Auction Types

Here are the different types of auctions:

Sponsored Listings

Sponsored listings integrate promoted products into search results or category pages. These auctions allow vendors to promote specific products within relevant contexts. The /auctions endpoint is used to run these auctions.

There are three main types of sponsored listings:

1. Sponsored listings from a set of products: This allows auctions for a predefined set of product IDs. Only bids targeting these specific products will participate. You can also include custom quality scores for each product in the request, which are numbers between 0 and 1 indicating relevance.
2. Sponsored listings on category pages: These auctions are for products belonging to specific categories. Only bids that target products within the given categories will be considered. Categories can be specified using a single ID, multiple IDs (all categories), or disjunctions (at least one of the categories).
3. Sponsored listings in search results: These auctions are for products relevant to search queries. You can use the searchQuery parameter, or combine it with a predefined set of products to expand the list of bids.

Sponsored Banners

Sponsored banners enable the creation of auctions for banner advertisements on various pages, like homepages or landing pages. They can be used for homepage sliders, featured brands, and carousels. The /auctions endpoint is used for banner auctions, with the type field set to “banners”.

Banner auctions can be targeted based on:

1. Landing Pages: Create slots for high-traffic homepages or custom landing pages with unique SlotIDs, names, URLs, and image dimensions.
2. Category and Search: Allow vendors to target specific categories or keywords using the categoryId or searchQuery fields in the auction request.
3. Carousels and Swimlanes: Multiple banner winners can be requested for carousels or swimlanes by specifying the desired number of slots in the auction request.

Video Ads

Video ads are designed to enhance brand and product experience by showing products in action, boosting visibility, and engaging customers. Campaign creation for video ads mirrors that of banner ads, allowing for video upload and campaign configuration. Supported video formats include MP4 and MOV, with a duration of 6 to 20 seconds and a maximum size of 200MB. Marketplaces send a slot ID and optional details in the auction request and receive a video URL in the response.

Sponsored Brands

Sponsored brands auctions allow for the promotion of brands using assets, text, and an associated product. The dedicated endpoint for these auctions is /auctions/sponsored-brand. Key fields in the request include winners (maximum number of winners), placementId (ID of the ad placement), and triggers.products.ids (array of associated product ID).

Travel Listings

Travel listings involve a new auction endpoint and campaign model specifically designed for the travel use case, such as hotels and flights. This type of auction considers unique parameters like travel_window (timeframe for travel), day_of_check_in, and types_of_travelers (family, couple, solo, group). These parameters can influence bid amounts through multiplier values. The auction request for travel listings includes details such as type (hotels or flights), winners, products (with IDs and optional quality scores/prices), and a travelContext object with relevant travel-specific information.

Check the Running Auctions section in the API Reference for more information and examples on how to create Auctions.