Inventory Routers

Owned by Kat Mareck
Last updated: Apr 17, 2020
4 min read

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.

Use Cases

Routers in SpringServe allow a publisher to split inventory across multiple supply tags. Three primary use cases are as follows

  • Inventory splits: deals with OTT infrastructure providers often call for a certain split between the platform and a channel. Routers allow you to accomplish this split with ease.
  • Custom ad experiences: control custom ad experiences based on supply tag targeting, which allows you to set different waterfalls based on the user.
  • A/B testing: set equal ratios between identically targeted supply tags to see how different demand stacks compare.

Setting up a Router

Settings

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.

Supply

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.

Add Supply

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. 

Set Ratios

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%.

Fallback

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. 

Targeting

Like all other objects in SpringServe, targeting can be set on a router. The following targeting is supported for routers:

  • App or Domain
  • Country & DMA
  • Player Size & Aspect Ratio
  • Device & Operating System
  • IP Address
  • User Segments

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.

Router Export

On the Export tab of a router, you can copy the router url for implementation.  Macros will be pre-selected based on the environment.

Reporting

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.

  • Router Total Calls: all usable router requests + platform, account, supply partner, and router targeting blocks + pre-bid blocks (only when pre-bid is set on the router level)
  • Router Requests: usable requests that passed targeting on the platform, account, supply partner, and router levels
  • Fallback Requests: requests that went to a fallback supply tag within the router
  • Router Missed Opps: usable router requests for cases where no supply tag met targeting or all supply tags have ratio of 0
  • Missed (Targeting): usable router requests that did not go to a supply tag because of tag targeting
  • Router Usable %: ratio of usable router requests to total router requests
  • Missed % (Targeting): percentage of usable router requests that were not passed to a supply tag due to supply tag targeting
  • Router Opp %: ratio of Opportunities to Router Usable Requests
  • Router Req Fill %: ratio of Impressions to Router Usable Requests