Using DFP to pit ad networks against each other

[jpenns]

I've seen people talking about setting up DFP with multiple ad networks like Lijit and having DFP basically auction your ad space off to the highest bidder. This sounds great to me. The problem is I can't figure out how to do it. I'm not familiar with DFP at all, but even as I've spent hours familiarizing myself with it, I haven't been able to figure out this specific task. And there's not a lot of info out there about how to do it.

I saw an older thread on this forum where people were discussing it, which is what drew me here. Does anybody here do this, and would you be able to post a guide or something?

Thanks so much in advance!

[diberry]

I'm just looking into DFP myself, so I don't know much, but are you talking about setting up a placement with several ad tags set to whatever CPM each network tends to yield, and then each impression will get the highest yield available for that visitor? Or are you talking about something more than that?

[jpenns]

That definitely sounds like it, although part of the problem is that at one point I had the impression that you shouldn't have to set a CPM for each network, that in real time they would offer what they're willing to pay, and DFP would choose the highest yield. I'm not sure if that's accurate or not though.

[diberry]

Hmm, I think they may be talking about AdX, which is Google's ad exchange. It actually is supposed to sort of auction imoressions off that way. If you use DFP, I believe you can work with it as well as other tags....but while AdX knows what price the auction is at, it relies on your input of the correct CPM for each ad tag to know when to bring them in. I may be totally wrong about this. I've just been reading in preparation to giving DFP a trial, using AdX and my own ad partners, plus being able to sell ads dirextly.

[anefarious1]

DFP is so confusing! I've looked into it and I got a bad headache. I'd just like to use DFP to increase earnings, pitting other networks against Adsense. Is that possible? Also, does anyone know if you get one paycheck monthly if you use DFP or if multiple exchanges send you money on their own terms? And can anyone recommend a simple guide to DFP? Thanks

[diberry]

DFP doesn't pay you - found that in the FAQs. If you put in your own networks plus adsense, you would still get paid by Adsense and all those networks, on their terms.

I don't know if it's simple, but I've been looking at this guide here:

support.google.com/dfp_sb/?hl=en#topic=13148 (wasn't sure I could post a link in here, so I removed the http part)

[netmeg]

(you can always post a link from Google; the no links rule is mainly to keep out self promotion)

I feel your pain, anefarious1. I like the idea of DFP but I simply do not have time for the learning curve. It's not for the faint of heart.

[child please]

First of all, DFP isn't a network so you wouldn't get any money from it. It is simply an ad server, owned by Google and used to deliver your ads all your networks including AdSense.

I have spent a lot of time with DFP and it was absolutely worth it.

To put a long story short, you enter all of your individual networks as Orders, all your individual ad units as Line Items at the CPM they are delivering for you (in reality), set your other variables such as geo targeting, frequency capping, etc. and let DFP do the rest.

Not only does AdSense bid higher as it goes through both Dynamic Allocation through DFP and competition vs. other networks, but you are doing a much better job assigning your impression to the network that will deliver the best CPM because not every impression is the same!

[ember]

And can anyone recommend a simple guide to DFP?

There is no simple guide because DFP is completely confusing. I finally got a handle on it after a Google DFP person contacted me and spent an hour explaining it. I quit using it, though, and now can barely remember how it works.

[jpch]

I've looked at DFP several times over the years and always end up leaving after an hour because it's too confusing. AdSense reps continue to push to use it and I continue to tell them to make it as easy as AdSense.

[diberry]

Someone in another thread recommended this site:

[dfptutorial.com...]

Written by someone who had to figure it out for himself with the help of DFP reps. The table of contents alone is daunting, but from what I've read so far, he does break it down as much as possible.

I do agree, though - it would be nice if Google made this thing as simple as most of their other services. Does anyone understand why it's so complex? I do realize some customers are going to have needs I don't have, but I just can't figure out why you can't simply create ad placements like you do in Adsense, and then have the capability of putting more than one ad in each placement.

[anefarious1]

Many people don't know which networks to use besides Adsense. In those cases, I guess using DFP won't help because the whole idea is to have ads from other networks compete with Adsense, right? I don't really trust all these other ad networks. Can anyone share which ones work well with DFP and are actually worthwhile?

[netmeg]

One reason it's complex may be that (as with other products from Google Analytics on) Google didn't develop it themselves, they bought it from someone else, and it wasn't designed to work with AdSense from the ground up. They just sorta tacked that on.

[diberry]

Anefarious, I actually don't work with Adsense and haven't in about 10 years. I may start again, if I get DFP up and running, but there are loads of ad networks that pay well - better than Adsense, in some niches, for some sites - and pay on time. I haven't tested any of them with DFP yet, however.

Netmeg, that's true, but they bought it years ago and could have simplified it since then. Guess it's just not a priority for them.

[jpenns]

This is the only decent resource for learning this stuff that I've found. It seems like it's even made by or supported by google, but they sure don't make it easy to find

[publisheruniversity.withgoogle.com...]

[diberry]

Well, I figured it out. Got it up and running on the site, at least. I believe it's pitting my various networks against one another, although it's a little early to tell if I'm getting higher CPMs than I was before. But at least the code is on the site and everything's functioning, and I think it's doing what it's supposed to.

But there's a punch line: it's not responsive. Head, meet desk. Why didn't it occur to me that it might not be?

The good news: the Mobile-Friendly test - the one that determines mobile search rankings and had me freaking out last week - seems to ignore ads. PageSpeed notes that the ads are too wide for the viewport, but Mobile Friendly comes back "awesome" on every page.

The bad news: the leaderboard sticks way off the page now on smaller devices, and the 300x ads are being funky too, although I think I can fix that one with CSS on my sidebars. Before, I was using CSS to contain the ads in the background space, which I know isn't an ideal solution from the advertiser's perspective, but it was working for now. DFP's iframe tags ignore that and stick to their given size.

So now I have to figure out how to swap out leaderboards for narrower ads, and I'm pretty sure that will involve something outside my skill set. Sigh.

[anefarious1]

Diberry are you willing to tell us what networks you use besides Adsense? Maybe that would motivate some to actually use DFP

[diberry]

Sure, but I work almost entirely with CPM networks, not CPC, because it's better for my sites. My top networks (decent CPM and fill rates, pay on time, etc.) would be Lijit (now Sovrn), BurstMedia, ValueClick and PulsePoint. And if you want CPC, Media.net is a really awesome addition/alternative to Adsense, and way ahead of the curve on mobile - most of their ads render responsively in clever ways, and I didn't do anything to make that happen Of course, I'm not sure how using the DFP tags will impact that, but there is an option to run them in a "safe frame" as opposed to a traditional iframe, and that keeps the best features of the iframe while allowing things like ad expansion.

I'm testing a ton of other networks right now, and I think DFP is going to make that easy. Just toss up another "line item" (ad code from AdNetworkI'mTesting) and attach it to a given ad unit, and see how it stacks up against the others.

[jpenns]

diberry would you be able to put up a brief tutorial of the settings you used to make this happen? If you have a website in a relevant niche that kind of tutorial might end up driving traffic too, cause all the info out there currently is just so broad. DFP is designed to accommodate huge publishers with so many needs, so all the resources out there are gigantic and confusing.

[diberry]

Yep, I intend to, but only after I've tested it for a few days and hopefully conquered the mobile responsiveness issue. My solution won't work for everyone, either, so I want to make sure I have a clear sense of what it will and won't do.

[netmeg]

diberry - have you had any experience with Vertoz?

[diberry]

Netmeg, funny you should ask. I tested them a couple of weeks ago, and the CPMs were lousy. They assured me that was a glitch, which I don't find comforting, and asked me to try again. I will indeed toss them into DFP with the others and see what happens. But there's another company similar to theirs (uses AdX and an algo to tweak for the best pricing every hour) called DistrictM. They actually called me and have been very responsive. CPMs were better than my previous setup on one site, but worse on another (but that second site is the one that also doesn't like Adsense, so I don't downgrade them for that). If you're interesting in trying something like that, I can PM you their contact info.

[netmeg]

I just ask because the Vertoz people have been pitching me lately. AdSense performs really well for me, and media.net is the best of the alternatives that I've tried so far, but it's still a distant distant second to AdSense. Just wondered if you knew anything about them.

[diberry]

Well, I can confirm I'm seeing higher CPMs from my networks than I had been. In one case at least, I'm pretty sure I can exclude the possibility that they've just suddenly gotten better ads. I believe DFP is indeed pitting the networks against one another with the setup I'm using.

Here's what I'm doing, just quickly - I will do a detailed tutorial on one of my websites eventually, with screenshots and all, but I won't be able to post the link in here anyway.

--Login to DFP. Go to the Admin Tab. Pick Companies from the sidebar. Click New Company, select "ad network" or whatever seems appropriate (I am using it exclusively to pit ad networks against one another). The company may already be in their list to select; if not, select "other" and type in the name.

Click the Inventory tab. Set up an ad and name it something like "WW-TopLeft-Leader" <--website acronym-position-ad size. This is pretty self explanatory.

Here's where it gets unnecessarily convoluted, and there might be a simpler, less redundant way than what I'm doing, but I'm not sure. Click the Order tab. Give this order a name like WM-Leader-Burst to indicate what ad network it's for. Pick the Advertiser from the drop down.

Now skip down to the Line Item section. I give it the same name as the order. Pick the "Inventory Sizes" from the drop down - you can have more than one, for example 300x250 and300x600. Now go down to Type and select Price Priority. Start Time: immediately. End Time: Unlimited. You DO NOT need to input any CPM at all - I've read that DFP will always pick the highest ad it can serve anyway. Inputting CPM will help DFP create projections of income - one of its many powerful features that I didn't bother trying to set up - but since CPMs vary greatly from day to day, it may not help that much anyway.

Now scroll down to the box, click the Ad Units folder, and click "include" beside the ad unit you created earlier. Click "Save and Upload Creatives" (gray button beside blue save button)

The Creatives screen has a gray box for you to drag or upload a file from the computer. Get your ad code from the network and save it as a text file on your computer. Drag it in there, and it will open a page with a box displaying the code. Make sure it's correct. Often, DFP will detect the ad network and give you a green box saying that they know it's a BurstMedia ad, but you may need to add additional micros. I don't know what the micros do, so I didn't add them except when it gives me a yellow box saying it didn't recognize the ad network - then I add all the micros just in case. In the case of ValueClick, it gave me a gray box and a button to automatically add all the macros it needs. Again, fairly self-explanatory. I don't touch the settings below the box, but I glance to make sure it detected the correct size.

Now go back to the Orders tab and click on the line item you just set up the creative for. This part was confusing to me, but once you see an "approve" button in the top left, click it. Otherwise, everything's ready but not "approved" so no ads will show.

Go to the Inventory tab, click your ad unit and click "Generate tags" from the sidebar. Select ALL the ads you are using, because the header tag will need to include them all (I just update this one every time I create a new unit). Put the header tag in the header, and the individual ad tags in the area where you want them to display, just like with Adsense.

That's it! There's a lot more DFP can do, which you may or may not want to delve into, but for the purposes of just getting started and having ad networks pitted against one another, this is working for me.

[diberry]

Oh, one step I left out. When you're selecting Price Priority, start time, end time and all that, also go to "Limit" and pick "none." Not sure if that's vital, as "unlimited" the default should mean the same, but it was mentioned on one of the many sites I used to figure this out.

[child please]

Good recap, but this statement is incorrect: "You DO NOT need to input any CPM at all - I've read that DFP will always pick the highest ad it can serve anyway."

DFP isn't that smart, that would be impossible.

DFP will pick the highest "AdSense" ad it can serve, but it has no way of knowing what to make those AdSense ads compete against if you don't specify a CPM/eCPM. That's the whole point of Price Priority - you set the eCPM of all your networks and then enable competition with AdSense via DFP, which will do the rest. The only way your statement of not having to list a CPM makes sense is if all your networks are delivering an identical eCPM, which I highly doubt.

If you aren't setting things like eCPM, frequency cap, geo targeting, etc. you are missing on valuable targeting techniques to maximize the revenue you can get from every single one of your impressions.

For example, I work with a company which told me that they don't monetize anything on Safari. So it's essential that in the targeting section, I exclude Safari for all Line Items under that network's order or else I'll just be getting $0 CPM. It's better for me to let my other networks - including AdSense - fight over my Safari impressions.

[Selen]

I don't understand a fundamental thing about DFP ---> if I use DFP, I MUST first be in contact with MY OWN advertisers and have them pay me (by Paypal, bank transfer etc.) for displaying ads, correct? Google doesn't pay me (unless supplement inventory with Adsense) and it's my job to make sure I get paid before I display ads, right?

Someone I know did an experiment - added the code to website and ads started to show up. But they won't get paid unless they arrange it on their own to get paid, I assume ;)

[diberry]

Child please, hmm, I got the information about not needing to fill in the CPM from that dfptutorial site. Maybe I misunderstood what it was saying. But I did wonder how it dould detect the CPMs. It's been like college finals week, trying to learn responsive design and all this, lol. My brain is mush. Thanks for the clarification.

[poppill]

Just wanted to say how much I enjoy this discussion. I am currently using DFP as well. As I know it, you put a new network in, and you run it network first to get the CPM data. Then when you see what your earning you adjust price priority. Adjust weekly if you have the volume.

Child, got any tips for maximizing fill?

I still dont understand whats better for maximizing dollars from every impression.

I know some poeple just make massive daisy chains, that way it keeps passing until somebody takes it

if you use price priority, I dont think it keeps passing back unless youf igure out a complex setup.

Slightly lost like the others.

[diberry]

I second all that, poppil.

I added in CPMs on each network last night. Looking at my earnings so far for today, it looks like they're still evenly distributed amongst the networks I use, so I'd have thought DFP was passing back somehow. But I do have passback tags set within my individual networks, so maybe that's all that's happening. Very confusing to me.

This thread - [productforums.google.com...] - seems to confirm what you're saying. I'm not sure how to start with the other settings. I'm seeing threads here (http://www.webmasterworld.com/WebmasterWorldbeta/google_adsense/4683143.htm) where people talk about a "3x24" frequency cap, so I went to my settings to implement that, but it's not clear. 3 impressions per day per user? Can that be right?

ETA: one thing I just realized is that after setting CPMs, Adsense dropped to match the lowest CPM rate I had put in. So even if some networks are performing below Adsense CPMs, you want to either remove them from the setup or raise your CPM settings to what Adsense is capable of.

In my case, since I haven't use Adsense since about 2005, I may actually have to just run it in one ad slot for a while and see what it can do.