What is Programmatic Guaranteed (PG)?
Programmatic guaranteed (PG) is a deal in which a buyer and seller agree a fixed price and a reserved volume of impressions in advance, then deliver and bill the campaign through programmatic technology instead of manual ad serving.
Also known as: PG, Programmatic direct, Automated guaranteed
How it works
Programmatic guaranteed starts like a classic direct deal. The buyer and seller agree the inventory, the dates, the number of impressions and a fixed price, usually a CPM (cost per thousand impressions). The difference comes at delivery.
Instead of the publisher trafficking the buyer's creatives into its own ad server, the seller sets up the agreement as a programmatic deal with a Deal ID. The buyer adds that Deal ID to their DSP. When a reserved impression becomes available, the seller sends a bid request that marks the deal as guaranteed, and the buyer's DSP responds with a bid at the agreed price and an ad. In IAB Tech Lab's OpenRTB 2.6 specification, the Deal object includes a guar field that indicates the deal is of type guaranteed and the bidder must bid on it.
Because the volume is reserved, the publisher's ad server gives PG deals high priority. The buyer, in turn, is expected to take the impressions as agreed.
Why it matters
PG combines two things that used to be separate: the certainty of a direct deal and the operational benefits of programmatic buying. Buyers keep their campaigns in one DSP with their own frequency caps, brand safety tools and reporting. Sellers get committed revenue for their most valuable inventory without managing every creative by hand.
It is especially common for premium video and connected TV, where inventory is limited and advertisers often plan around specific shows, events or ad breaks.
PG is not always the right choice. It needs more planning than a private marketplace, and delivery problems can appear if the buyer's DSP settings quietly filter out impressions. Many partners start with a PMP and move to PG once they trust the inventory and setup.
Example
Illustrative example. A streaming publisher agrees a PG deal with an agency for a fixed number of pre-roll impressions during a four-week film season, at a set CPM. The publisher creates the deal and shares the Deal ID. The agency adds it to its DSP with matching dates and video creatives. Each time a viewer starts a film in the season, the impression is offered to the agency first and filled at the agreed price, while the agency tracks reach and frequency in its own dashboard.
IncrementX perspective
PG is one of the deal types IncrementX offers through its Curated Deals and the Demand Marketplace, alongside PMP, audience, contextual and custom deals. For CTV and premium video owners in particular, IncrementX's CTV representation includes direct deals for premium video. The representation role is to understand which inventory is suitable for guaranteed terms, package it clearly and align it with advertisers who want that certainty.