CTV yield management is the publisher-side practice of maximising revenue per available ad break. The key equation: eCPM = CPM × Fill Rate. A high floor that results in low fill earns less per impression than a moderate floor with high fill. Publishers optimise this balance through floor segmentation, demand competition, and auction structure.
What is yield management in CTV?
Maximising revenue per available impression through three levers: floor price (minimum bid accepted), demand competition (number of SSPs competing), and deal priority (how direct, PMP, and open exchange are sequenced). Setting floors too high kills fill rate; too low leaves CPM on the table. India CTV publishers use dynamic soft floors segmented by content type, daypart, and geography to balance these trade-offs.
Why is a unified auction better than a waterfall for CTV yield?
A waterfall gives the first SSP an advantage over all others and adds 100–400ms latency per sequential hop. A unified auction (server-side header bidding via Prebid Server or SpringServe) sends simultaneous bid requests to all SSPs — the highest bid wins regardless of position. Publishers switching from waterfall to unified auction typically see 15–30% CPM uplift. For India publishers using SpringServe or Freewheel, unified auction integration with multiple SSPs is the standard recommendation.
What fill rate should India CTV publishers expect?
Open exchange fill rates: 50–70% for mid-tier publishers; 70–85% for premium publishers with multiple SSP integrations. IPL season raises fill significantly for cricket content. Off-peak hours are typically lower. Unfilled breaks mean zero revenue and a worse viewer experience — always configure house ads as the fill-of-last-resort fallback.
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In-depth article: CTV yield management for India publishers