Frequency Caps

When trafficking a Campaign and/or Line Item, you have the option of setting a Frequency Cap to restrict the number of times a particular ad will be shown to a particular user. Frequency is typically determined by the ID found in the bidRequest.user.buyeruserID or device.ifa openRTB fields, which correspond to the AIDEM DPS cookie ID on web traffic, and the mobile device ID on in-app traffic. Additionally, AIDEM has optional support for enhanced frequency capping on IP Addresses, IDFV, proprietary customer IDs, and cross-device IDs.

To find this feature, when logged into the UI click +New > Line Item (or Campaign).Frequency Cap settings can be found in either the Edit Line Item (or Edit Campaign) screen under the Delivery & Bidding section.

Frequency Caps can be set at either, or both levels, within AIDEM DSP. Frequency Cap functionality remains the same at either level, although its effect upon delivery can vary depending on implementation. When using Enhanced Frequency Capping, you will need to ensure that the type of ID is uniform on both the Campaign and Line Item, if a cap is set on both levels.

A frequency cap is expressed in terms of a count (N) and a duration (M): "Show line item X to each user no more than N times every M hours/days/weeks." Durations of hours, days, and weeks represent rolling windows of time. For example, a cap of "1 impressions per hour" means that a user who sees an impression at 8:59am will not be eligible to see that line item again until 9:59am. Please note that the maximum duration of any discrete frequency cap is 30 days (or 2,592,000 seconds).

It is recommended to implement Frequency Caps at the most granular level (e.g. Line Item level), although additional use cases are supported. Implementing Caps at the Campaign level can exhibit different behavior than if implemented at the Line Item level (and different still if implemented across both, depending on Campaign and Line Item setup).

Example: For example, you may wish to cap ads at 2 times per day. Consider that you have a single Campaign (A) with three associated Line Items (1), (2) and (3), each with their own respective targeting criteria.

Campaign Level Implementation

A user requests an ad 6 times in a given day and matches the targeting of all Lines Items. They could be shown any combination of Lines (1), (2) OR (3) for at most of TWO total ads.

Line Item Level Implementation

A user requests an ad 6 times in a given day and matches the targeting of all Lines Items. They could be shown Lines (1), (2) AND (3) at most of two times EACH (or SIX total ads).

Campaign AND Line Item Level Implementation

A user requests an ad 6 times in a given day and matches the targeting of all Lines Items. They could be shown any combination of Lines (1), (2) OR (3) for at most of TWO total ads. In other words, the Line Item Cap would be superseded by the Campaign Cap.

Campaign and Line Item Caps

If setting a frequency cap at both Campaign and Line Item levels, the Frequency Cap ID Type will need to match on both objects. However, you are able to set different ID Types on different Line Items within a Campaign if a cap is not set at the campaign level.