Strategy question

What are the different type of ad buying models?

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What this question tests

Baseline knowledge of ad tech buying mechanisms, important for anyone working in ad products at a company like Ask Media.

Start with the two broad categories: direct/guaranteed buying and programmatic buying.
Explain direct or guaranteed deals, where an advertiser negotiates a fixed price and volume directly with a publisher.
Explain programmatic real-time bidding, where impressions are auctioned in real time across an exchange.
Cover private marketplaces, a hybrid where select advertisers get first access to inventory via invite-only auctions.
Mention pricing models within these, CPM, CPC, and CPA, as a separate axis from the buying mechanism itself.
Tie it back to when each model fits, guaranteed deals for premium brand campaigns, programmatic for scale and efficiency.

Clearly separates buying mechanism (direct, PMP, open RTB) from pricing model (CPM, CPC, CPA) instead of conflating them.
Gives a concrete use case, for example a brand campaign using guaranteed CPM buys for premium video inventory, while a performance advertiser uses open RTB CPA buying.
Notes the tradeoff, guaranteed deals give predictability but less liquidity, programmatic gives scale but less control over placement.
Mentions private marketplaces as the middle ground many premium publishers now favor.

Conflating pricing models like CPM and CPC with buying mechanisms like programmatic and direct.
Only mentioning programmatic and ignoring guaranteed direct deals entirely.
Not giving any concrete example of when each model is used.

Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.