Timing

A partner under a price list in auction mode has 1700 ms from the moment it is asked, and a partner under waterfall mode has 1500 ms.

An answer that misses the budget is not waited for and is not used. The platform drops that partner from the round and carries on with whoever did answer in time.

From the partner’s point of view nothing distinguishes this from losing: it is sent no loss notice, because as far as the auction is concerned it never answered.

A repeatedly failing partner stops being called for a while, and no operator action is needed to restore it.

Partners are asked at the same time. This is true within a priority group, across priority groups, and across the whole partner list of a price list in waterfall mode.

Adding a partner to a price list therefore does not add its timeout to what the screen waits for. It does add one more answer to compare, but the wall-clock budget stays the budget of a single round trip.

The wait is made of two round trips to demand partners, one after the other:

Under default settings the two together account for up to 3.2 seconds, plus the platform’s own processing time at either end.

Set the content management system’s timeout above that figure. A content management system that gives up earlier abandons a slot the platform has already sold: the win notice may already have been delivered, the decision may already have been recorded, and the play will simply never be confirmed.