Reserve Prices

Reserve prices (also called bid floors) set the minimum acceptable prices for your ad inventory, ensuring premium placements don’t sell below their value.

Why Reserve Prices Are Important

Protect Your Inventory: Prevent premium ad slots from being undersold in low-competition auctions while encouraging higher bids from autobidding campaigns.

• Revenue Protection: Maintain minimum yield from valuable ad placements
• Market Efficiency: Encourage competitive bidding
• Inventory Optimization: Differentiate pricing between premium and standard slots

Types of Reserve Prices

Sponsored Listings

Set minimum CPM and CPC per product category or geolocation:

By Product Category:

• e.g., Electronics: min $5 CPM,$0.50 CPC
• e.g., Fashion: min $3 CPM,$0.30 CPC

By Geolocation:

• e.g., New York: min $8 CPM,$0.65 CPC
• e.g., California: min $7 CPM,$0.60 CPC
• e.g., Texas: min $4 CPM,$0.35 CPC

Banner Ads

Set minimum CPM and CPC per specific slot:

• e.g., Homepage hero banner: min $15 CPM,$1.00 CPC
• e.g., Category page sidebar: min $8 CPM,$0.60 CPC

Setting Up Your Reserve Prices

As a marketplace retailer, you work with Topsort’s data science team to establish appropriate reserve prices for your ad inventory. This collaborative approach ensures:

• Strategic pricing that balances revenue protection with fill rate optimization
• Data-driven decisions based on your marketplace’s historical performance
• Contextual validation to ensure pricing changes make sense for your specific market

Configuration Process

1. Request pricing review - Contact Topsort to discuss your reserve pricing strategy
2. Provide inventory data

   • Share details about your categories and ad slot performance
3. Collaborate on pricing

   • Work with our data science team to set appropriate floors
4. Implementation

   • Topsort configures the reserve prices in your auction system
5. Monitor and adjust

   • Review performance and request adjustments as needed

Expert Validation Required: Reserve price changes are handled by Topsort’s data science team to ensure they align with your marketplace dynamics and don’t negatively impact overall performance.

Reference Format

When discussing reserve pricing with Topsort, you can reference inventory using these formats:

For Sponsored Listings (category-based pricing)

# CSV file with
category_id,category_name,cpm_reserve_price,cpc_reserve_price
electronics,Electronics,8.50,0.75
fashion-women,Women's Fashion,5.00,0.45
fashion-men,Men's Fashion,4.50,0.40
home-garden,Home & Garden,6.00,0.55
beauty-personal-care,Beauty & Personal Care,7.00,0.65
sports-outdoors,Sports & Outdoors,5.50,0.50
toys-games,Toys & Games,4.00,0.35
automotive,Automotive,9.00,0.80
books-media,Books & Media,3.00,0.25
health-wellness,Health & Wellness,6.50,0.60

For Sponsored Listings (geolocation-based pricing)

# CSV file with
location_id,cpm_reserve_price,cpc_reserve_price
new-york,9.50,0.85
california,8.00,0.70
texas,5.50,0.45
florida,6.00,0.50
illinois,7.00,0.60
washington,8.50,0.75
massachusetts,9.00,0.80
georgia,5.00,0.40
north-carolina,4.50,0.35
virginia,6.50,0.55

For Banner Ads (slot-based pricing)

# CSV file with
external_slot_id,slot_description,cpm_reserve_price,cpc_reserve_price
homepage-hero,Homepage Hero Banner,15.00,1.20
homepage-sidebar,Homepage Sidebar Banner,8.00,0.70
category-top,Category Page Top Banner,12.00,1.00
category-sidebar,Category Page Sidebar,6.50,0.55
product-page-top,Product Page Top Banner,10.00,0.85
product-page-related,Product Page Related Products,7.00,0.60
search-results-top,Search Results Top Banner,11.00,0.95
search-results-sidebar,Search Results Sidebar,6.00,0.50
checkout-banner,Checkout Page Banner,13.00,1.10
footer-banner,Footer Banner (All Pages),4.00,0.35
mobile-sticky,Mobile Sticky Banner,9.50,0.80
cart-page-banner,Shopping Cart Banner,8.50,0.75

Implementation

For technical details on how reserve prices integrate with auction logic, see the Integration Guide.

---

Last updated: 2025-11-18