The Programmatic Glossary
A practical glossary designed to help marketers, advertisers and ad-tech professionals understand the terminology that powers programmatic advertising
Technical Infrastructure
Queries Per Second (QPS)
The number of bid requests that a publisher's system sends to a specific demand partner (DSP, Demand-Side Platform or buyer) every second. Higher QPS (Queries Per Second) means the DSP sees more auction opportunities and potentially bids on more of them, generating more revenue for the publisher.
HOW IT WORKS
Every second, a publisher's SSP (Supply-Side Platform) receives thousands of impression opportunities. It sends these as bid requests to connected DSPs (Demand-Side Platforms). Each DSP can handle a limited number of requests per second. If a DSP's QPS (Queries Per Second) cap is set at 500, it will only receive 500 of the publisher's bid requests per second, missing out on the rest. Removing these caps unlocks more bidding opportunities.
EXAMPLE
A publisher has 10,000 available impressions per second. DSP A has a QPS (Queries Per Second) cap of 2,000, allowing it to see only 20% of the available inventory. By removing the cap, DSP A can access all 10,000 impressions, bid on a much larger share of the inventory, and generate significantly more revenue for the publisher.
RELATED TERMS
Bid Request | Fill Rate | ARC (Adaptive Rules Centre) | DSP (Demand-Side Platform) | Bid Density
★ LIMELIGHT INSIGHT: Limelight removes fixed QPS (Queries Per Second) caps as a platform standard, a key differentiator. Partners are not artificially throttled, meaning DSPs can access the full volume of available inventory.
