Google moves all auctions to first price by late July

Google Ad Manager will move to a first-price auction, Google announced last month. Google says the transition will be made gradually and the open auction pricing rules will be replaced with the unified pricing rules.

The schedule for the first-price auction was published for the first time this month and starting now, publishers are having access to the new unified pricing rules feature. Publishers start creating new rules to set floor prices for traffic across Ad Exchange, Exchange Bidding, and non-guaranteed line item demand.

Google's schedule to first-price auction

In late May, one percent (1%) of the Ad Exchange traffic will be transitioned to a first-price auction, where the closing price is determined by the highest net bid in the auction. Only unified pricing rules will apply to first-priced bids.

Starting in June, the percentage of the Ad Exchange traffic transitioned to the first price auction will increase to five percent (5%), where the Ad Exchange closing price is determined by the highest net bid in the auction.

By late July, all Ad Exchange traffic will have been transitioned to the new auction dynamics - unified auction plus first price auction. Open Auction pricing rules will no longer apply to any percentage of Ad Exchange traffic, and only unified pricing rules will be employed.