Overview

Definitions

Revenue

The total revenue of a website is generally a good metric, but in many cases, it may not be accurate. For example, it can be influenced by traffic fluctuations. Let’s consider the case of a publisher who decides to add an ad unit to a web page but, after doing so, the site suffers a substantial drop in traffic, perhaps seasonal or anyway unrelated to the ad unit. This traffic variation could make the total revenue falls, even though the new ad unit could have potentially brought additional earnings. In such a case, looking at the total revenue is not the best way to measure the success of a strategy.

Auctions

An auction is an attempt to sell a placement and view an ad. During an auction, ad calls (bid requests) to Ad-Networks through various channels are issued and the highest bidder wins the auction and displays an ad in the placement, which is an Impression. If no Ad-Network is interested the auction results in an unfilled placement. An auction can bundle ad calls of multiple placements.

Page Views

As the name suggests, this metric counts the number of pages viewed by a user. Counting page views is different from counting sessions because a user could Ad revenue/advertising revenue is a specific type of revenue that is generated through advertising activities. It refers to the income earned by a company by displaying advertisements to its audience or users. Ad revenue is typically derived from advertisers who pay to have their advertisements shown to the target audience. This can include various forms of advertising, such as display ads, video ads, or in-app ads.

As a metric, ad revenue is used to measure the financial performance and success of a business, particularly in the context of generating income from advertising activities. This metric provides insights into the effectiveness of revenue-generating strategies, and its ability to attract advertisers.

In some cases, in order to properly evaluate the effectiveness of revenue-generating strategies, looking only into revenue may not be 100% accurate. Revenue typically is strongly connected with traffic fluctuations. For example, if you add a new placement to the web page, and coincidently at the same time your site suffers from a traffic loss unrelated to the new placement implementation (like seasonality, vacation period, holidays, outage), then you may see a drop in revenue, however, your new placement will bring you still an added value. In such cases, we recommend looking at the total revenue in combination with other metrics like Page RPM, CPM, and fill rate.

Page Views

Page Views are the number of times users view a web page with at least one auction. Pageviews are an important metric for website owners as they provide insights into the overall traffic and user engagement on a website.

Counting page views differs from counting sessions because a user can visit multiple pages within one session. And it’s also different from counting users because the same user could view many pages. In fact, if the same user opens two different pages or even refreshes the same page, two page views will be counted.

Unlike Google Analytics page views, page views are only counted if at least one ad is shown.

User Sessions

On its support page,

User Sessions

A user session refers to the period of time during which a user interacts with a website, application, or online platform without any prolonged inactivity. It starts when a user accesses the website or application and ends when there is a significant period of inactivity, such as when the user closes the application or remains idle for a predetermined amount of time.

Google defines a session as “a group of user interactions with your website that take place within a given time frame. For example, a single session can contain multiple page views, events, social interactions, and ecommerce transactions”. A session lasts until there are 30 minutes of inactivity.

Here’s how a session works: when a user enters a website, a session activates. If within 30 minutes the user doesn’t do anything, the session expires, otherwise every time the user interacts with some website element, session tracking adds 30 minutes to the expiration time of the current session.

The system will consider all the user interactions that occur within this time frame as a single session. On the other hand, if a user starts interacting with the website, stays inactive for more than 30 minutes, and then performs a new action, the system will count as two sessions. It’s also important to notice that this metric doesn’t measure the number of actions taken on the site, such as the number of page views; all the actions taken before the session expires are counted as just one session.

Unlike Google Analytics user sessions, user sessions are only counted if at least one ad is shown.

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Unfilled impressions or blank impressions happen when no demand partner is interested in the impressions and send a no-bid response, due to geo, size, viewability, floor prices, or similar. In that case, the placement is either shown blank or backfilled with house ads.

Auctions

An auction is an attempt to sell an impression and get a paid ad in return. During the auction, ad calls (bid requests) are sent to Ad-Networks through various channels, and the bidder that provides the highest bid wins the auction and is able to show a creative in the ad space. The process is typically executed within milliseconds to ensure a seamless user experience.

It maximizes revenue for publishers and increases competition among ad buyers. It allows publishers to access a larger pool of demand sources, driving up ad revenue and providing more control over their inventory.

If no Ad-Network is interested in participating in the competition, the auction results in an unfilled impression. An auction can bundle ad calls of multiple placements.

Placement Page Views

The number of times page views when a placement was loaded. In contrast to page views, which counts count each page view where at least one placement is shown, this counts the page view views where a placement is shown. This metric can be used to see on how many page views an ad was used.

The Placement Page View counter is typically smaller than the Page View counter. An exception to this rule is when grouping placements by metadata, for example by position, in this case, the sum of the individual placements might be bigger than the Page View counter.

Page RPM

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RPM is an acronym for Page RPM, or Revenue Per Mille (mille means “thousand” in Latin) which is basically “revenue per 1000 page views” of a web page. The metric provides a comprehensive view of how the ad setup of a site is performing.Unlike CPM, which calculates the rate/price per ad unit, RPM is aggregating , is a key metric used in online advertising to measure how much revenue a publisher earns for every thousand (mille is Latin for thousand) page views on their website or platform.

Page RPM is a valuable metric for website publishers and content creators because it provides insights into the efficiency and effectiveness of their advertising strategies. A higher Page RPM indicates that you are earning more revenue for each pageview, which can be a sign of better-targeted ads, higher-quality content, or improved ad placements. Conversely, a lower Page RPM may suggest that there's room for optimization in your ad strategy or content quality.

The industry acronym RPM is often used as Page RPM, but inconsistently, as it might be used to describe other metrics like Session RPM.

Page RPM aggregates all ads on the page and calculates a rate. For example, If you have 4 ads on a page your Page RPM will be higher than if you just have 2. Page RPM doesn’t represent how much you have actually earned; rather, it’s calculated by dividing your estimated earnings by the number of page views, impressions, or queries you received, then multiplying by 1000.

Page RPM = (Revenue / Page Views) * 1000

Session RPM

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Session RPM, like Page RPM, is a metric used in online advertising and web analytics to measure how much revenue a website or online platform generates for every thousand sessions it receives. A session, in this context, refers to a single user's visit to a website within a defined time period.

Publishers should pay attention to RPS Session RPM because it provides a comprehensive view of how their site is performing. RPS Session RPM looks into critical factors impacting site monetization like ad viewability, fill rate, refresh rate, ad density, page speed, etc.

Differently from the others, it shows exclusively the effects of the monetization and user experience strategy, limiting the influence of other external factors. Additionally, it offers a broad vision of the publisher earnings, beyond the economic value of the single ad units.

Measuring your website Session RPM is the right way to understand if there’s room for improvement in your monetization strategy, or if an action you have taken is bearing fruit or it needs to be adjusted. And it’s It’s also important to measure Session RPM separately for the Desktop and Mobile versions of the site, as layouts and interaction patterns tend to be very different depending on the device used.

RPS Session RPM = (Revenue / User Sessions) * 1000

Placement RPM

Placement RPM is a metric that measures the aggregated revenue generated by each placement individually. It normalizes the revenue by Placement Page Views, i.e. pages where a placement is used, helping to compare the value of placements to each other, independent of how often they are used.

Placement RPM = (Placement Revenue / Placement Page Views) * 1000

CPM

CPM is an acronym for Cost Per Mille (mille means “thousand” in Latin) and is the ad unit rate per 1000 ad impressions. It is the price advertisers pay to have their ads shown 1,000 times. Advertisers often use CPM to compare the cost-effectiveness of different ad campaigns or advertising platforms. Publishers and content creators use CPM to understand the revenue potential of their ad inventory and to set ad rates for advertisers looking to display their ads on their websites or apps. However, high CPMs do not always correspond to overall success for the publisher. For example, a brand that pays a high CPM but only fills 50% of the available inventory may result in fewer earnings than another brand that pays lower CPMs but has a higher fill rateFill Rate.

CPM = (Revenue / Impressions) * 1000

Fill Rate

The ratio between Impressions and Unfilled Impressions. Fill rate represents the percentage of ad requests that are successfully filled with relevant advertisements and displayed to users compared to the total number of ad requests made.

The ad fill rate is one of the simplest ways to tell whether or not an ad request has been a success. While aiming for a 100% ad fill rate seems like a goal there are reasons why this is not achievable and even not desirable. Every advertiser is particular about getting their ads across to their target audience which means that not all ad calls will receive placements.

By using floor prices to achieve a higher CPM and ensure high-quality ads a 100% fill rate is not the goal. On the contrary, a 100% fill rate may sometimes translate to low-quality ads.

Fill Rate = Impressions / (Impressions + Unfilled Impressionssucceeded. A high fill rate, such as 80% or above, indicates that a significant portion of ad requests are being filled with relevant ads, which is generally considered positive. It means that the publisher or website owner is effectively utilizing their ad inventory and maximizing revenue potential.

Conversely, a low fill rate, such as 50% or below, suggests that a significant portion of ad requests are not being filled with ads. This could be due to various reasons, including:

1. Limited demand from advertisers for the website's audience or content.

2. Ineffective ad placement or targeting strategies.

3. Technical issues that prevent ad serving.

A low fill rate can result in missed revenue opportunities for publishers, so it's essential for publishers to monitor and optimize the ad setup to improve the fill rate and, consequently, overall ad revenue.

It’s also worth mentioning that the fill rate has an inverse relationship with the floor price - high floor prices can lead to lower fill rates, as fewer advertisers meet the price, while low floor prices might yield higher fill rates. The key is striking a balance to optimize both ad revenue and fill rate. 

Fill Rate (%) = (Impressions / (Impressions + Unfilled Impressions)) * 100

which is equivalent to

Fill Rate (%) = (Filled Ad Impressions / Auctions) * 100

Placement Coverage

Placement coverage represents the ratio between Total Page Views and Placement Page Views. It is a simple way to tell how often a placement is used across the website. Some placements will only be used on specific pages, due to special targeting, or size mapping, and therefore revenue will be limited by only those pages showing them.

The coverage will give you information on how often the placement is used and how much influence it typically has on the overall revenue. This metric can help to optimize highly valuable placements to increase their usage and result in higher revenue.

Placement Coverage (%) = (Placement Page Views / Page Views) * 100

For a group of placements, like all placements on the same position, the coverage is the average coverage of the individual placements.

Group Placement Coverage (%) = avg(Placement Coverage) = sum(Placement Coverage) / count(Placement Coverage)