Names and aliases
qualified contact rate, exposed-supply response rate
Formula
exposed_supply_with_qualified_response / exposed_supply × 100%
Metric card
| Unit | % of exposed supply |
|---|---|
| Data source | Qualified impression events, demand-response events, the response qualification rule, deduplication rules, and window boundaries. |
| Frequency | By exposure cohort after the response window closes. |
| Segments | micro-market, category, geography, price, supply quality, response type, cohort |
Interpretation errors
- Counting any interaction as a qualified response, including incidental clicks and repeat views.
- Failing to deduplicate multiple responses from one demand-side participant, which inflates the share.
- Reading a high response rate as liquidity: a response opens a negotiation, it does not produce a completed transaction.
Example
Illustrative example: 90 of 300 exposed units attract at least one qualified response, producing a 30% rate. The numbers describe no real platform.
Use
The metric links the distribution of attention to demand-side behaviour and answers whether delivered exposure produces meaningful contact. Define the qualification rule before analysis — typically a response carrying intent and enough information to support a next step — and fix the window, because a longer window raises the rate mechanically. Read the metric by segment: one average can combine a micro-market with high relevance and another where exposure is spent without effect.
Anti-example
Relaxing the qualification rule, for example by admitting automated template messages, raises the response rate without changing a single buyer decision. Comparisons with earlier periods are invalid after such a change until the metric is recomputed under one definition.
Limitations
- The qualification rule is set by the platform, so values are not comparable across platforms or across versions of the definition.
- The metric does not distinguish a response that leads to a transaction from one that stops at the first step.
- The denominator depends on the definition of qualified exposure, so a change in impression logic moves the metric without any change in participant behaviour.
Related metrics
exposure-coverage, zero-exposure-share, time-to-match, transaction-completion-rate
Context sources
These works provide two-sided-market context; the formula above remains an author-defined working definition.
- Kong-Pin Chen, Yen-Chi Huang. A Search-Matching Model of the Buyer-Seller Platforms (2012).
- Hanna Halaburda, Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Pinar Yildirim. Competing by Restricting Choice: The Case of Matching Platforms (2017).