Funnel recipe: real-time ping/post auction for max revenue

When several buyers can pay for the same lead, a static waterfall leaves money on the table. This recipe runs Highest Bidder with ping/post buyers so each lead goes to the best live bid — then falls through if the winner’s post fails.

Why auction instead of waterfall

Waterfall is great for guaranteed preference. Auction is great when price discovery matters more than a fixed VIP order. If your vertical has competitive ping/post demand, Highest Bidder is usually the revenue-maximizing default.

What you need

• The campaign's distribution step set to Highest Bidder
• Buyers configured for ping/post with bid extraction
• A minimum price on that step that matches your margin model
• Optional multi-step ping (validate, then bid) if partners support it
• Filters, caps, and schedules so ineligible buyers never enter the auction

Build it

1. Open the campaign's Distribution tab and find the How leads get sold card.
2. Open the last step, Everything else, and set its strategy to Highest Bidder.
3. Set that step's Minimum price so sub-floor bids never win.
4. Check the step's buyer list holds the buyers you want competing, and remove any that should not.
5. For each buyer, confirm ping endpoint, post endpoint, and response mapping that extracts the bid and the accept or reject outcome.
6. Attach filters (geo, age, vertical fields) so you only ping buyers who can buy that lead.
7. Optional: add a second ping step when you want a cheap validation hop before the priced bid.
8. Caps and schedules: keep daytime VIP buyers from soaking overnight volume they do not want.
9. Run a controlled test lead and read the ping log: concurrent pings, winning bid, post attempt, and any fallback to the next bid.

If only some of your traffic should be auctioned

An auction is the right answer for traffic you own and want priced. It is often the wrong answer for a partner feed you buy at a fixed cost under a contract that already names the buyer.

Rather than splitting that into a second campaign, add a step above Everything else, point its conditions at that supplier or channel, and give it its own strategy and buyer list. The auction stays on your own traffic, the partner feed runs its ladder, and both share one set of fields, filters and supplier credentials.

Use the simulator on the same card to confirm each source lands on the step you intended before you send real volume.

Expected behavior

• Eligible buyers are pinged together
• Highest valid bid wins the post
• On post rejection, the next-highest bid is tried
• The source-facing payout reflects your margin rules — not necessarily the raw buyer bid

Edge cases

• A buyer with broken bid extraction looks “alive” but never wins — fix mapping before blaming the auction
• Zero-bid CPA partners do not belong in this pool; put them in a lower Advanced tier instead, with that tier's floor set to zero or they are filtered straight back out
• Over-tight filters can leave you with a one-buyer “auction”

What’s next

Once the auction is stable, add an Offer Wall on the thank-you page for leftover attention, and use rejection analytics to see which buyers ping high then post-reject.