JT’s blog

Flashy, free ipod and punch the mokey– your favorite ads

I thought I would kick-off 2008 with a post about ad quality (a subject very near and dear to my heart).

Ad quality is very important to us. I have yet to meet a web publisher that didn’t care about ad quality—ads can have a positive or negative brand association for the web site as well as can enhance (mainly by providing free content) and in other instances distract from a user’s web experience.

The ad creative comes from the ad networks, not the Rubicon Project. You should view us as your advocate and watchdog. We talk to the ad networks every day about all sorts of things. In particular, we work with them to ensure the ads meet your content quality standards. We also screen the ad tags/feeds before loading them in our system. In addition, we are currently building out technology that should provide an extra layer of assurance that your standards will be met.

I also thought it was worthwhile to share our thoughts about ad quality. In general, I think there are three “types” of ad quality issues:

1. General content/creative quality- basically, this is about the general content/creative buckets you are willing to accept. Are you ok with ads that advertise dating services, or gambling, are “shaky” or the ever popular “punch the monkey” ads? Some of these can have high CPMs (like dating or gambling), where others are shown when the network doesn’t have much else to serve. Even if you are willing to accept the ads in this last group (the shaky, punch the monkey and so on), our technology looks to reduce their frequency as they generally have low CPMs.

2. Competitive filtering - pretty self-explanatory here: you probably don’t want your competitors advertising on your web site (although, if they are paying you a high enough CPM, you may be ok with it).

3. Ad relevancy: In general, having ads that are “relevant” is a great thing. It drives up eCPM’s and is likely more useful to your users. However, an ad doesn’t need to be contextually targeted to be relevant. Ads can also target your site’s users. Let’s say your users tend to be male—well then advertising trucks or Monday Night Football might be “relevant” even if your site’s content is not about automobiles or football.

Other times, ads are targeted at a user level (not just at a site/site content level). To make the example personal—I am a soccer fan on a soccer site, but I am still a soccer fan when I visit a finance site. Sometimes certain advertisers are willing to pay higher effective CPM’s to reach the audience they want, even though the ads aren’t contextually targeted and may not always seem “relevant”.

So here’s the ad quality trade-off:
The one thing to keep in mind about ad quality: restricting the ads you are willing to accept can often cause a drop in eCPM and fill rate. Luckily, the Rubicon Project’s interface allows you to manage that trade-off—and it’s not an all or nothing.

To reiterate: ad quality is a top priority at the Rubicon Project (and a top priority for me personally). We know it is currently a pain in the rear. Some networks are obviously better at it than others, but we hope to continue to make it easier for everyone, networks and publishers alike.