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

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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

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Types of Reserve Prices

Set minimum CPM and CPC per product category or geolocation: By Product Category:
  • e.g., Electronics: min 5CPM,5 CPM, 0.50 CPC
  • e.g., Fashion: min 3CPM,3 CPM, 0.30 CPC
By Geolocation:
  • e.g., New York: min 8CPM,8 CPM, 0.65 CPC
  • e.g., California: min 7CPM,7 CPM, 0.60 CPC
  • e.g., Texas: min 4CPM,4 CPM, 0.35 CPC
Set minimum CPM and CPC per specific slot:
  • e.g., Homepage hero banner: min 15CPM,15 CPM, 1.00 CPC
  • e.g., Category page sidebar: min 8CPM,8 CPM, 0.60 CPC

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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

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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.

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Reference Format

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

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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

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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

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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

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Implementation

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