How monetizing traffic with ads really works

Hi guys, long post ahead!

I have been working in the online advertising industry for the past few years and I want to share my thoughts about traffic monetization.
The company I work for is focused on mobile traffic with CPA. This is where things become interesting.

Most publishers/webmasters are afraid of trying CPA because it does not offer a fixed or at least a minimum rate. This is the safe way, but not the best.
The visibility is no longer what counts most. Since With the digital age, tracking the visitors has opened the gates for a new way of marketing. Companies are interested in sales and now they have the tools to see exactly where they come from. The old model with brand awarness is long gone.

I'll explain how CPM works:
CPM ad networks will resell the traffic to advertisers. Those advertisers will sell the traffic to performance networks - those are the companies that have the offers, the final link in the chain.
The flow of the visitor is usually this:
Website -> click on ad -> ad network -> media buyer (usually using a tracking system) -> offer.
The problem? Too many redirects:
1. it will decrease the quality of the traffic
2. each redirect is paid from the $$ made with your conversions.

So what can you do? Go straight to the companies holding the offers! You will need a different company for all major categories of ads: banners mobile, banners desktop, pops mobile and pops desktop you will have to integrate all of them in your website.
Most of the companies that are performing best on a specific niche can provide scripts for ads for these specific categories to make things easy. So when an android visitor will visit your website the script for Android will trigger.

Though it sounds hard, the only demanding part is the testing. That means setting aside your fears and start sending traffic for at least a few days (10 or more) to companies like this. You will A/B test these companies and choose the one that works best for you.

Inside tip: dont be anxious to see results in the first minute. These companies usually have A LOT of offers, and by that I mean 10-20-30k active offers worldwide. To see which performs well on your traffic, they have to actually send traffic to each of these offers. There are less campaigns to test if you have traffic for one country only and the number will increase if you have traffic from more countries. They will analyze the traffic and optimize for conversions.
The the downside is that you may find the company that suits you best in a few tries. On short term you loose some cash, but on long term it is an investment.

Most of these networks can customize everything for you, if you contact them. Another strong point is that the ads you will display have considerable less chances of promoting malware, deceptive or any anything else like that. Ad networks will not hesitate to sell your traffic to to whoever pais well.

As a conclusion, I believe this is what is the next step for publishers to maximize their revenue.
The second conclusion is about the placement of the ads on the website. There are countless articles about where to place the banners to increase CTR. Since the click on the banner is the first step for the visitor to become a conversion, banner aspect and position are crucial. That makes you half responsible for the CTR.

I hope I made myself clear with the explanation. I would love to hear your opinion about this!

 

great