Waterfall Mode
In waterfall mode, CityScreen Context asks every demand partner in the price list at the same time and takes the first usable answer to come back.
This page is for the owner, admin and manager employees choosing a price list’s mode.
What happens
Every demand partner the price list admits is asked concurrently. The winner is whichever answer arrives first and carries a bid, and it is charged the amount it bid.
Three consequences follow.
- Price
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The winner is charged the amount it bid. No prices are compared, so the second-price clearing rule described in How the winner is chosen does not apply.
- Order
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The partner list is flattened before anyone is asked, so priority groups and the sequence the partners were entered in have no effect on the outcome.
- Declines
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If the first answer carries no bid, the request ends without an answer.
When waterfall mode makes sense
Waterfall mode suits a single-partner arrangement, or a set of partners whose prices are already agreed elsewhere and where latency matters more than yield. Its practical merit is that the answer comes back as soon as the fastest partner has spoken.
For anything where price should decide, use an RTB price list in auction mode. That is the mode behind ordinary real-time bidding on this platform.
Timing
A partner in waterfall mode has 1.5 seconds to answer. See Timing budget.