PubMatic – Automate Ad Optimization
Posted on February 24, 2008 | | Share |
If you’re a blogger and you have ads on your site, you probably have heard the term “ad optimization” before. Especially if you’re using an ad network like Google Adsense, you’ve probably read a hundred articles on optimizing layout, colors, size, location, etc, etc for your Adsense ads.
But most people do not bother with manually tests because it simply takes too long and it’s too tedious to sit and watch, compare, adjust and start over again. That’s why a couple of smart people come out with a way to automate the whole process of ad optimization.
Performance review of PubMatic automated ad optimization
On my site, I currently only have one Google Adsense block that is right below the post title before the actual content of the blog post. It’s a 336×280 rectangle and it has been performing well over in the last few months, especially in December of 2007.
I also decided to sign up with a few different ad networks other than Google Adsense to insure that I would be getting the highest ECPM ad displayed on the site. I joined the Yahoo Publisher Network, Tribal Fusion, and BlueLithium. They also support many other ad networks, so you can test it out with the network you are currently using.
According to PubMatic, they only need about 50,000 to 70,000 page impressions in order to completely optimize their display of the ads. At first, the colors were horrendous with matches like black orange, or neon pink and blue. I’m not even sure why they try those colors together since they look so terrible.
The ECPM dropped the first day quite dramatically as can be excepted since the ads were absolutely disgusting to look at, much less click on! After a few days, the color combinations became slightly better, but still quite bad and the ECPM and click through-rate were both miserable, almost 40 to 50% percent less than before.
Even with the loss of income, I decided to stick it through till I gave them all the impressions they needed for their system to “optimize”. I ran the ads from January 5th to the 21st with a total of about 90,000 page impressions.
Eventually, PubMatic only displayed Google Adsense ads in various color combos and not very much of Yahoo or any other network.
I have to say that I was disappointed with the performance of their system. Even after all of that time and a significant increase in traffic from Google, my income actually went DOWN!
The amount of money that I had previously made on 8,000 impressions now needed 13,000! This was very disheartening and I’m not sure how well this service works for technology blogs. It may work well for some sites, but I’m fairly certain that the way it’s setup right now, it won’t work for me.
I thought that eventually PubMatic would at least be able to get me the same ECPM that I was getting just be choosing the default ad color scheme from Google, but it did far worse.
So if you’re looking to optimize your ads, you might want to wait out on using any of these services unless you are absolutely making no money from your ads currently.
Anyone else try PubMatic or the Rubicon Project to optimize their ads ?
If you liked this post, buy me a beer. (Suggested: $3 a beer)» Filed Under Adsense, General, Make Money, Reviews
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