Does reducing below fold units increase viewability & hence revenue

Does increasing viewability even at the cost of impressions raise page RPM.

[kkinfy]

Hi, I run a website with around 3000 daily visitors from the US. I have three ad units per page. The first unit has a viewability of about 65%, the second about 45% and the third around 30%. The average viewability is in the range of 45 to 50% max. Now in case, I remove the third or both second and third units, the average viewability will naturally go up (at the cost of reduced impressions). But will such an approach help increase overall revenue?

My guess is this: Advertisers (and algorithms like conversion optimizer/smart bidding) will only see the site-wide viewability and not the ad unit level. Hence, once the site level viewability goes up, their bids go up as well. Am I missing something here?

[lammert]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld kkinfy!

The best way is to test it yourself because the outcome may depend on the niche you are in, site layout and available ads. Set up an A/B testing with custom channels. Serve random ad configurations to your visitors where the ads for each configuration are labeled with the corresponding custom channel. Gather the data and analyze it.

[kkinfy]

@lammert I understand testing is the perfect way to find the answer. However, I would like to know from other's experiences. I hope most webmasters would have tested number of ad units, below fold/above fold units, etc. I am hoping to know if ad dilution (due to more ads reduced viewable impressions) is real.

[NickMNS]

My guess is this: Advertisers (and algorithms like conversion optimizer/smart bidding) will only see the site-wide viewability and not the ad unit level. Hence, once the site level viewability goes up, their bids go up as well.

Am I missing something here?

Yes and No.
No: your assessment is correct bids should go up.
Yes: the amount that the bids will go up by will not be sufficient to cover the marginal decline in revenue from removing the btf ad-unit.

The solution is to lazy load btf ad units, and only load them if there is a reasonable expectation that the ads will be scrolled to, while at the same time ensuring that you load the ads early enough that once the ad slot is in view that the ad is already in view. These two conditions are at opposite ends of the spectrum, and depending on the layout and usage patterns of your pages an optimal trigger point may not exist. Generally there is more "wiggle" room if your page is very long, with relatively few ad-units. Unfortunately if this isn't your case or you really want to find the exact optimal point, then this can only be achieved with testing.