Between Black Friday and the fast approaching Christmas period, media publishers and advertising agencies have every interest in putting in place, as of now, a successful monetisation strategy to attract the best advertising campaigns. We have identified 7 good practices to put in place to define this winning strategy:
1. Prioritise the layout of advertising inventories
With the advent of Core Web Vitals, it is essential to optimise the user experience in order to obtain a good CLS score and optimal positioning in the SERPs. To ensure good UX, we recommend reserving a minimum height for ad slots.
You should also work on the arrangement of your inventories so that they are as quantitative and qualitative as possible. Here are the different parameters to take into account: the number of ads per page and per device, their positioning, their loading time … At Opti Digital, we offer an effective solution to optimise the site layout: automatic insertion of ads at the heart of the content, combined with Lazy Loading and smart ad refresh.
These optimisations are beneficial for audience acquisition and make it possible to attract more advertisers, inclined to invest in inventories that have a good volume and a good visibility rate.
2. Adjust floor prices to increasing demand
The last quarter is very popular with advertisers. It may therefore be wise to increase the floor prices in order to stimulate competition in Header Bidding between SSPs and Google AdExchange. This makes it possible to boost eCPMs in this period of high demand where unsold rates are lower, and to increase the net eCPM inventory (the turnover achieved for a thousand display opportunities available).
At Opti Digital, we adjust floor prices according to several parameters including changes in demand, for example. We will soon be able to intelligently automate this process as our Data Science expert is currently developing a machine learning solution capable of setting the best floor prices for each print. #StayTuned 🙂
3. Try new formats
We advise you to take advantage of the period to test formats with high added value for your monetisation, that is to say, with high eCPM and viewability rates. This is the case sticky footer, interstitial ad on mobile and desktop, or a 300×600 format on mobile.
However, make sure the use of interstitial ads is done so as not to disrupt the user experience. You must integrate it by respecting the criteria of Google. Properly placed and used in a reasoned manner, interstitial ads can provide additional income.
4. Take advantage of the buzz of e-commerce with a consentless inventory
To maximise your advertising profitability, we recommend that you integrate the demand of e-commerce and entertainment partners. Amazon is particularly a major player at this end of the year period and can generate significant revenue peaks.
Also, consider monetising your audience that has refused targeting cookies. We recommend that you distribute your direct campaigns via alternative and consentless solutions such as Google Limited Ads and Opti Digital Ad Server aka ODAS, an innovative technology allowing precise contextual targeting, without depositing any cookies. You will thus monetise all of your traffic, with or without consent.
Learn more about our cross-consent monetisation strategy
5. Update your ads.txt file
Ads.txt (Authorised Digital Sellers) is an initiative of the IAB Tech Lab to “enable you to sell your digital advertising inventory only through sellers that you have identified as authorised.”
Whenever a demand partner (bidder or SSP) is added to the auction, authorise them to market your inventory by adding them to the Ads.txt file.
The ads.txt is crawled regularly by the robots of the SSPs. If a partner is missing, they will not be able to participate in the programmatic auctions. It is therefore essential to update this file each time partners are added or deleted.
At Opti Digital, we regularly check the ads.txt files of our publishers. In particular, we use the free Adstxt.guru tool to review this file and notify publishers of necessary updates.
6. Configure all your partners in the CMP
The request partners must not only be entered in the ads.txt file, as mentioned previously, but also in the CMP (Consent Management Platform).
If the partner list is not up to date, it may prevent you from receiving open and private auctions.
7. Update your presentation in Google Ad Manager
Screenshot of a Deal Settings form
Taking care of your presentation in Google Ad Manager can help you attract the attention of buyers and receive Deal ID requests. To highlight your profile, remember to fill in:
- A description of your audience on Desktop and Mobile.
Who are they? (Gender, age group, breakdown by type of device) What are they looking for in your media? (vertical)
How much time is your content consuming?
- What formats do you offer? (IAB Display, skin, parallax, rich media …)
- Your performance (The number of impressions received, your visibility rates and click-through rates.)
This is an opportunity to showcase your inventory and show all your audience potential to attract buyers.
And you, what is your monetisation strategy for the end of this year? We can help you set it up, ask us for advice 😉