Epom PMP deal types compared — First price, Second price and Bid-floor (fixed) deals

Every PMP deal row on a campaign carries an Auction type, and Epom implements exactly three: First price, Second price, and Bid floor price (a fixed-price deal). On top of that, the Private auction toggle changes what is allowed to compete on the campaign. This page is the one-screen comparison — pick the auction type that matches the commercial agreement, decide whether to flip Private auction on, and understand what Epom deliberately does not offer. For the step-by-step setup of a deal row, see Manage PMP deals on a campaign; for the end-to-end selling recipe, Sell premium inventory through PMP private deals.

Who this is for

Network managers structuring a deal with a buyer and choosing its auction type. The RTB PMP deals card needs the RTB PMP Deals permission — ask your network admin if you don’t see it. You should already know how a PMP deal attaches to a campaign: this page is about the choice, not the mechanics of adding a row.

The three auction types at a glance

The Auction type is a per-row field on the Add/Edit deal modal. Its three values map to three commercial shapes:

Auction type	Commercial meaning	How the win clears	Reach for…
First price	Standard preferred deal — the buyer gets first look at a negotiated floor and pays what they bid.	The buyer pays their own bid (any bid at or above the deal floor is accepted).	The default preferred-deal arrangement; the buyer accepts pay-what-you-bid.
Second price	A preferred deal billed second-price — the buyer never pays more than just above the next offer.	The win clears one cent above the higher of the deal floor and the runner-up bid, never above the buyer’s own bid.	Buyers who negotiated second-price billing on the deal.
Bid floor price	A fixed-price deal — one agreed CPM, full stop. The classic “homepage takeover at $X CPM”.	Epom replaces the bid’s price with the deal floor before the auction, so the win clears at exactly the floor — see the corner cases below.	Sponsorships and takeovers sold at a flat, pre-agreed CPM.

All three are gated by the same rule: a deal bid must reference your Deal ID, come from the negotiated Buyer seat, and meet the deal floor — otherwise it is rejected. A valid deal bid then uses the deal floor in place of your open-auction placement/site floors (the deal terms are the contract). The auction-mechanics detail — including how a lone deal bid vs. multiple bids clears — is documented in the recipe’s How the auction treats deal bids.

Note: the Bid floor field (the price) and the Bid floor price auction type are different things. Every deal row has a Bid floor value; only the Bid floor price auction type makes that value the fixed clearing price. Under First/Second price the same field is a floor, not the settlement price.

The Private auction toggle — what competes

Private auction is a card-level switch on the campaign (it applies to the whole campaign’s bid requests, not to one row), and it saves the moment you click it. It changes which bids are eligible, independent of the per-row auction type:

Private auction	What is allowed to compete on the campaign’s bid requests
Off (default)	Deal bids and open-auction bids from the same partner compete side by side. The deal is a preferred arrangement layered over the open auction.
On	Only deal bids are accepted — open-auction bids referencing no valid deal are rejected. The campaign becomes deal-only.

Turn it on when the buyer expects exclusivity or a guaranteed-access feel and you don’t want open demand undercutting or crowding the deal. Leave it off when the deal is just a better-priced lane alongside your normal programmatic fill.

Putting it together — pick by intent

Your intent	Auction type	Private auction
”Give this buyer first look at a floor; they pay their bid.”	First price	Off
”Same, but bill them second-price.”	Second price	Off
”Sell the slot to this buyer at a flat $X CPM.”	Bid floor price	On (usually)
“This inventory is reserved for this buyer only.”	any	On
”Preferred pricing, but keep open demand competing too.”	First / Second price	Off

There is no programmatic-guaranteed deal type

Epom’s PMP is auction-based only. There is no programmatic-guaranteed / reservation deal type that locks a fixed impression volume, and no automated curated-package construct. The three auction types above are the whole menu.

If a buyer wants a guaranteed takeover, you approximate it with the tools Epom does have, not with a deal type:

• a Bid floor price deal for the fixed CPM,
• Private auction on so nothing else competes,
• tight campaign linking, targeting and limits on the dedicated campaign to reserve exactly the inventory and volume you promised (link only the covered placements, target only the agreed geo, cap to the agreed impressions).

That combination is Epom’s stand-in for a guarantee — the platform enforces the price and the exclusivity, and your linking/limits enforce the volume.

Corner cases and gotchas

Corner case: Bid floor price is enforced by Epom, not left to the buyer. The auction type travels to the DSP inside the deal object of the bid request, where it means “the floor is the agreed price”. When a deal bid comes back, a bid below the floor is rejected, and for a Bid floor price deal the bid’s price is set to the floor before it competes — whatever the buyer’s bidder sent above it. First price keeps the bid as sent.

Corner case: the auction type is per row; Private auction is per campaign. You can have several deal rows with different auction types, but the private/open decision is one switch for the whole campaign — you cannot make one deal private and another open on the same campaign.

Corner case: Private auction on with only country-scoped deal rows sends no bid request at all for traffic outside those countries — a private auction with no eligible deal is an invalid request and is dropped before sending. Add a Global (*) deal row if the deal must ride along on all traffic. (See the recipe’s corner cases.)

Corner case: a Bid floor price deal clears at the deal floor even if the buyer bids higher, and it competes at that floor against other bids — you leave money on the table if you priced the fixed deal below what the buyer would pay. Use First price if you want upside from a high bid.

Corner case: the deal floor overrides your open-auction floors in both directions. A generous placement Bid Floor does not protect you from a deal you priced too low — under any of the three types a valid deal bid clears at deal terms, skipping your open floors.

Corner case: there is no per-deal dimension in analytics. Regardless of auction type, if you attach several deals to one campaign their delivery blends into one set of numbers — one campaign per deal is the only way to measure each deal separately.

Per-role notes

• Network manager, advertiser — the card appears only once your network administrator grants RTB PMP Deals; whoever holds it picks the auction type. The deal terms come from the network’s side of the buyer relationship and the DSP partner behind them from your network administrator.
• Can view share — the auction-type field and the Private auction toggle are visible but disabled: you can read the deal structure, not change it.

Related

• Manage PMP deals on a campaign — the field-by-field card and row lifecycle
• Sell premium inventory through PMP private deals — the end-to-end recipe
• Create and edit a campaign
• OpenRTB (DSP) banners
• Configure DSP partners