Inventory and Budgets

Inventory is the space a publisher has available for advertising. In traditional broadcasting, inventory is measured in spots; chunks of time on a broadcast schedule (typically 30 seconds) where ads can be placed. In digital advertising, inventory is measured in impressions. In TAP, inventory is described as the "available opportunities to play an ad," which is estimated by forecasting impressions based on the station or podcast's historical and trend data.

Value in TAP is measured in terms of impressions, which are converted to monetary value according to the CPMs applied to the campaign’s flights. TAP can also calculate value according to terrestrial radio advertising units (“spots”).

Currency

Every advertiser profile includes that advertiser's currency. When you create a flight, the rate is displayed in the advertiser's currency, regardless of the currency you use.

Impressions vs. Spots

The CPS (spots) pricing model is an optional feature that must be enabled for you by Triton Digital. To enable the feature, contact your Triton Digital Customer Success Manager.

TAP's workflows and calculations are designed to work with an impressions-based inventory model. You have the option, however, of working with spots if that's what you or your advertisers prefer. When setting up a campaign you can choose a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) or CPS (cost per spot) traffic method, and set the flights' goals, correspondingly, in impressions or spots.

When using spots, TAP presents your cost and goal calculations in the traditional way (CPS and Spot Play Goals), with a corresponding spot eCPM calculation alongside in some reports.

Bear in mind that even when delivering spot-based flights, TAP still delivers on a one-to-one basis in which each listener receives their own audio stream and ad selection. However, to accommodate spot-style delivery, TAP mimics the one-to-many format of traditional radio by playing the ads at about the same time (within the "spot delivery window") to all connected listeners. Using spot-based flights can result in some unexpected behaviors and reporting issues.

You can create both impression-based (CPM) campaigns and spot-based (CPS) campaigns in New TAP. However, you cannot mix impression- and spot-based flights within the same campaign. All of a campaign's flights must use either CPM or CPS pricing model, not both. For more information, see CPS (Spot-based) Flights.

Tip: In general, using spots instead of impressions is only advantageous when you have a small audience. To assess whether you should use spots or impressions, use the spots vs. impressions calculator found here. For more information about using spots, visit the Triton Digital Knowledge Base (search on "Spots").

Podcast Impression Delivery Measurement (IABv2)

Podcast delivery differs from in-stream or on-demand audio because there is usually a time separation between when the listener downloads the podcast and when they listen to it. Even when the listener consumes the podcast as it is downloading – the standard practice when using a smart speaker, for example – the players and servers treat the podcast and its stitched-in ads as if they are being downloaded for later consumption. The only difference with devices such as smart speakers is that their storage location for the file is temporary and not part of a podcast client application library.

These download and consumption scenarios create particular challenges when measuring whether or not stitched-in ads are actually heard by the listener, or what to do in the case of duplicate impressions.

Triton Digital provides IABv2 filtering to publishers using TAP Podcast. With IABv2 filtering, the advertising server logs are analyzed according to IAB Podcast Measurement Technical Guidelines to minimize duplication of impression records in order to arrive at usage data that more closely reflects true impression delivery measurement.

Specifically, the IABv2 filtering service analyzes the IP address and user agent (UA) of the server requests to eliminate apparent delivery impressions that are detected to originate from 'bots, bogus user agents, and other sources that are not actual human listeners.

Furthermore, the filtering looks for and eliminates duplicate impressions by analyzing factors such as the listener's IP address and user agent, along with the episode ID, and the position of the content as it goes to break, according to the IABv2 recommendations. These duplicate logs can occur for a variety of reasons. For example, a listener might begin listening to a podcast on their smart speaker in the morning, and stop listening after a few minutes. Later in the day they might finish listening to the podcast. If your impression delivery is based only on server records of dynamic ad stitching, this would appear to be two impressions (because when the listener re-started their listening session, the podcast is re-downloaded). With IABv2 filtering, Triton Digital's "deduplicator" can see that these two downloads have likely gone to the same person on the same day, so the duplicate is removed. The result is a more realistic and higher value impression.

IABv2 Filtering with the Triton Digital deduplicator works equally well with native TAP ads and with third-party trackers. The main differences is that a record of duplicated impressions for TAP ads are kept in the TAP database, while duplicate impressions for third-party trackers are discarded.

Triton Digital deduplicator process

With IABv2 filtering, the deduplication process results in a reduction in final delivered impressions, generally in the range of about 20%. Remember, however, that the remaining delivered impressions are more accurate, and thus potentially more valuable.