Auction vs Reservation

Auction and Reservation are the two ways to buy on Meta. Auction bids for each impression in real time and is what almost everyone uses; Reservation books a set amount of reach in advance at a predictable price.

You are choosing between two very different deals. Auction is the flexible, efficient default: you set your budgets and goals, Meta competes for each individual impression on your behalf, and your costs move up and down with the market. Reservation is the opposite trade. You plan the campaign in advance, lock in a predictable amount of reach and a controlled frequency at a price agreed upfront, and in exchange you give up the auction's efficiency for certainty. Reservation is Meta's current name for what used to be called Reach and Frequency buying.

They matter for different jobs. Auction is right for very nearly all performance work, where what you want is the best result for each rupee and you are happy to let costs float to get it. Reservation earns its place in brand campaigns, a launch with a fixed flight, a sponsorship window, where knowing exactly how many people you will reach and how often is worth more than squeezing out the lowest possible cost.

Reservation's certainty is not free, and that is the part people forget. You typically pay more per person than the auction would have charged, and you lose the auction's knack for finding cheap pockets of attention. Do not reach for Reservation just to feel in control of your numbers; reach for it only when guaranteed reach is genuinely worth paying a premium to lock in.

Auction buys the cheapest results it can find; Reservation buys certainty, and certainty always costs extra.