What's the best way to serve Adsense by DFP?

[Runfun]

I'm looking for a solution to serve Adsense at the best way with DFP. When I'm serving Adsense directly the revenue (CPM/CPC/overall earnings) are much higher than when I'm serving it with DFP.

The problem is I want to sell inventory and place affiliates combined with Adsense. There's not a good solution to serve it without DFP but I can't find a solution for the big drop in earnings of Adsense.

How do you guys serve Adsense banners in DFP to get the best revenue?

[child please]

1. Implement header bidding, at least 1 or 2 partners and preferably 5-10. However, I get that is not feasible for a lot of people so...

2. Ensure your line items are set as Price Priority and the correct Value CPM is entered and update this value consistently, perhaps every month. Compare this with the fill rate and CPM being delivered in your third party ad network's publisher console.

3. Set frequency caps and geo targeting. F-cap is important in daisy chain or waterfall set ups because if you don't, that line item will keep on delivering forever and the only way AdSense will deliver an ad is if they beat that Value CPM.

Here's a real word example. You have put in a Line Item for Ad Network 1 with a eCPM of $1.00, no f-cap. In your publisher console, you see the results of Ad Network 1 - $0.75, 5% fill rate. This is a very inefficient set up. Not only is the delivered CPM lower than what you have in DFP, but with no f-cap, it will keep diverting impressions to that Network unless AdSense has an ad paying $1.01 or higher. What's worse is that 95% of the ads aren't even being filled and are being passed back...you can minimize this by adding passback code to AdSense, but that is still not very efficient. What I would do in this case is lower the eCPM in DFP to 0.75 and f-cap at 2/24 or 3/24 and see if the fill rate increases. Probably even geo-target based on how that network is performing in specific geos.

[Runfun]

Response to your advice:

1. Unfortunately I don't have an Ad Exchange account yet like Double Click Ad Exchange. I've contacted them last week but no answer yet. Than I should be able to let networks buy inventory. I'm serving about 2.5 million adimpressions a month so I've no idea that's enough.

2. They are set as Price Priority but how can I use the right Value CPM when this isn't reported in Adsense? Most earnings doesn't show up at the specified banners. Maybe my floor prices are to high? Where can I see the fillrate of the line item? The better the fillrate the better the floor price is.

3. I'm using frequency caps only for my direct advertisers and affiliates. For the moment I don't have other advertising networks than Adsense.

[frankleeceo]

@child please, how do you setup header bidding with DFP? What other things have to be used with it? I am interested to learn! Thanks.

[koan]

In my experience, setting up Adsense as a line item (to compete with other networks) instead of using it as a default backup at the Ad unit level requires some special privilege in the Admin section that regular users don't have, you need to be or know a partner of some kind with Google.

[child please]

You don't need AdX to implement header bidding, they are actually not even related in any way. Header bidding is basically when your ad server (DFP) makes calls to all partners at the same time to get a "real time" bid which then competes against Google. It leads to a considerable lift in revenues because each partner gets an equal shot at each impression rather than competing at the price you have entered for that line items (which of course AdSense would have the option of beating by $0.01 if they wanted it).

The value CPM is what is reported in your THIRD PARTY ad network console. Say you are running Media.net, what those ad units are delivering is what you want to enter as your Value CPM as that is what AdSense then uses to dynamically compete against.

@koan, header bidding is pretty time consuming to set up front, you can find more information at prebid.org. However, if you work with some ad networks or partners, many of them have their own customized wrappers that they will set up for you. All you would need to do is add some code to the header of your page after all the hundreds of line items are created (by the partner once you give them temporary access to your DFP).

[Runfun]

But still I don't understand why directly placed Adsense has better earnings than Adsense placed with DFP. It doesn't make sense to me because it would be a huge disadvantage and it should deliver the same earnings.

[child please]

I'm saying this not knowing your set up at all and it is kind of an apples to oranges comparison, but my first guess would be:

AdSense hardcoded directly = getting every single impression
Adense through DFP = losing impressions to other affiliates/partners/etc.

If your overall income is less, perhaps you are sending too much traffic to your partners through DFP, which would mean your targeting criteria needs tweaking.

I saw the complete opposite. After running AdSense through DFP, I saw a 25% lift and after heading bidding another 25% lift. This is just AdSense, it's not even taking into account the revenue gained through the other networks and header partners. All in all, I am making nearly 4x now with DFP and header bidding than what I made with AdSense directly coded onto my page.

[child please]

And before anyone asks, my traffic is actually lower now than it was before.

[Runfun]

Maybe it's because of my setup, it's like:

1 - Affiliates with type 'Sponsorship' and a frequency cap to each unique visitor;
2 - Adsense banners with type 'Price priority' and a floorprice near the CPM of the Adsense units;
3 - Order with several Adsense units for unfilled banners/impressions, type 'house'

It would be better with an adnetwork after the affiliates but at the moment I don't have a network to use.

[child please]

Hmmm...well, I think I can see a couple of problems.

1. Why are you entering in Adsense line items and not enabling dynamic allocation/competition instead? When you are entering AdSense as line items, there is no competition and it's pointless.
2. If your AdSense price priority items have no f-cap, your #3 "House ads" will never run as Price Priority gets preference over House ads. Again, pointless. :(

I run everything in price priority, but I also don't have any affiliate deals. Are you able to see what your affiliate ads are delivering on a CPM basis and then enter them in as price priority? And then enable AdSense dynamic allocation in network settings for each ad unit?

Anyway, you seem to have a very non-traditional set up, much different than mine. At the least you should be running some reports in DFP to see how many impressions AdSense is filling - it's probably much lower than you think. You can also find out what eCPM AdSense is delivering.

[Runfun]

1. Why are you entering in Adsense line items and not enabling dynamic allocation/competition instead? When you are entering AdSense as line items, there is no competition and it's pointless.

Dynamic allocation/competition should be possible with another network competing and/or Doubleclick Ad Exchange connected. Unfortunately Google doesn't respond to my request so far and for the moment I don't have another network connected.

2. If your AdSense price priority items have no f-cap, your #3 "House ads" will never run as Price Priority gets preference over House ads. Again, pointless. :(

If my Adsense price priority items don't get filled they would be unfilled if I didn't serve banners like this solution of Google: [support.google.com...]

I'm patient for further developments because the affiliates earn much more each day than display advertising was before.

[child please]

My understanding is that the house ads are only when there is no ad to fill based on targeting criteria and AdSense cannot fill it via dynamic allocation only.

If you are running AdSense as a line item with no targeting or restrictions, it will still serve that line item even if there is no ad. DFP isn't smart enough to know whether the destination line items has an ad or not; it can only know when the targeting criteria isn't fulfilled or if AdSense is unable to fill via dynamic allocation.

Consider this example:

Line item: Partner A, no f-cap, no geo-target.

That line item will run forever, even if Partner A has no paying ad to deliver and serves a blank ad. DFP doesn't know anything about Partner A apart from what you have included in the Line item settings and will never default to your House Ad.

Now consider this example:

Line item: Partner A, f-cap is 3/24 and geo-target to US only

An impression comes from Canada. That line item cannot serve, NOW DFP will default to your house ad.

From what I understood you to say, your AdSense line items are completely open ended with no targeting or restrictions and thus, I don't believe your House Ads will ever serve. I can't say I'm 100% sure but based on my conversations with Google on DFP (and I've had a lot), this is what I believe.

Anyway, if you have no other partners, then I can't really give good advice as all my experience is with AdSense + at least one other partner in DFP.

[Runfun]

Well Child Please I've probably found the solution and it was a fault of myself. I didn't linked my Adsense account but since a few days I did. I was surprised that my earnings with desktop advertising was very low. Hopefully this will improve and now I'm using Adsense like DFP tells me:

Create an AdSense line item
Sign in to DoubleClick for Publishers.
Click Delivery and then Orders.
Find an existing order, or create a new order.
Create a line item, using the AdSense line item type. The AdSense line item type is only available for "Standard" inventory sizes.
Choose your default AdSense account, or another linked AdSense account, to use as the Web property alias.

Now I use the Adsense line items, also to fill unfilled impressions.

My setup at this moment, and even with a partner with header bidding:

1) Visitors from the countries where I focus on get affiliate banners first (served max. 3 a day, about 9 a week and rotating);
2) Header bidding takes about 12% of the remaining impressions but competes with Adsense;
3) Remaining impressions are filled with Adsense banners;
4) I noticed there where still 10% unfilled impressions and they are now also filled with Adsense but than with line item type house.

Revenue by desktop is slightly higher and I believe it will take some time advertisers notice the available ad units but I'm positive this will work out well.