As digital ad spending continues to increase by the year, website publishers have more and more opportunities to profit from digital advertising trends. However, simply placing ads on your website isn’t enough; a strategic approach is essential. To maximize your earnings, you first have to understand how to optimize your inventory effectively. From demand and supply chains to price floor optimization, here’s my take on how to earn more from your ad inventory.
What Is Ad Inventory?
Ad inventory refers to available space publishers have on their websites, apps, and other platforms for advertisements. Publishers sell ad inventory to advertisers who want to promote their products or services. In this way, publishers earn from featuring ads on their websites, while brands get a chance to broaden their reach and promote to well-targeted audiences.
However, as you know, the value of ad inventory can vary. It can depend on your website traffic and the potential impressions your website can bring to the advertisers, as well as the quality and safety of your website.
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Follow UsTypes of Ad Inventory
Based on its value, ad inventory can be divided into two types: premium and remnant. Premium ad inventory refers to high-quality placements with higher engagement. This type of inventory is often sold to advertisers through direct deals and at higher prices. They are usually found on reputable websites, guaranteeing brand safety.
In contrast, remnant inventory consists of unsold ad space. Usually, it’s sold at lower prices through real-time bidding and programmatic platforms. While it doesn’t have the same value and engagement as premium inventory, remnant inventory helps publishers improve fill rates and monetize all available space on their websites.
How Can Publishers Sell Ad Inventory?
There are a few ways publishers can sell their ad inventory. The best choice will, of course, depend on the quality of the ad inventory (format, placement, engagement, etc.). However, here are the most common approaches:
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Real-time Bidding (RTB) — Real-time bidding allows publishers to sell ad inventory through automated auctions where advertisers bid in real time. This is a great method for lower-quality inventory (websites with less traffic) or publishers with multiple website assets and no time to micromanage deals.
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Programmatic Direct — Programmatic direct is a one-on-one exchange involving direct negotiations between publishers and advertisers, typically for premium inventory. While often used interchangeably with programmatic guaranteed, programmatic direct involves flexible, non-guaranteed deals, while programmatic guaranteed involves fixed, pre-negotiated deals (e.g. a fixed number of impressions for a set price).
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Private Marketplace (PMP) — This is an invite-only version of RTB, where publishers invite selected marketers to bid on their inventory.
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Direct Sales — This method refers to direct deals. Larger publishers usually have extensive sales teams that directly negotiate with brands and advertisers on formats, placements, and prices.
Interested in programmatic direct? Read more about the Benefits of Programmatic Direct for Publishers
Tips on How to Earn More From Your Ad Inventory
To get the best prices for your ad inventory, you need to have a thought-out monetization strategy. So, here are a few things I would consider when strategizing:
Sort Your Inventory by Quality
The first thing you need to do is sort your inventory by quality. Quality can refer to any criteria that allow you to set higher pricing for your inventory. For instance, if you’re a publisher with lots of video content, among which a certain category is popular e.g., sports, you can charge more for instream video ads within this content type than other content you have on your website.
Similarly, you can charge more for larger interactive formats, better targeting across your assets, and mobile-optimized placements.
Don’t have video content of your own but want to monetize with instream ads? No problem! TargetVideo offers its publishers an extensive Video Library featuring original content across diverse verticals, including sports, lifestyle, DIY, parenting, health, and more.
Optimize Inventory for Maximum Viewability
While ad viewability usually depends on a website’s core web vitals, latency, and responsiveness, placement also plays a huge part. Make sure that your ad inventory is positioned in high-visibility areas of your page. For instance, above the fold (the portion of the webpage visible without scrolling), within the main content of the page, and near the end of articles where users tend to focus their attention. Ads positioned in these spots are more likely to be viewed and interacted with, increasing the effectiveness and appeal of your ad inventory to advertisers.
Diversify and Expand Your Ad Formats
This one may be obvious but I can’t stress this enough, don’t put all your eggs into one basket. With how oversaturated the Internet has lately become with instream ads, it’s better to diversify your ad formats as much as you can. Don’t only feature instream video ads within your content, consider using outstream video ads and display ad formats as well. This not only helps you avoid user ad fatigue but also expands the available inventory on your website i.e., expands your demand sources as you’ll be able to cater to various advertisers.
Always Include Programmatic
By 2028, 81% of the digital advertising revenue will be generated through programmatic advertising. So, not including programmatic would be a strategic mistake, especially for smaller publishers who don’t have premium inventory that qualifies for direct deals. With header bidding, publishers get multiple ad exchanges and SSPs to bid on their inventory at the same time before the ad server makes its decision. This increases competition among demand sources and makes it easier to have higher fill rates.
Work with Multiple Ad Networks and Ad Exchanges
Partnering up with multiple ad networks and ad exchanges gives you a larger pool of advertisers. But primarily, it allows you to compare rates and performance. This way, you’ll know which ad sources to prioritize when auctioning inventory. You’ll, of course, need to find quality ad analytics that will help you keep track of your ad sources and their performance.
Regularly Optimize Price Floors
To make sure you’re not underselling inventory, you need to regularly check and update your price floors. This process does take time and knowledge of the market. That’s why for beginner publishers or publishers who don’t want to waste time on price floor optimization, TargetVideo offers its Prebid Price Floor Optimizer that relies on the latest ad tech, historical and real-time data, and advanced algorithms to help them get higher CPMs for each auction.
Full Control Over Your Monetization Strategy With TargetVideo
With the TargetVideo Platform, publishers can control every aspect of their business — from content management and distribution to monetization. Of course, our support team is also there to help guide them every step of the way. In addition, with our ad revenue optimization model, publishers get an array of ad setup options, allowing them to monetize their digital assets in any way they choose. Sell instream and outstream inventory, set floor prices, and toggle automated revenue optimization for the best results.
Full Control Over Monetization
The Most Advanced Ad Tech
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