Routers allow you to control the distribution of requests between multiple supply tags.
Sitting between supply partner and tag in SpringServe hierarchy, routers are available in tabs displayed on the main supply page and on a supply partner’s page. On these tabs you can access existing routers and see their targeting and quickstats, as well as create a new router.
Routers in SpringServe allow a publisher to split inventory across multiple supply tags. Three primary use cases are as follows
Basic Settings including Name, Partner, Format, and Environment can be set in the first column of the Settings tab of a router. Note that once a router is saved, the supply partner and format cannot be changed. In the second column, add event pixels and expand the Advanced section to reveal Keys. Declare up to 5 keys on which to report. IVT options can be set on the router or the tag level. Selecting Router in Verification Settings will allow you to set pre-bid and post-imp options for any request flowing through the router. If Tag is selected, apply verification settings on the tag level.
Within a router, you can add supply tags and specify ratios for the inventory split. Supply tags with and without pods are supported in routers.
To add supply tags to a router, click the +Supply button. A modal will open showing the available supply tags. In order to be eligible, a supply tag must belong to the same partner.
Once supply tags have been added to the router they will appear in the index table. In the Ratio column, enter an integer value. The corresponding weight will be shown in the Weight column. For example, if you set ratios of 3 and 7, the displayed weights will be 30% and 70%. The weight dictates the split between router requests.
Each time SpringServe receives a usable router request, supply tag targeting is applied and then a tag is selected based on the remaining eligible tags and their ratios. If all tags in the router have the same targeting, request distribution will be split based on the displayed weights.
If the tags have different targeting, the request distribution may be different than the displayed weights, depending the traffic coming to the router. For example, if A is targeting US and B is targeting CA, a request from US will go to A 100% of the time, even though they both have a weight of 50%.
For any supply tag within a router, you can specify a fallback supply tag. If the request to the original supply tag does not fill, SpringServe will send the request to the fallback tag. to Add a fallback tag, click the +Fallback button in the index table and a modal will open. A tag cannot fallback to itself, but any other tag in the partner is eligible. To remove a fallback tag, click the pencil to open the modal, click the removal x in the search bar and click Apply to close the modal.
A common use case for a router with a fallback is for channel splits with a platform (e.g. Tivo, Roku) where the platform is allocated x% of requests and the publisher is allocated y% of requests. If a platform request does not fill, it can be passed to the publisher supply tag.
Like all other objects in SpringServe, targeting can be set on a router. The following targeting is supported for routers:
Any request that goes to the router must pass targeting on the account, partner, and router level before it is eligible to be passed to a supply tag.
On the Export tab of a router, you can copy the router url for implementation. Macros will be pre-selected based on the environment.
Additional metrics have been added for routed traffic and they are available in the reporting UI and API. Select metrics are also shown in router quickstats summaries.
In the UI, Router must be included in the dimensions or filter in order for these metrics to appear.
