A flat rate or flat deal is a bidding option in an ad campaign in which advertisers and publishers agree on a fixed price to pay for each ad click or impression on a website. Typically, publishers use an established rate card for different keywords based on how competitive they are and how they’re used in specific terms. This means that commonly used keywords will have a higher price tag than other keywords used frequently during searches.
However, using the flat rate bidding option is more common when comparison shopping engines like eBay, PriceGrabber, Shopzilla, and Nextag, which use their established rate card for each keyword. The rates may vary among the search engines, and when they’re going to get increased visibility, advertisers are willing to pay higher rates.
Websites like these compartmentalize their services or products to increase the chances of advertisers making sales because people using the comparison shopping search engines, for instance, are looking to make a specific purchase depending on their search criterion.
Alternative meaning of flat rate for webmasters
Alternative meaning of a flat rate can be an exclusive agreement between publisher and advertiser which states that advertiser is going to buy all publisher’s traffic during some time period for a fixed price. For example, instead of buying 10’000’000 impressions using CPM model with $1 rate during 1 month (which is $10’000) – advertiser can suggest publisher to sell his entire traffic for the same perios for $15’000. In this case advertiser can get some disount for a bigger amount of traffic – while publisher can ensure stability of his income.
