Bid caching allows publishers to salvage non-winning high-tier programmatic bids and reuse them on subsequent lazy-loaded slots or refreshed viewable units.
The Mechanics of Programmatic Bid Caching
In a standard header bidding auction, five SSPs may bid on an above-the-fold slot. One bid wins; the remaining four bids are traditionally discarded. Bid caching mechanisms temporarily preserve valid, compliant non-winning bids in memory for a predetermined TTL (Time-To-Live, typically 30-45 seconds).
When the user scrolls down and triggers a lazy-loaded secondary unit, the wrapper checks the cache. If an active, unexpired cached bid exceeds the incoming live auction floor, it can clear immediately without waiting for a fresh round of remote network requests.