Anyone using Criteo + Adsense

[Andy009]

Has anyone any experience of using Criteo and Adsense as passback? Is is worth it?

[justpassing]

It depends how criteo is invoking the passback code. do they ask you to provide an URL? or you can input the adsense code directly? Remember that Adsense can't be loaded inside and iframe, and often, this is how passback are working.

[matbennett]

I'm no longer the fan of Criteo that I once was. However, if you are in a sector where they do have good coverage it can work well... as long as you don't set it up the way they get most people to. You usually need the criteo floor price to be significantly higher than your adsense average to bring you an improvement. Most people's mistake is to set the floor at their adsense average for that unit. Criteo then eagerly buy up your most valuable 10% of impressions for little more than your average price.

Unfortunately there isn't a "magic formula". You have to measure eCPM on that placement : (criteo earnings + adsense passback earnings)/criteo requests * 1000 and compare this against the same for adsense : ideally on a split test. Get it wrong and you can earn considerably less, despite the attractive looking CPMs.

If you can, also test performance by browser and device category. As Criteo are a retargeter, their performance is very dependent on their ability to Cookie match. This varies greatly across devices now.

[Runfun]

I used Criteo in the passed but they stopped with the regular ads and switched to header bidding. I had good earnings for about 40% higher CPM than Adsense but only a coverage of 8%.

[matbennett]

"about 40% higher CPM than Adsense but only a coverage of 8%."

I bet your top performing 8% of AdSense were more than 40% higher than the average anyway. Easily checked from your revenue profile report (I'd expect it to be at least 100% higher). Header bidding is the way to go for sure. Are they offering a wrapper, or are you using someone else's?

[riccarbi]

Yes, I used in in the past and, at least in my case, it didn't work well.
The problem is that they replace your most valuable Adsense Ads with theirs. Since most of Adsense's revenue comes from a small percentage of Ads, to replace them with Criteo's (even if they have a theoretically higher CPM compared to Adsense's AVERAGE) makes you actually getting lower RPMs. In my experience, Criteo should pay at least 100% more than Adsense to be competitive with it, not just a mere 40%. Or, alternatively, Criteo should have a 100% ad coverage, which is not what happens. The problem is that comparing Adsense with Criteo is like comparing apples and oranges. Criteo is CPM-based while Adsense is mostly CPC-based. So saying "We pay a 40% higher CPM but on a small percentage of your ads, what have you got to lose?" is misleading. Let's make an example. You get $10 per thousand impressions from the 10 best-paying Adsense ads and $10 more from the additional 100 worst-paying ones. so you get $20 per 2000 impressions. Average RPI is $1 per 1000. Criteo replaces your 10 best-paying Adsense ads and gives you a 40% higher CPM on those, and leaves the rest to Adsense. You'll get $1.4 + 10= $11.4 x 2000 compared to the $20 you were getting previously. Not a great bargain, isn't it?

[Andy009]

I will probably give them a try despite not being too impressed. And I will follow riccarbi advice and set a floor price 100% higher than Adsense.

[justpassing]

Sorry if the question is silly, but, Criteo is part o the Adsense third parties network , so isn't it the same to just run Adsense ? Won't Adsense select automatically Criteo's offers if they match at a higher bid than Adword ads ?

[riccarbi]

Sorry if the question is silly, but, Criteo is part o the Adsense third parties network , so isn't it the same to just run Adsense ? Won't Adsense select automatically Criteo's offers if they match at a higher bid than Adword ads ?

I am not totally sure about that; but, AFAIK, Adsense serves third-party ads when it has not Adsense ads to fill your ad slots. Adsense doesn't serve Criteo's or other third parties' ads if they match at a higher bid than its own ones, this would mean to give away Adsense's revenue to competitors. In my experience, third-party ads passed through Adsense as backups pay much less than native Adsense ads.

[justpassing]

Okay!