Balancing Multiple SSPs to Maximize Yield AdMonsters OPS

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Balancing Multiple SSPs to Maximize
YieldAdMonsters OPS

• Emry DowningHall

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SSPs and Me A Love Story

• Began working as a long tail publisher in 2007
• Have managed 100 of the inventory for 11
  student-focused websites
• Currently manage 3 Imagine Easy OO websites
  serving over 7B impressions/yearly
• 98 non-guaranteed inventory
• Teach a course at General Assembly on yield/ad
  optimization
• Currently work with or have worked with (just
  about) every major US SSP partner in the space

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What do you mean, SSP?

• A partner working with a publisher to help sell
  its non-guaranteed inventory at agreed upon
  impression volumes, price points/floors
• For the purposes of our discussion this includes
• Ad Exchanges
• Ad Networks
• Re-targeters
• SSPs (non-exclusive)

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Is a multiple SSP solution right for you?

• Consider your websites split between direct and
  unsold inventory
• On average, what percentage of inventory goes
  unsold to remnant?
• Dont blend performance establish a remnant
  performance baseline for each ad unit on your
  property.

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The Good Why work with multiple SSPs?

• Maximize the value of your unsold inventory
• Create more competition for your inventory by
  opening it up to potential new partners

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The Good Why work with multiple SSPs?

• Diversify your partner revenue streams
• Diversify your ad serving opportunities
• Free to take advantage of market changes and
  emerging technology

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The bad Why (not) work with multiple SSPs?

• This complicates everything
• Ad quality concerns harder to track the supply
  source of a rogue ad, block lists arent (even
  close to) perfect
• Defaulted inventory slow page loads, lost
  impressions and a poor UX

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The bad Why (not) work with multiple SSPs?

• Conflict with your direct sales team
• Time managing and optimizing is a full time
  job(s)
• Payment concerns cash flow, late, inaccurate or
  defaulted payments
• Risk of over exposing/de-valuing your inventory?

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But if youre feeling froggy
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When Evaluating potential partners

• Who are your peers having success with?
• Consider specifically how this partner will add
  value to your stack
• Define your value what CPM and what fill make
  sense for you?

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When Evaluating potential partners

• Set mutual goals with your partner and run a
  controlled test where you can evaluate specific
  results
• Dont set it and forget it

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What to look for in a partner

• Where do they source their inventory?
• Do they have their own sales team?
• Do they have their own user management interface
  (UI)? Defaults, tags, price floors.
• Payment terms/credit references?
• Will you work with a human?

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Evaluation Form for inbound leads
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Ad Serving Multiple SSP best practices

• Separate your ad units into individual orders
• Segment your inventory by device and largest geos
• Do not blend ad unit performance data
• Apply appropriate frequency caps based on data

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Ad Serving Multiple SSP best practices

• Price priority line item type (in almost all
  cases) for non-guaranteed partners
• Capture incremental revenue with AdX and dynamic
  allocation
• Adjust ad unit specific line item pricing to
  reflect performance of your SSP partners

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Managing defaulted inventory Option 1
AD Server
PROS CONS
Simplified setup May lead to lower rates vs. a fully managed default stack
Pass unsold impressions directly to a 100 fill
partner
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Managing defaulted inventory Option 2
AD Server
AD Server
SSP Partner 2
PROS CONS
Additional dynamic allocation auction Fixed default swap control Discrepancy tracking Complicated setup Added impression hop
Pass unsold impressions back to your ad server
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Managing defaulted inventory Option 3
AD Server
PROS CONS
Less complex than ad server passback setup May monetize at higher rates vs. 100 fill partner passback Discrepancy Reliant on ad partner for changes (in some cases) Latency
Daisy Chainyour partners
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Managing defaulted inventory Option 4
AD Server
AD Server
SSP Partner 2
PROS CONS
Blend of best practices based on data Requires extensive testing Human error Maintenance
Hybrid Approach
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Data consider this and look closely

• Look at data on a per unit/partner basis as often
  as possible
• Consider both CPM rate and fill percentage
  equally
• Look for lost impressions (serving to and being
  passed from partner) and factor that into
  optimizations

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DATA CONSIDER THIS ANd LOOK CLOSELY

• Use partner performance to leverage future
  negotiations/allocation of inventory and dynamic
  allocation pricing
• Track historic performance closely

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For your (General) Consideration

• Communicate and share partner experiences with
  your peers
• Ad positions dont need to be static (Ex. 300x250
  or 300x600)
• Take advantage of emerging technology
• Take advantage of large formats if OK for UX
  (728x90 to 970x250)

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For your (General) Consideration

• Test all tags before taking them live
• Create a strict category block list and have
  partner confirm its in place before going live
• QA your own site weekly
• Understand how your inventory is being sold
  branded, semi-branded, anonymous

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Thank youAdMonsters OPS