This post was most recently updated on September 14th, 2021
As a publisher, your bottom line is to get the highest yield in return for your ad impressions. Small publishers have the luxury of testing and scaling.
However, as you grow to become a premium publisher, yield management, yield optimization, and ad operations can become cumbersome.
We know a segment of big publishers who are more likely to outsource their ad optimization and testing. On the other hand, there are other publishers who are more comfortable having an in-house team of ad ops experts managing their inventory.
Whatever your preference, MonetizeMore is committed to empowering your strategy. Here we bring you the ultimate list of yield optimization for publishers.
We base our tips on real, time-tested, ad operations experience, and lay out the best techniques for optimizing and managing your remnant ad inventory.
Consider some site redesign depending on the celebration or season. If it’s St. Patrick’s Day, why not change the theme to green or something related? When the site is fun, and in season, user engagement is likely to improve.
Also, check out metrics that relate to your user-experience (i.e., bounce rates, top exit pages, average time on site). Keeping users engaged is key to monetization.
Read: Holiday Ad Optimization – Download your FREE ebook!
CPM, RPM, CPC, CTR – do your assignment and master your key performance indicators. Check out our AsOps Q&A: Understanding CPC and CPM Pricing.
Experiment with text ads by doing some tweaks with different colors. Some color combinations perform better than others. It depends on the site and the only way to see which one works perfectly for you is to test!
For desktop, the ad sizes proven to be most effective are 728×90, 300×250, 336×280, and 160×600. Placement and targeting are key.
When you find the perfect blend of sizes and their placements, you’re on the right track!
Read: Best Adsense Placements
If you want to stay in business, comply with AdSense policies and rules.
Check out our fun meme: 10 Most Common Adsense Violations.
An ad server is extremely necessary, especially for high-level ad optimization. It allows you to set bidding priorities, day & time for the ads to serve, geographical locations and devices to target, etc.
It’s also the main tool for Ad Exchange to compete with other 3rd party ad networks. Also, remember that more competition means higher CPMs.
Read: Top Ad Servers for Publishers
Plan out how you will target your ad inventory. You can have tiers (e.g. geographical locations, devices). In most cases, Tier 1 geographic locations tend to perform better than the rest of the world.
This means optimization is more granular, enabling you to rank the bids accordingly.
It pays to ask your ad representative what their top-performing geographical locations are and target those accordingly. If their reporting interface cannot generate a report accordingly with just a single tag, be sure to request a separate tag based on your targeting.
You might want to try Tier 1 vs Rest of the world.
Frequency capping is used particularly for ad networks that cannot fill at 100%. This is to limit the number of times they can bid on the site and minimize passbacks. This is optional though.
Do you want to run multiple ad sizes on your ATF (above the fold) placement? If you have a 728×90/468×60 ad unit, just stick to 728×90 and ditch 468×60, unless you have a good-paying advertiser willing to buy it.
Advertisers usually pay higher CPMs for bigger ad sizes. The same is true with mobile wherein 300×250 is far better than 320×50.
You cannot only rely on standard ads alone. An extra revenue stream is always a big help. Try out anchors, sliders, interstitials, popunders.
That’s not saying you should run all of them! Choose the format that you think would fit your site perfectly while keeping user experience in mind.
Read: Adsense’ Richer Text Ads – What’s in it for Publishers
Play with CPM floors. It allows you to set the minimum amount acceptable to you and filter out low paying ads.
Read: 5 Ad Optimization Experiments that you SHOULD definitely try!
The main challenge here is finding a good ad network to use – minimal discrepancy, good CPMs, decent fill rate. The key is to test and see. One very crucial thing to remember: avoid an infinite loop.
This means, passing the impression back to the same ad network in the chain. A very lengthy waterfall is not recommended as it results in lost impressions.
We would recommend a maximum of 3 ad networks in the chain, and all terminate in a 100% fill ad network. It’s easier to track and monitor.
Read: Get a Better Night of Sleep with a Well-Organized Passback Strategy!
Header Bidding is tested and proven to increase yield by up to 35%. With Header Bidding, you do have no more passbacks to monitor, plus it grants access to premium advertisers.
Find out more about MonetizeMore’s proprietary header bidding technology PubGuru here.
Aside from it being favorable to Google’s search engine, a mobile responsive website provides a better experience for users. The content is viewable, readable, clean, and sleek.
We recommend for your layout for tablet devices be similar to desktop. This is because CPMs tend to be higher for bigger ad sizes.
These networks have access to bigger mobile advertisers, their campaigns are targeted specifically for mobile, and the rates are usually better.
Some examples: Google Ad Exchange, Smaato, Millennial Media, Glam Media, Optima Media.
Read: Best Ad Networks that Offer Mobile Monetization
The tendency for mobile users is to scroll down to read your site’s content. This is why in most cases (not all), below the fold ad placements tend to attract engagement.
Video ads tend to pay more than display. But in order not to compromise page load times, decide on the maximum number of video ads you want to run and target them accordingly via an ad server/DFP.
Download the FREE Course on Mobile Ad Optimization
We trust you’ve enjoyed our Ultimate List of ad Yield Optimization & Management techniques for Publishers. Want access to even more powerful yield optimization techniques? MonetizeMore can help take your ad revenue to the next level with a wide range of advanced ad optimization techniques, header bidding, and proprietary AdTech. Sign up for a Starter account at MonetizeMore today!
Kean Graham is the CEO and founder of MonetizeMore & a pioneer in the Adtech Industry. He is the resident expert in Ad Optimization, covering areas like Adsense Optimization,GAM Management, and third-party ad network partnerships. Kean believes in the supremacy of direct publisher deals and holistic optimization as keys to effective and consistent ad revenue increases.
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