Bid Capsule is a two-sided marketplace built as a layer over Lead Capsule and Offer Capsule, running three markets: leads, advertising positions, and redirect and pop traffic. Sellers set the price they will accept, buyers bid, and a proxy auction settles at the clearing price. Signing up is free, the buy side is prepaid, and the service fee sits inside the buyer's bid.
A lead auction on Bid Capsule is a proxy auction. The seller publishes a floor, each buyer enters the most they will pay, and the winning buyer is charged the clearing price: what it took to beat the next bid, not their maximum.
The parts of an auction
- Floor. The price below which the seller will not sell. It is a refusal threshold, not the expected price.
- Ceiling. The most a buyer will pay for a lead on the exclusivity tier they chose.
- Bid increment. The step by which a buyer's bid rises when it has to beat another bid.
- Auto bid. Proxy bidding between a floor and a ceiling with an increment, so nobody has to sit on a screen adjusting numbers.
- Clearing price. The price at which the sale settles.
A worked example
A seller sets a floor of $10. Two buyers each set a ceiling of $20. Their auto bids step the price up until one runs out of room, so the lead clears near $20 and not at $10. The seller did not negotiate and did not chase anyone.
If one buyer's ceiling is $20 and the next highest is $15, the buyer with $20 wins and pays what it takes to beat $15, which is $15 plus one bid increment, not $20. With only one interested buyer there is nobody to bid against, so the lead clears near the floor. The upside comes from competition.
Why bidding your true ceiling is safe
Because the winner pays the clearing price, a buyer is not punished for entering the real value of a lead. Being cautious does not protect you and being aggressive does not cost you. Changing a bid re-settles every match that bid takes part in straight away.
What happens after the auction
- The buy side is prepaid. A bid goes live when it is funded and stops when the balance is spent, so a buyer cannot overspend and a seller is never delivering against an unfunded promise.
- The lead is delivered through Lead Capsule by the method the bid specified, and the sale draws down the buyer's balance at the clearing price.
- The seller receives the clearing price less the service fee, released after the escrow window on a set payout day each week.
- If no seller is found inside the window the buyer set when funding, from three days upward, the deposit is refunded automatically.
The same model for ads and traffic
Advertising positions are auctioned per impression and redirect and pop traffic per session, with the same clearing-price settlement. See Ads and Traffic.
Keep reading
What is a lead marketplace?, Exclusive versus shared leads, How It Works and the FAQ.