The Art & Science of Ad Optimization

The Art & Scienceof Ad Optimization

Upsight Ad Mediation represents the next level of fully-managed ad mediation and optimization for mobile app publishers. It’s a rigorously vetted and tested collection of top-performing networks and exchanges all rolled into one powerful SDK. We use a hybrid system, with many layers of optimization, to ensure you get the most revenue from every single impression.

On the one hand, it couldn’t be simpler - one SDK, one integration, one check.On the other, behind the scenes our team and technology eliminate all the headache and hassle out of manually mediating multiple ad networks. We offer the only unbiased and neutral ad solution on the market. Well beyond your basic ad waterfall, our proprietary optimization techniques and technology maximize your ad revenue in every country, every day.

Upsight Ad MediationThe Next Generation of Ad Optimization

© 2016 Upsight. All Rights Reserved.

Your Basic Ad Waterfall

Top Skimming Ad Networks

Most home grown solutions use a simple waterfall to rank their ad partners. Simple, static waterfalls are a good first step, however, they are far from optimal.

In this simple waterfall example, Network C is going to exhaust all ads before Network A is called.

What if the top campaign from Network A is better performing than the third campaign from Network C? In this case, you are not optimizing beyond your first ad call. Maybe you should frequency cap Network C, effectively skimming off their top campaigns.

However, now you are giving up depth of fill from Network C. If you cap all your networks, you probably won’t fill all your ad requests. This configuration is still sub-optimal.

Ad Network C

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Exchange

A

A

B

Ad Network C

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Exchange

CAP 2

A

A

B

The Art & Science of Ad Optimization | 3


B/F

B/F

Top Skimming with Backfill

Putting Ties to Work

If you are going to frequency cap, then you need to be able to call those networks again in your mediation stack to ensure maximum fill rates.

Your waterfall is more complex now. We are skimming the best campaigns from Networks C and A, while calling them again at lower ranks in the mediation stack, so all your ad requests are filled.

When performance is very close across two or more ad partners, you should rank the networks at the same level so that each gets called an equal percentage of the time. This way they can compete to keep the waterfall rank.

The ability to rank ad partners equally is especially useful during ramp up, when you don’t yet have any data available.

Ad Network C

Ad Network

CAP 2

A

Ad Exchange A

Ad Network C

Ad Network B

Ad Network A

CAP 1

B/F

B/F

Ad Network C

Ad Network

CAP 2

A

Ad Exchange A

Ad Network C

Ad Network B

Ad Network A

CAP 1

Tied

Tied



Leveraging CPM Floors

Managing Multiple CPM Floors

Exchanges are very different from networks. Since they pay out on CPM, you have the ability to set CPM floors. One strategy is to set a high CPM floor and put the exchange at the top of your stack.

You are now top skimming your exchange partner as well.

However, while you are top skimming your exchange partner by setting a high floor, you are losing out on a lot of good campaigns from the exchange that could fit in nicely at lower ranks in the waterfall. We should set up more floors!

Now we are top skimming, mid skimming and backfilling in all cases. This is the complete picture, right? Well, not quite yet.

B/F

B/F

Ad Network C

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Exchange

Ad Exchange

Ad Exchange

Ad Exchange

C

A

B

A

A

A

A

A

CAP 2

$20 CPM Floor

$12 CPM Floor

$6 CPM Floor

$2 CPM Floor

CAP 1

Tied

Tied

B/F

B/F

Ad Network

Ad Network

C

B

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Exchange

CAP 2

A

A

A

C

CAP 1

$20 CPM Floor

Tied

Tied



Blind Auctions

But what if your app is not resonating with the advertisers and DSPs on the exchange? You can try running blind auctions, obscuring your app name from the advertisers. Even if your app is already doing well with regular auctions, a blind auction at the bottom of your waterfall can often pick up a lot of remnant traffic as well.

The Art & Science of Optimization | 6


Testing with Discovery Mode

What about Ad Network B? They are way down the list because they don’t perform, right? Or is their performance low because they are way down the list? We need to “discover” how much better Ad Network B will perform higher up in the waterfall. So we need to test by utilizing discovery mode a small percentage of the time.

Discovery mode lets us test a small amount of ads at different ranks to validate performance without unnecessarily compromising your overall ad performance. This should be an ongoing process as individual ad networks always have different campaigns that can affect their performance.

B/F

B/F

Ad Network C

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Exchange

Ad Exchange

Ad Exchange

Ad Exchange

Ad Exchange

C

B

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

CAP 2

$20 CPM Floor

D/M 4%

$12 CPM Floor

$6 CPM Floor

$2 CPM Floor

Blind

CAP 1


Now that we have a cohesive strategy for top skimming, backfill, and discovery, we need to do this uniquely for each country – all 196 countries… every single day! And that’s only with 5 demand partners.

Upsight Ad Mediation has over a dozen premium networks and multiple exchanges which access 100’s of DSPs and advertisers. Maintaining floors, caps and multiple ad calls for all these ad partners, in all these countries, every day, is no easy task and requires a lot of sophisticated technology, automation and manual man hours by a very savvy team.

Country Level Optimization


B/F

B/F

Ad Network C CAP 2

Ad Exchange A

Ad Exchange A

Ad Network C

Ad Network B

Ad Network A

Tied

Tied

B/F

B/F

Ad Network C

Ad Network

CAP 2

A

Ad Exchange A

Ad Network C

Ad Network B

Ad Network A

CAP 1

Tied

Tied

CANADA

USA

UK

CHINA

B/F Ad Network C

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Exchange

Ad Exchange

C

B

A

A

A

CAP 2

$20 CPM Floor

D/M 4%

$12 CPM Floor

CAP 1

B/F

B/F

Ad Network C

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Network

Ad Exchange

Ad Exchange

Ad Exchange

Ad Exchange

C

A

B

A

A

A

A

A

CAP 2

$20 CPM Floor

$12 CPM Floor

$6 CPM Floor

$2 CPM Floor

CAP 1

Tied

Tied

$20 CPM Floor


With a mediation stack this complicated, you need to use automation to help manage over one million unique waterfalls, which we maintain every day.

The best way to re-rank these ad networks will be with automated algorithms. But how often should it run? What look-back period is most optimal? How do we handle lack of significant data for low volumes of traffic in specific countries? What range of performance should networks be tied at? How do we get separate data from each of the multiple ad calls we are making to each demand partner? These are just a few of the questions that your algorithms needs to address.

What About Automated Optimization?

© 2015 Upsight Powered Inc. All Rights Reserved.


Automated SetupWith so many apps to manage, Upsight Ad Mediation uses APIs and other scripts to set up apps with our networks and exchanges automatically. This saves a ton of time in getting your app set up and optimized with live ads.



Unified Reporting

Not only do you need to pull all of the reporting from each of your demand partners into a single place (so your automated algorithms have data to work with) you need to pull it separately for rewarded vs non-rewarded, video vs static, front fill vs back fill and for each floor you have set up in your exchanges. This ensures each position in your waterfalls can be optimized individually.



Upsight Ad Mediation uses a seven day rolling look-back period. We have tested look-backs as far back as 28 days, and our testing has indicated that 7 days is the optimal look-back to smooth out weekly aberrations, collect significant data to analyze, and be responsive to performance changes at the ad network and exchange level.

Ad partners with performance that are within a small percentage of one another are automatically tied for rank in order to give each the opportunity to outperform.

We re-rank our ad demand partners daily, which is actually fairly aggressive, as you will see on the following page.

Upsight Ad Mediation Automated Optimization



The First 7 Days Are Key

Each ad network can independently take up to 4 or 5 days to optimize for any given app. With multiple networks and exchanges being re-ranked daily in every country, Upsight Ad Mediation typically takes 7 days to reach full optimization, but will often continue to improve performance over a period of 14 to 21 days.

DAY

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5DAY

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Optimizing for Oscillations

Even with optimizations running daily, we see oscillations which work against optimization, especially from app install networks.

When a network is promoted to a higher spot in the waterfall, they see an increase in impressions. Since there is a significant lag in revenue from app install campaigns, we see a portion of the revenue from these campaigns getting reported one or two days after the impressions were shown. Consequently, as impressions go up, lagging revenue will push eCPM down for a day or two.

Similarly for networks moving down in rank, they experience a drop in impressions, and we see revenue come in from impressions over the previous days. This causes eCPM to inflate.

In an automated system, this can cause these networks to oscillate back and forth in your mediation stack. When optimizing daily, these fluctuations will typically settle out in a day or two, or they can be smoothed out more quickly with manual optimizations.

If we were to optimize more often, say hourly, these oscillations would be virtually impossible to control, especially with a lack of significant data in most countries at an hourly level.

Aug 27

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$4

$8

$12

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Aug 28 Aug 29 Aug 30 Aug 31 Sep 1 Sep 2

Network A Network DNetwork C Network FNetwork B Network E


eC

PM

$28


When extending your optimization to include country level rankings, the amount of data is often too small to optimize effectively in many countries, even with a seven day lookback period. Upsight Ad Mediation’s algorithms automatically expand countries with insignificant data to include country tier data. If still too sparse, Upsight Ad Mediation will look at general performance across our network for apps in the same category as your app, for that same country and then, that same tier, until we have enough data to effectively optimize.

Lack of Significant Data



Dialing for DollarsIn addition to all our automated and manual optimizations by our team, it is still vital to get on the phone with each of our network partners to see what campaigns are coming up that could fit our publishers’ traffic and negotiate guarantees for first look in the waterfalls. The Upsight Ad Mediation team has weekly conference calls with all our major partners, feeding data back to them on where they are losing out on opportunities to drive more revenue for their business and yours.



Managing Multiple Blacklists on Your Behalf

Who wants to set up their blacklists with every ad network and ensure they are adhered to? Upsight Ad Mediation does this for you! Blacklisting similar apps from advertising in your app can affect your eCPM quite a bit. You need to be careful that you are only blocking those apps that are truly a threat to your business. You can seriously impact your own revenue by being overprotective. Our team works closely with each publisher to evaluate opportunities and develop and implement a blacklisting plan.



Video ads are a major component of Upsight Ad Mediation, filling approximately 90% of our publishers’ traffic. Video ad performance goes up dramatically when videos are watched to completion. We give our publishers the choice and will set up your traffic to suit. Non-skippable or rewarded video will perform better than videos that can be skipped. However, even setting the skip offset to 5 seconds versus being immediately skippable can drive significantly higher performance.

A Word About Skip vs Non-Skip, Rewarded vs Non-Rewarded



SegmentationWhat if you don’t want all your users to see ads? Upsight Ad Mediation has the most sophisticated real-time mobile segmentation engine on the market. You can choose to segment and target ads to your users with a virtually limitless list of behavioral criteria, including custom calls to create your own criteria.



Revenue Reconciliation

At the end of it all, you need to ensure your revenue is correct. You need to reconcile the revenue reported from each of your ad partners and ensure payment is received. With Upsight Ad Mediation, we take care of this for you and write you a single check at the end of the month. As we like to say: one SDK, one integration, one check.



Clearly, mediating and optimizing your ads is more than a full time job. You need access to sophisticated technology including automated algorithmic optimization, unified reporting, country-specific waterfalls, user-level frequency capping, and the ability to make multiple calls in a mediation stack, along with a talented team to run it… like Upsight Ad Mediation. By choosing Upsight Ad Mediation, you can maximize ad revenue and offload all the hard work of ad optimization, setup, blacklisting, aggregating reports and revenue reconciliation from your team. Don’t just take our word for it…

Putting Upsight Ad Mediation to Work for You!


Upsight (Formerly Fuse) has been a key partner of Unity Ads for three years. Their team has a deep understanding of the mobile advertising space, and they are constantly communicating with us on behalf of their publishers, keeping us informed on upcoming updates and features. Upsight excels at pairing proprietary optimization bringing the notion of ‘partnership’ to every relationship they build with publishers and ad networks alike.

Mickey Maher, Senior Director BD, Unity Technologies


Upsight Ad Mediation Boosts Ad ARPDAU 46%

• Hutch integrated Upsight Ad Mediation as a single source ad monetization solution, after using conventional ad mediation for their rewarded and non-rewarded placements in MMX Racing

• Upsight Ad Mediation ad ARPDAU delivered an increase of 46%, from an average of 1.81¢ to 2.64¢, and continuing to climb above 3¢ - all with Upsight Ad Mediation while maintaining IAP ARPDAU

• All gains were achieved by optimizing the same ad networks within Upsight Ad Mediation and adhering to a strict campaign blacklist, managed by the Upsight team

• By completing the single Upsight Ad Mediation SDK integration, Hutch was able to free up development resources while simultaneously offloading ad optimization to the Upsight team and increasing ad revenue

With Upsight Ad Mediation, I get higher ad revenue without the hassle of trying to manage individual ad networks so my team can focus on what they do best - making great games!

Shaun Rutland, Founder, Hutch© 2016 Upsight. All Rights Reserved.

$0.035

Upsight Ad Mediation Ad ARPDAU

$0.015

$0.025

$0.005

$0.030

$0.010

$0.020

$-1 137 194 1610 22 262 14

(Days)

(Ad

ARP

DA

U)

8 205 1711 23 273 159 21 256 1812 24 28

Pre Upsight Ad Mediation1.81¢ ARPDAU

Post Upsight Ad Mediation Fully Optimized 2.64¢

ARPDAU

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www.upsight.com

The Art & Science of Ad Optimization

Data & Analytics

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