Private Auctions, Preferred Deals and PG: A Publisher Primer

Most publishers who move from AdSense to Ad Exchange (AdX) start with the Open Auction, where buyers bid in real time with no prior agreement. Ad Manager also supports deals: arrangements where you set terms with specific buyers in advance. Google offers three main types, Private Auctions, Preferred Deals and Programmatic Guaranteed. This primer explains each one in plain English, how they fit with the rest of the auction, and what a smaller site realistically needs to know about them.

Open Auction as the baseline

The Open Auction is the default way AdX sells your inventory. Any eligible buyer can bid on an impression, the highest bid wins (subject to your floors and protections), and you never speak to the buyer. Google's help center notes that Ad Exchange demand can come from Google Ads and other buyers participating in the real-time bidding exchange.

Deals sit on top of this baseline. They give certain buyers better access, a set price or reserved inventory, usually in exchange for a commitment or a closer relationship. If a deal buyer does not bid, the impression can usually still go to the Open Auction, so deals add options rather than replace the open market.

Our guide to what Google Ad Exchange is covers the Open Auction and the buyers behind it if you need the basics first.

Private Auctions: invited buyers, floor prices

A Private Auction is an auction with a guest list. Google describes it as a way to control the sale of non-guaranteed inventory by inviting specific buyers to bid at set minimum floor prices.

How it works, based on Google's help page:

• You start it. All Private Auctions are initiated by the publisher, although a buyer may contact you to express interest.
• You set the terms. In Ad Manager, go to Sales > Private Auctions, create a new Private Auction, invite buyers, set minimum CPM floors and choose targeting. You can also give selected buyers priority over the Open Auction.
• The buyer accepts. The deal appears in the buyer's Authorized Buyers Marketplace. Unlike Preferred Deals and Programmatic Guaranteed, there is no negotiation step: once the buyer accepts, the deal is final.
• Winners are decided by auction. Invited buyers still compete, and if no valid bid clears the floor, the impression may go to the Open Auction instead.

Google also notes that since October 28, 2025, you no longer need to create a separate line item for a Private Auction deal. Creating the deal itself completes the setup.

Preferred Deals: fixed price, first look, no obligation

A Preferred Deal is a one-to-one agreement on price, without a promise from either side about volume. Google puts it this way: you and the buyer negotiate a price and terms for inventory that the buyer can optionally buy, and the buyer gets an initial, or "preferred", opportunity to bid at that price when a matching ad request arrives.

The key points:

• Fixed price. The buyer pays the negotiated CPM, not an auction price.
• First look. Google says the Preferred Deals line item type has a fixed priority that is typically higher than Private Auctions and the Open Auction.
• No obligation on either side. The buyer does not have to buy, and the inventory is not reserved. That is why Google calls Preferred Deals non-guaranteed: you remain free to sell the same inventory in a guaranteed campaign for a better price.
• Ties are random. If more than one Preferred Deal targets the same inventory at the same CPM and both are eligible for a request, Ad Manager picks the winning buyer at random.

Preferred Deals are negotiated through Programmatic Direct, the part of Ad Manager used for proposals with buyers.

Programmatic Guaranteed: reserved inventory, fixed price

Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) is the closest thing to a traditional direct-sold campaign, but bought and delivered programmatically. You and the buyer agree on a price and terms for inventory that is reserved for that buyer. Google states that the inventory is designated only for that buyer at that price.

What makes PG different:

• It is guaranteed. PG campaigns use the guaranteed line item types, Standard (with a contracted quantity of impressions) or Sponsorship.
• Delivery commitments matter. For Sponsorship deals sold on a cost-per-day basis, Google describes a daily billing threshold: if the campaign does not exceed the agreed minimum on a given day, the advertiser is not billed for that day and you are not paid for it.
• One type per proposal. A Programmatic Direct proposal can contain Programmatic Guaranteed line items or Preferred Deal line items, but not both.

How deals fit into dynamic allocation and UPR

Deals do not live in a separate system. They compete inside the same Ad Manager decision as everything else.

Dynamic allocation. This is the process that lets non-guaranteed demand compete with guaranteed line items in real time, impression by impression. Google's line item documentation explains that Sponsorship and Standard line items (which include PG) generally serve ahead of Preferred Deals, except when dynamic allocation is active and non-guaranteed demand competes with guaranteed line items in real time. Our guide to dynamic allocation walks through the opportunity cost logic behind this.

Unified pricing rules (UPR). UPR is where you set network-wide floors. Google's rules on where pricing applies are clear:

• Pricing rules apply to the Open Auction and to Private Auctions. Private Auctions also have an optional deal-level setting that lets a deal skip pricing rules that might otherwise block it.
• Pricing rules do not apply to Programmatic Direct campaigns, which includes Programmatic Guaranteed and Preferred Deal line items created there. The negotiated price is the price.

If you also run third-party demand, the guide on Open Bidding vs header bidding explains how those sources enter the same auction.

How deals work under MCM delegation

If you reach AdX through Multiple Customer Management (MCM), who sets up deals depends on the delegation type. Our guide on how MCM works covers both types in full; here is what matters for deals.

Manage Account. The inventory is managed in your own Ad Manager account, and the parent has edit access to work inside it while you keep access to all settings. Google's payment facilitation for Manage Account covers earnings from Preferred Deals, Programmatic Guaranteed, Private Auctions, Open Bidding and Open Auctions in your primary Ad Exchange account. The agreed revenue share, set in the invitation, applies to those earnings. Reporting for the account is shown in your network.

Manage Inventory. You delegate inventory to the parent, and it is managed in the parent's account. Any deals on that inventory are therefore set up and reported in the parent's network, where the parent can break performance down by child network code.

In both cases, deals are a conversation to have with your partner rather than a switch you flip. Ask who can propose deals for your inventory, how deal revenue shows up in your reports, and whether a buyer who approaches you directly should be routed through them.

What a small site realistically needs to know

Deals are powerful, but they are not where most smaller publishers start, and that is fine. A few honest points:

• The Open Auction comes first. You do not need deals to earn from AdX. Getting approved, serving cleanly and building steady traffic matter far more in the early months.
• Deals usually come from relationships. Google notes that Private Auctions usually result from external conversations where both sides agree to set up a deal. Buyers tend to seek out inventory that fits a specific audience or campaign, so a clear niche helps more than raw size.
• Someone has to manage them. Proposals, targeting, delivery checks and troubleshooting take time. If that is not you, it may be your MCM partner, so agree on this upfront.
• Guaranteed deals carry delivery risk. With PG, you are reserving inventory. If your traffic drops or the targeting is too narrow, delivery can fall short, and with some deal types that affects what you are paid.
• Clean inventory is a prerequisite. Buyers who agree deals tend to care about viewability, brand safety and traffic quality, and those overlap with what Google looks at when reviewing sites and traffic.

Next step

Deals only become an option once your site is monetizing through Ad Manager and Ad Exchange. Through an MCM partner, eligible publishers may receive an invitation to start with the Open Auction, subject to Google's policies, and can explore deals later as the relationship and traffic grow.

Check the requirements, then Get AdX access.