Hotline Auction

Hotline Auction is a mechanism of your offer’s active promotion on Product Page.

On All Offers tab of Product Page, bids are displayed by default in Advertising sort, so the stores are ranked by their auction rates. Higher CPC bid - higher store’s position in this sort.

Please note! If you don’t bid, your Offer on All Offers tab of Product Page will be ranged by cost and quantity of clicks on your Offers in this Catalog.

Auction is held "on air" - with each viewing of offers by every buyer.

It is based on the Vickrey Auction (a type of sealed-bid auctions). The highest bidder wins but the price paid is the second-highest bid plus 0,1 UAH. So you should notice that the bid is, in fact, the store's proposal and it is not equal to the actual cost of the click.

Auction value of a click is charged only for the Advertising Sort’s conversions. Clicks from other sorts are charged by the base CPC or a special CPC. Your bid will not play in this case.

Ways to bid

There are three ways to bid: manual, automated (macros) and API.

Manual bidding is for the stores who want to assign static bets to specific sections / catalogs / brands / products.

Automated bidding (macros) allows creating an effective, automated process of product’s promotion, without developers. It is based on the use of dynamic rates for selected product groups (sections / catalogs / brands / products).

API bidding is for the stores who have the resources and want to set rates on their own original methods.

Manual bidding

For one-time group installation (static) rates, Manual bidding is used.

First of all, check the required sections / catalogs / brands / products.

Also the choice can be made based on the characteristic transmitted through the Custom field (for example, ROI, stock balances or other indicators that are important for the store at the moment). These data will be visible only for employees of this store. You can specify them directly in the product feed.

The parameter in the product feed is <custom>.

Attention! To apply the Custom field, you must have the <id> item in the product feed.

Then you need to select the action:

Bid
Raise the bids
Lower the bids
Set the bids lower than the maximum by N
Raise the bids to the maximum (+0,1 UAH)

And also specify additional restrictions (optional): set bids not higher and / or assign bids not lower.

Manual bids will be immediately applied to the selected products.

Automated (macros) bidding

Macros’ are used to automate bidding.

Macros is a mechanism of periodically changing the bid for selected sections / catalogs / brands / products, taking into account such key indicators as average position in Advertising Sort, deviation from the store-leader by number of clicks and total number of clicks or custom parameters of the store (Custom).

To create macros, you need to mark sections / catalogs / brands / products that are combined by some characteristic, or sent through the Custom parameter. Next you have to specify the frequency of launch: permanently, in the selected period or once. After that, specify one or more conditions, when macros should work: average position in Advertising Sort, deviation from the store-leader by number of clicks and total number of clicks.

Then you need to name the macros and set the maximum bid above which the macros will not be able to raise the bid.

After a successful creation the macros is put into the processing queue. Each macros calculates bids twice per hour.

The condition is checked for each selected group of products (sections, catalogs, brands, products) separately.

If the conditions are met, the bid will be increased by 10% of the indicated maximum rate, if not, the bid will be lowered by the minimum step (0,1 UAH). If the minimum (6,1 UAH) is reached, on the next step you will be out of bidding.

Example
You set an average position of at least 5th. But at the moment your offer is at the 7th position. So macros will increase your bid by 10% of your maximum bid every time you update (every 30 minutes) until you reach the specified position or specified maximum. And when you reach 5th position and above, your bid will go down by 0,1 UAH with each upgrade, until it reaches the minimum bid (6,1 UAH), and then you will be out of bidding.

After macros is created and activated you can stop it, edit it or delete it.

Rules of bidding

The last bid, regardless of the method, is valid.

Thus, it is possible that the macros rewrites manual bids and then API rewrites macros’ bid.

If you mark products that already have bids, the next time you bid, you must confirm the action (overwriting).
The priority of bids is: products, brand, catalog and section, regardless of the way of destination.

Example 1 If there is a bid on the X catalog set by the macros, and then the bid on the Y section set manually, then this manual bet is set to the products of this section except for the mentioned catalog.

Example 2 You set manually bid on the catalog X and then bids on some products from this catalog. The catalog bid will apply only to products without individual bids.
If you create several active macros that interact with the same product group (section, catalog, brand, product), then the bids will be set by the most priority among macros’.

The priority of macros’ is determined by their position in the macros’ table. The higher the position of the macros in the table, the higher is its priority. Attention! New macros get to the top of the table and automatically receive the highest priority.
If there is no bid on the product group (section, catalog, brand, product), the base cost will be used for the first bidding. So with an increase to the minimum step: New bid = 6,0 UAH + 0,1 UAH.

If the group of products already has a bid it will be used as the initial bid for the next appointment. So New rate = Current bid + 0,1 UAH.

Whatever the current bid, when it is increased, all the restrictions specified in the manual assignment or the macros will apply.

Example 1 If the product X has manually set bid 7,8 UAH and then you add macros to this product bidding, the macros will raise the current bid to the minimum step (0,1 UAH) and the bid will be 7,9 UAH.

Example 2 If there is manually set bid 20 UAH for catalog X and then some products from this catalog were added to macros with max bid 15 UAH – macros will bid 15 UAH for these products.

Auction in catalogs

In some catalogs, for example, in the sections Watches, bags, accessories; Sport, Active rest; Beauty and health, the placement in the Promo block is available. These are the top three positions highlighted:

Winners of auction are the shops with maximum bids. When a user clicks on a proposal from this block, he goes to the store page. The actual shop bid is charged.