4 Metrics That Impact Your Mobile Web Ad Performance

It's time to go beyond publisher name recognition

When I started working at Kargo three years ago, I was given one goal: upgrade and expand the quality of our publisher inventory. The sole criteria at the time? Whether or not the publisher was a household name.

As background, Kargo creates advertising creative for mobile phones, placed only within premium publishing sites on the mobile web. So in the marketplace, the quality of our publisher partners was perceived to be a measure of the caliber of our company overall. At the time, we worked with just over 30 publishing partners comprising around 200 properties—recognizable brands with traditional print mastheads like Us Weekly and The New York Post.

But to truly offer an alternative to the walled gardens, we needed to bring in new partners with more prestigious titles, a wider variety of content types and, ideally, a massive following. Within a year we achieved an audience that consisted of 100 percent of the U.S. smartphone audience and we onboarded iconic content providers like NBC and Scripps, among others.

However, what we started noticing was that even with the unbeatable name recognition of our partners’ titles, the inventory was not always performing to rapidly changing industry expectations. That meant that the publishers were missing out on potential revenue opportunities. We realized then that pedigree alone was no longer sufficient to guarantee performance.

4 attributes that drive performance

So, we started digging into which publishers were the best at bringing in advertising revenue and looked for the common denominators. What we discovered were four interrelated attributes that, when maximized, deliver higher performance (and ultimately, increased income) for the publisher as well as expanded reach for the advertiser.

1. Performance – Made up of a combination of viewability, DCPM (revenue/ad requests times 1000), and response/win Rate

2. Ad Product Mix – Determined by looking at what kinds of ads the publisher accepts. Is it only standard banner ads? Or are they receptive to more mobile-first creative? Additionally, we considered whether they were open to Kargo’s full portfolio of ad formats or had restrictions that would limit what brands could buy.

3. Scale – The number of ad requests sent through an SSP, not necessarily relative to the size of the publisher’s audience.

4. Brand Safety – More than ever before, brand safety is critical. This is measured by looking at agency “block lists” as well as insights from industry experts.

New guidelines, new supply

After uncovering this data, we reexamined our publisher supply with fresh eyes. Some of our publishers, like Scary Mommy, were crushing it. Many were performing adequately, but had areas that could be improved with the proper efforts. And some (regardless of legacy) had to go.

We committed ourselves to helping the publishers who remained to better understand where there were opportunities to improve. This resulted in the development of a Publisher Scorecard, essentially a report card that shows where publishers need to place more attention.

Simultaneously, we started sourcing newer, smaller, more digitally savvy publications that might not have a 100-year-old masthead but that had the four success attributes we were seeking. New titles that we’ve brought onboard include BBC, Distractify, Domino, Fashionbeans, Healthyway, BabyGaga, Venturebeat, CafeMom and many more. Not only have they met or exceeded our performance benchmarks, but we’ve had the added benefit of rounding out our reach within the millennial and millennial parent categories, two rapidly growing audience segments for brands.

So, how has it been going? Since June, when we adopted the new guidelines and launched the Publisher Scorecard, our average publisher rating has gone up four points, resulting in over 50 more advertising placements for each. Going into the holiday season, we’re expecting to see even greater increases, assuring that key holiday messaging is getting to more consumers and publishers get a nice little Christmas present themselves in the form of additional revenue. It’s truly been an interesting and rewarding effort so far to further realize the value proposition of Kargo’s premium marketplace!

Lauren O’Keefe Hendricks has led Kargo’s Publishing Partnership team since 2015. She and her team provide white-glove client service to an invitation-only collection of premium content publishers to more effectively monetize their mobile advertising inventory across mobile web, app and other content distribution platforms.