5 years experience at top 10 ad networks - Ask me anything | Warrior Forum - The #1 Digital Marketing Forum & Marketplace

10 years ago

What type of media did you guys buy/sell?

What type of advertisers did you guys mostly get? Affiliates? Big name companies?

Did you see success when you went over to the publisher side? If so, do you think your time at the ad network helped you with that success?

Thanks
1 reply

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AdOpsGuy 10 years ago

Originally Posted by viasq

What type of media did you guys buy/sell?

Buy/Sell - the interesting thing about the network space is that everyone is always buying and selling all the time.

From the publisher development side, we almost exclusively buy on a CPM basis IE we pay publishers a flat CPM for every impression they run. It's up to us then to optimize our publishers so that our campaigns get clicks and conversions. For a CPM campaign, the risk is on the publisher to get clicks (the more clicks, the more we'll pay), for CPC and CPA campaigns, it's on the network to make sure things perform. Very different proposition but very doable if you know what you are doing.

Originally Posted by viasq

What type of advertisers did you guys mostly get? Affiliates? Big name companies?

In terms of selling, we sell CPM, CPC, CPA and dynamic CPM campaigns to agencies/brands/etc.

Advertisers will vary--it's mostly top-tier brands that you've heard of that often advertise on TV with huge budgets. There are some smaller buys that include getting people to sign up for college classes, make dinner reservations or call law firms for leads. Most campaigns have some kind of back-end conversion metric including but not limited to purchases, reservations, calls, downloads, etc but we will very often get paid off a CPM (IE how many impressions we've run). We've done very little affiliate marketing.

Originally Posted by viasq

Did you see success when you went over to the publisher side? If so, do you think your time at the ad network helped you with that success?

Interesting question. I've played around with doing CPA type deals where you create microsites, drive users towards those sites and sell products. That I was not successful with. Anyone who can consistently do that AND stay on top of Google's changing algorithms AND can get paid consistently I have a ton of respect for. I think that's a lot harder than what I do. Note: most people who work at networks very rarely dive into this type of thing.

I've also worked for top-tier publishers running 1,000,000,000 impressions per month--that I've had success with. But it's different from running a network for various reasons.
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s1d

10 years ago

As someone who's been in and out of the game for 10 years, and now back after about a 5 year hiatus, how do you NOT get inundated and overwhelmed with ALL of the offers / methods of traffic to cultivate? Do you only focus on a few methods of traffic and ignore everything else other people mention on the boards, to stay focused?

I am back after about 5 years, and the game has changed dramatically. I am getting overwhelmed with what to do/what not to do and it's killing my success.

Thanks
1 reply

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AdOpsGuy

10 years ago

Originally Posted by s1d

As someone who's been in and out of the game for 10 years, and now back after about a 5 year hiatus, how do you NOT get inundated and overwhelmed with ALL of the offers / methods of traffic to cultivate? Do you only focus on a few methods of traffic and ignore everything else other people mention on the boards, to stay focused?

I am back after about 5 years, and the game has changed dramatically. I am getting overwhelmed with what to do/what not to do and it's killing my success.

In terms of traffic, we want impressions. Impressions are effectively loads of our ad tags on a web browser or mobile app that will render an ad. I personally don't care how publishers generate these impressions, however all impressions must be:

1. From humans (no bot traffic).
2. Not placed on the same page with 10 other ads.
3. Placed in a visible spot, preferably above the fold (not behind a wall or in a 1x1 pixel)
4. On a page with some content (can't be a blank page with an ad)
5. Will have users interact with the ads by either mousing over them or clicking on them on occasion.

If any of these are missing, then we have problems.

Now in terms of all the different types of affiliate offers to run, I can't comment as I mostly get paid off a flat CPM. I can however say what types of CPA offers are worth running from the network's perspective.

Thanks
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arojilla 10 years ago

Originally Posted by AdOpsGuy

I can however say what types of CPA offers are worth running from the network's perspective.

And they are...
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- AdOpsGuy 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by arojilla
  
  And they are...
  
  Successful CPA campaigns will have these characteristics:
  
  1. Ideally the product will be a well known brand such as a car company, tax software or a national dating site that's had some TV push (nice, but not totally necessary). There needs to have been some significant visitation to the product's site, otherwise there is no audience data and direct response (AKA DR) campaigns require audience data to be successful.
  
  2. There needs to be a significant budget, ideally $500/day, as there needs to be a lot of testing and testing costs money to buy all that media with all the different first and third party data pools. These campaigns take a lot of effort to run, so the costs also need to cover the business expenses including ops people to run the campaigns as well.
  
  3. We need to be able to place a conversion pixel on the thank you page of the client's site. This is to track successful conversions.
  
  4. We need to place retargeting/tracking pixels on several pages--the home page, the click-thru URL, the "hub page" or the page that lets users get to all other parts of the site.
  
  5. We also need to be able to place pixels in all levels of the funnel -- the shopping cart, the credit card information page, the confirmation page and the thank you page. We use all of these pixels to buy impressions that have shown previous user interest.
  
  6. We need daily access to third party stats. It's required to keep discrepancies in check and make sure that we're getting credit for the conversions we drive. If we are going off our own numbers (rare) than this isn't necessary.
  
  7. A realistic CPA goal--we can't reasonably get a $5 CPA on qualified auto leads, but it's possible for downloads.
  
  8. Ideally we could get paid on a dynamic CPM which will change depending on how much it will cost us to run the media. Typically a dynamic CPM will be cost of media + a margin tacked on which takes into account the client's CPA goal. If we're getting paid off a CPA, it's much more risky for us, as we're going to take on the risk of buying the media and doing all this work and not getting the conversions.
  
  9. Less important, but there needs to be a large geographic range--we can't run these deals only in a handful of zip codes in Arkansas as there won't be enough media to buy.
  
  Most CPA deals that come in will be missing some of these things and almost all of them are dealbreakers. We turn down a lot more of these deals than we take on.
  
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pvijeh

10 years ago

what sort of CPMs did you offer your publishers? and what CPM did you charge clients?

Thanks
1 reply

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AdOpsGuy 10 years ago

Originally Posted by pvijeh

what sort of CPMs did you offer your publishers? and what CPM did you charge clients?

CPMs would vary depending on the kind of inventory, the country it ran in and how the inventory performed. We almost exclusively deal in USA inventory. A publisher sending us impressions from The New York Times in the USA would make CPMs well over $1.00, easily. Mind you, the Times will sell their inventory through the same channels for much more than that.

Japanese animation sites on the other hand would be closer to $0.01-$0.05. And that's not with 100% fill--we regularly serve default tags if we don't have demand for a certain impression at a certain price at that moment, both for the times and Naruto fan sites.

CPMs we would charge agencies would also vary, but for media sales campaigns where sales people pitched big agencies for movies and CPG, profit margin was 70% and above. Our sales guys will sell a campaign for a CPM of $5.00 and we would pay the publisher $0.60-$1.00. For machine to machine real time bidding, the margin was more like 20%-30%--so the publisher would get $0.30 and the network would get $0.40.

Mind you, the cost to get those $5.00 CPM deals included paying sales people, operations people, "bribing" the buyers and paying rent, so the overall profit margin is often as low as 10%.

Publishers get screwed a lot in these scenarios and that's sad, as there is no network without a publisher.
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espresso

10 years ago

what are the top 10 ad networks you work with

Thanks
1 reply

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AdOpsGuy 10 years ago

Originally Posted by espresso

what are the top 10 ad networks you work with

With the publisher side or the advertiser side?

As a publisher, I always liked working with Adsense and Tribal Fusion. They were difficult to work with, especially Adsense with their rules and selective enforcement of said rules, but the CPMs were always good. For longer-tail volume SSPs like Rubicon Project worked well, but you can't work with them unless you have hundreds of millions of impressions per month.

If you're looking for a new network, PM me your contact info and I can have some friends (who are not working for my company) send you a line.

In terms of the places I've worked, I'm going off comScore's numbers and I'm not going to comment on the actual name of the company.
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arojilla

10 years ago

What a detailed reply... Thanks!

[ 1 ] Thanks

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pvijeh

10 years ago

AdOpsGuy - this is a really awesome thread- thanks for taking the time to answer our questions- very insightful.

[ 1 ] Thanks
1 reply

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durgyy 10 years ago

If I want more than 6K impression which should have 10% conversion rate, is it possible to acheive with CPM
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- AdOpsGuy 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by durgyy
  
  If I want more than 6K impression which should have 10% conversion rate, is it possible to acheive with CPM
  
  I'm having a little trouble understanding your question, can you re-phrase?
  
  Thanks
  
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- vask 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by durgyy
  
  If I want more than 6K impression which should have 10% conversion rate, is it possible to acheive with CPM
  
  Thanks
  
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pvijeh

10 years ago

Just as a side note to this thread - I recently had a conversation with a friend who works in ad sales for a large magazine (500,000 subscribers). she said that an ad (i am assuming a full page ad- but she didnt mention) goes for $25,000. That would be an equivalent of $50 per subscriber - or you could say $50 CPM.

Has anyone heard of CPMs approaching this level in the digital world? or do digital ads always yield much lower CPMs than print?

Peter

Thanks
2 replies

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arojilla

10 years ago

Originally Posted by pvijeh

Just as a side note to this thread - I recently had a conversation with a friend who works in ad sales for a large magazine (500,000 subscribers). she said that an ad (i am assuming a full page ad- but she didnt mention) goes for $25,000. That would be an equivalent of $50 per subscriber - or you could say $50 CPM.

Are you sure of your calculations? At $50 per subscriber the ad would cost 25 millions.

Thanks
1 reply

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vask 10 years ago

Originally Posted by arojilla

Are you sure of your calculations? At $50 per subscriber the ad would cost 25 millions.

He's right about the CPM, but wrong about the subscriber price.

$25,000 / 500,000 Subscribers = $0.05 per subscriber
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- doriono 10 years ago
  
  This calculation is correctly mentioned by Viasq. It is only 5 cents per subscriber and not $50...I fell off from my chair when I also heard $50
  
  Originally Posted by viasq
  
  He's right about the CPM, but wrong about the subscriber price.
  
  $25,000 / 500,000 Subscribers = $0.05 per subscriber
  
  Thanks
  
  Signature
  
  Top Paid CPA Network: www.lchap.com
  
  Knowledge, perceverance and hard work are the main ingrediants to reach your goal. I can help you.
  
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AdOpsGuy

10 years ago

Originally Posted by pvijeh

Just as a side note to this thread - I recently had a conversation with a friend who works in ad sales for a large magazine (500,000 subscribers). she said that an ad (i am assuming a full page ad- but she didnt mention) goes for $25,000. That would be an equivalent of $50 per subscriber - or you could say $50 CPM.

Has anyone heard of CPMs approaching this level in the digital world? or do digital ads always yield much lower CPMs than print?

Peter

It's hard to compare print to digital. A print ad is more "permanent" than a display ad, meaning that it's going to be on the page as long as the magazine or newspaper is in the owner's possession.

A display ad is instant/ephemeral. They're gone almost as soon as the ad is shown and as soon as the user clicks off. Thus display ads are cheaper than print for good reasons. They're two totally different mediums. I don't believe print even uses CPMs as a metric but I don't have any experience in the print world.

As for the CPMs, I know that AOL sells TechCrunch and Huffington Post for $17-$20 CPM from their media sales guys, if not higher. I know of some higher-end finance publications that will sell their inventory for as high as $200 CPM. They will also buy more their audience via RTB and will have their sales guys pitch that.

Thanks

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K0210561

10 years ago

Hi, my friend.i got website is selling condoms and kinky which is: Condoms Effectiveness
Please some body give me the good website (thoundsand of visitors) which I can buy ads space for my website.
Thanks so much you guy.

Best regards

Thanks

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G0nzalez

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by AdOpsGuy

Hi all,

I've been lurking these forums for about a year now without posting anything of value. This is my way of giving back.

I've worked for over five years in the ad network/exchange space. I've covered publisher development, campaign management, ad operations, billing/payment, really anything you can think of. I've even dabbled in the publisher side.

If you have any questions related to ad networks, post them and I'll do my best to answer them. Nothing is off the table.

Obviously I wish to remain anonymous.

Could you advice me from what CPA network to put ads on my site? It's in the blogging niche, I write about seo, how to get traffic, social media and SE news, wordpress.

I get 500 UV / day. Until now I used AdSesne, but they didn't clicked an ad, I earned a few cents / day.

If you have time to respond only.

Thanks
1 reply

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AdOpsGuy

10 years ago

Originally Posted by G0nzalez

Could you advice me from what CPA network to put ads on my site? It's in the blogging niche, I write about seo, how to get traffic, social media and SE news, wordpress.

I get 500 UV / day. Until now I used AdSesne, but they didn't clicked an ad, I earned a few cents / day.

If you have time to respond only.

I will respond to anything but forum spam

But unfortunately I'm really not qualified to give you a response. I know a lot of great companies to buy media from that could drive a good CPA, but in terms of finding the best CPA network, I really can't say.

I'm sure others on this forum would have better info than I would.

Thanks

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madeguy190

10 years ago

Hi

Im new to the Affiliate scene.

Can you tell my how I get sratted with CPA Companies like Max Bounty etc when I have no website or experience?

Eager to learn

Thanks

Thanks
1 reply

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AdOpsGuy

10 years ago

Originally Posted by madeguy190

Hi

Im new to the Affiliate scene.

Can you tell my how I get sratted with CPA Companies like Max Bounty etc when I have no website or experience?

Eager to learn

Thanks

As stated previously in the thread, I attempted and failed to set up CPA campaigns on my own sites, so I'm not going to be of much help here.

The good news is there are tons of people on this forum who can help.

Thanks

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5 years experience at top 10 ad networks - Ask me anything

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