automatically.
Publisher proofs
The advertiser can require proofs: domain (DNS), geo (GeoIP), category, volume, viewability and reputation. The system verifies automatically — declared must be less than measured.
DIRECT deal
When a handshake is approved, the system automatically creates a DIRECT deal. Default revshare: 88% publisher / 12% platform. The deal has eCPM floor, TTL (default 90 days) and eligible slots. Each impression served under the deal generates a credit in the ledger.
Serving priority
The priority order in /serve is: DIRECT > POOL > HOUSE > free. DIRECT deals have maximum priority. If no active deal, the system searches the cross-tenant POOL. If nothing, serves a HOUSE creative (platform-funded fallback). Never empty slot.
KPIs and ledger
Each deal has real-time KPIs: impressions, clicks, conversions, spend, IAB viewability. The credit ledger is append-only with daily reconciliation. CSV exports available per deal and per handshake.
Reverse demand
The publisher posts an inventory_request describing what type of campaign they're looking for. The system scores matches with compatible advertisers and notifies them. They can initiate a handshake directly. Lives in Reverse Demand on the dashboard.
