- Who can buy?
- How is price set?
- What is committed?
- How is delivery counted?
Use this sequence to organize the investigation. Confirm the details in the affected platform and campaign.
Teams sometimes use PMP as shorthand for several private buying arrangements. That shorthand can hide the distinction between an invitation to bid, an optional fixed-price opportunity, and a guaranteed commitment.
Use the actual transaction type in the platform and the agreement between buyer and seller. The same troubleshooting advice should not be applied to every arrangement merely because a deal ID is present.
Private auctions: investigate participation and competition
A private auction restricts participation to eligible demand under its configured rules. Buyers still need to receive suitable requests, choose to bid, pass validation, and win.
When spend is low, inspect the request-to-bid and bid-to-win stages. An active setup does not prove a buyer must purchase the offered opportunities.
Preferred deals: separate an opportunity from a commitment
In Google's documented Preferred Deal arrangement, the buyer has an optional opportunity at negotiated terms and the inventory is not reserved in the same way as Programmatic Guaranteed.
If requests are offered but the buyer does not respond, investigate buyer eligibility and interest. Do not promise guaranteed delivery based only on the preferred-deal label.
Programmatic Guaranteed: check the booked terms
Google describes Programmatic Guaranteed inventory as reserved for the buyer at negotiated terms. Operational investigation therefore needs the commitment, forecast, delivery requirements, and the platform-specific behavior.
Check setup and request eligibility, but also calculate whether the remaining obligation is achievable. A resolved technical exclusion and a recovered delivery commitment are different milestones.
Confirm five things during handoff
- What exact transaction type is configured?
- Who is eligible to buy and which identifiers express that relationship?
- Is price negotiated or determined under auction rules?
- What, if anything, is committed or reserved?
- Which event and reporting basis are used to reconcile delivery?
Explain why identical symptoms need different questions
Two deals show no spend. In one, the buyer receives preferred opportunities but chooses not to bid. In another, a guaranteed campaign is excluded by a creative mismatch.
The first investigation concerns optional participation and buyer rules. The second includes correcting eligibility and assessing the remaining commitment. Raising a bid or changing a floor without identifying the arrangement could miss both problems.
Document the transaction before the correction
Include the agreement type, affected stage, sampled evidence, owner, and next verification in the incident record. If the commercial description and platform configuration disagree, resolve that mismatch with the owners.
Then use the deal troubleshooting checklist to locate the operational failure within the confirmed arrangement.