Review of PubMatic, ad optimization service, after 3 weeks of usage

Posted on January 22, 2008 at 7:30 am

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.

I wrote recently about 3 ad optimization services that have enticing messages stating that your ad network is probably being under utilized because you have not tried out all combinations/permutations of the ad on your site. It sounds great in theory and so I decided to put one of the services, namely PubMatic, to the test!

pubmatic

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.

Conclusion

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?

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4 Responses to “Review of PubMatic, ad optimization service, after 3 weeks of usage”

  1. ram said on : January 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 am

    I haven’t tried any of these, but i looked at ads in your site couple of days back. the colors are horrible. Now i won’t try these i guess. Thanks for the info


  2. Jason Menayan said on : January 23rd, 2008 at 12:32 pm

    Hi,

    Thank you for the mention of our service, YieldBuild, in your previous post on the subject.

    We’re sorry PubMatic didn’t end up working out for you in the end. I’d like to mention that we provide a similar service, that optimizes the format, layout and position of ads across networks to maximize revenue from your site. The overall optimization goal is to maximize eCPM, and YieldBuild works with your existing AdSense, YPN and eBay AdContext accounts (so payment still occurs via them).

    We encourage any site that doesn’t seem to be getting there in terms of revenue off their high-traffic sites to give us a shot. We have a growing pool of satisfied clients who like what they are seeing to their revenue figures.

    (Thanks for the opportunity for the self-promotion!)

    Jason Menayan
    YieldBuild


  3. Syahid A. said on : January 24th, 2008 at 1:07 am

    Hmm. Looks like a nice service but sadly it does not work for you.


  4. WalkTalk said on : February 7th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

    I, too, am evaluating various ad exchanges (AdBrite, AdECN, AdsDAQ, DoubleClick Advertising Exchange, PubMatic, RightMedia’s Direct Media Exchange, Rubicon Project, Traffiq, YieldBuild…).

    From my research, I’ve concluded that sites that utilize a single ad space, like yours, are unlikely to receive much benefit from them. However, sites that utilize two or more ad spaces, especially if they’re for different formats (text, display, video…) will probably see improvement in their CPM (profit per 1000 impressions).

    This is especially true for those of us using default chains to monetize all traffic. Without an exchange, we’re just guessing at which of our networks can pay the most for each impression.

    That’s because the network at the top of the default chain for each ad space tends to have the best CPM, since they get first shot at the best-paying traffic. It requires a lot of time (and potentially, loss of income) for a publisher (owner of the ad space) to test each ad size with each network at the top of the chain to see who’s best. And that can change day to day, and even hour to hour.

    It’s worth noting that most of the ad exchanges don’t provide ad display optimization, only CPM optimization. Since display optimization requires a lot of impressions to get right (as you found out), sites with lower traffic should look to ad exchanges that can turn this feature off.

    Lastly, if you’re a publisher that also does direct campaigns (ad deals) with individual advertisers, you can use a free ad server like OpenAds, then indicate the ad exchange for default ads. This should give you the best of both worlds.

    I should point out that I’m still researching ad exchanges, and haven’t yet tried any of them. Things could change, depending on what I find, but right now, RightMedia’s Direct Media Exchange, and The Rubicon Project look like the best bets.


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