Create payment rules

Payment Rules represent a financial agreement between a network and a publisher. A network may have a single payment rule for all impressions from a publisher, or it might have a Base rule that serves as a default. More specific Conditional rules that apply to individual impressions based on geography, frequency, or other targeting can be defined.

For each publisher, you will create one base rule specifying either revenue sharing or CPM payment terms. This rule will apply when no more specific conditional rule applies. For more information about base rules, see Base and Conditional Rules.

Step 1. Set a base payment rule

When you create a publisher, you must create a base payment rule. Navigate to the Payment Terms tab and choose one of the Pricing Type options from the dropdown:

• Revenue share: Indicate the percentage of network revenue that you will give to the publisher.
• CPM: Indicate the dollar amount that you will give to the publisher when a creative is served (as a CPM amount). Also, you can indicate that you will pay this amount even when a default creative is served by checking the checkbox for CPM payment should be applied when a default is served.

You cannot create nor edit a publisher's base payment rule from the Update Payment Rules screen.

Step 2. Set conditional payment rules (Optional)

From the main menu, select Publisher > Payment Rules > Publisher Tab to create a conditional payment rule. Conditional rules are like base rules except you may adjust the priority of the rules, they have start and end dates, and they have targeting options. For more information, see Base and Conditional Rules.

Enter payment rule details

• Name: Enter a name for the rule.
• State: Indicate whether this rule is Active or Inactive.
• Priority: Select the order in which this rule will be considered when compared to other active payment rules.Priorities can be from 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest priority and 10 being the highest priority. In general, rules with a higher number of conditions should be assigned a higher priority, especially if there are matching conditions in both rules, to ensure that the most detailed rule is applied. For more details, see Base and Conditional Rules.
• Date Range: In the Start Date fields, enter the date and time when this rule will become active. In the End Dates fields, you can either select Run Indefinitely to have no end date, or you can enter the date and time that the rule will expire. You can set dates to coordinate with specific campaigns so as to turn them on when a campaign begins, or to turn them off when a campaign ends.
• Pricing Type: Choose one of the Pricing Type options from the dropdown:
  • Revenue share: Indicate the percentage of network revenue that you will give to the publisher.
  • CPM: Indicate the dollar amount that you will give to the publisher when a creative is served (as a CPM amount). Also, you can indicate that you will pay this amount even when a default creative is served by clicking the checkbox for CPM payment should be applied when a default is served.

Setting targeting

Frequency

You may apply payment rules based on the frequency and recency with which a user sees the publisher's placements. You can cap the frequency by day or over the payment rule's lifetime, and you can cap recency (the amount of time between each view) by minutes, hours, or days. You may also apply browser session frequency caps. For more information, see Frequency and Recency Caps.

Geography

You may target by Country, Region, Metro Code, City, or Zip Code. Learn more about each of these options below.

Accuracy of geographic targeting by IP address

Users of geographic targeting should expect some degree of inaccuracy; though targeting by country is highly accurate, the more specific the targeting, the more imprecise the results. This is especially true when targeting locations as granular as cities, metro codes, and zip codes.

Microsoft Advertising uses the IP lookup service provided by Digital Envoy. For more information, contact Digital Envoy directly.

Geographic targeting and boolean logic

When more than one targeting type is selected (e.g. both Region and Zip Code), the set of matching impressions is reduced, sometimes significantly. For example, if both the Boston MA-Manchester NH Metro Code and the City of Manchester, NH are selected, only users who are located in both will be targeted. Therefore, users in the City of Boston will not be included at all.

Another example: if both the California Region and Chicago, IL Metro Code are selected, then NO users will be targeted since the Chicago metro code does not overlap with California.

For more information about Boolean Logic, see Segment Targeting.

Country

You may Include all countries, Include United States only, or choose to include or exclude specific countries. Choose from the list of countries in the Available List area to the left, and click Add to add them to the Chosen List.

Region

Region is a more granular target than Country. Generally speaking, regions are based upon whatever method the country in question uses to divide itself into parts. For example, regions within the United States are states. Canada is divided into its provinces, and India is divided into its states and union territories. You may include or exclude regions by choosing from the Available Regions list on the left for addition to the Targeted Regions on the right.

Metro codes

Metro codes are smaller than regions; are only available for US inventory. Available metro codes range from large cities such as New York, NY and Chicago, IL, to smaller cities such as Rochester, NY, Birmingham, AL, and Pittsburgh, PA. You may include or exclude metro codes by choosing from the Available List on the left for addition to the Chosen List on the right.

City

A City is different than a Metro Code. It may be larger or smaller, depending upon your selection. Unlike metro codes, cities are not limited to US inventory. Cities from all around the world are represented, ranging from Tel Aviv, Israel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. You may include or exclude cities by choosing from the Available Cities list on the left for addition to the Targeted Cities list on the right.

Zip code

Unlike the other settings listed here, targeting by Zip Code is include-only. Exclude certain zip codes by entering only those you want to target. Like metro codes, zip codes only apply to US inventory. You may enter lists of 5-digit zip codes in the Zip Codes text area in one of the following formats:

• Comma-separated
• Newline-separated

For more information about common formatting errors, see the Zip Code Formatting Errors section.

Enter zip codes

You may paste up to 4000 zip codes into the text area. As noted above, it accepts lists of zip codes using several different delimiters. Press Validate, and the system will verify that your zip codes are formatted correctly. For more information about what to do if the system detects a formatting error, see the Zip Code Formatting Errors section.

Zip code formatting errors

If your list of zip codes is formatted incorrectly, you will be presented with an error message and given the chance to edit and resubmit your zip codes. Those zip codes that failed the formatting validation will be listed above the line marked "See Errors Above" inside the text area. If you hover over the help bubble to the right of the text area, you will be presented with a list of the most common errors:

• Excel-Truncated Zeros: Excel may truncate leading zeros from zip codes when copy-pasting, e.g. '06514' becomes '6514'. To prevent this from happening, set the cell formatting of your spreadsheet to Zip Code under the Numbers header of the Format Cells dialog. For more details, see the Excel Zip Code Formatting section.

• Postal Codes, Zip+4: Only 5-digit numeric US zip codes are accepted, e.g. '12804'.

• Colons in Ranges: Use hyphens rather than colons to denote ranges, e.g. '10001-10010'.

• Descending Ranges: Descending ranges of zip codes are not supported. Use ascending ranges instead, e.g. '12561-12804'.

Excel zip code formatting

Under the Number tab of the Format Cells dialog, select a Category of Special and a Type of Zip Code.

Size

You may create different publisher rules based on the size of the placement (standard or unique).

Placements

You may include or exclude particular placements from being covered by the payment rule.

Step 3. Edit base or conditional rules (Optional)

You may edit your base or conditional rules at any time in the Payment Rules section located within the Publishers tab.

Related topics

• Working with Payment Rules
• Update Payment Rules
• Base and Conditional Rules