Discussion Paper
Selling Impressions: Efficiency vs. Competition
In digital advertising, a publisher selling impressions faces a trade-off in deciding how precisely to match advertisers with viewers. A more precise match generates efficiency gains that the publisher can hope to exploit. A coarser match will generate a thicker market and thus more competition. The publisher can control the precision of the match by controlling the amount of information that advertisers have about viewers. We characterize the optimal trade-off when impressions are sold by auction.