Adsense vs Raptive/AdThrive

[londrum]

I've been running Adsense forever (literally years and years) but like a lot of people I'm seeing my RPM plummet with this change to CPM
I applied to Raptive/AdThrive the other day and got in, and I'm just wondering if anyone else has switched over from Adsense. What are the ads like? What's the money like?
To be honest, they've started talking about sticky footer ads and sticky video ads, and I'm not looking forward to those. I tried Adsense's sticky footers and thought they took up too much space and quickly took them off again
...but the thought of leaving Adsense definitely does appeal

[Seppone]

Unfortunately, I don't have any info regarding Raptive. But what made you switch to them?
I mean there is also media.net, mgid,....many others.

[Juniya]

How is Raptive/AdThrive for you so far? I am thinking of joining them as well...

[londrum]

I think I might be the first person in the whole history of the world to switch back to Adsense. I lasted a week.

My earnings only had a few days to climb but they did get a few quid higher than Adsense. I'm certain they would have gone higher if I waited longer.

The problem is they make you more money by overloading your page with ads -- sticky sidebar ads, sticky footer ads and huge in-content ads that often contain videos. And you don't get to choose where any of these in-content ads go either. It's like having Adsense auto ads switched on.

They also start with sticky video ads at the top and bottom right corner (on top of the sticky sidebar and sticky footer ads), plus big huge ads that expand to fill the whole screen... all of which I quickly turned off.

The only positive is that the quality of ads is way better -- you get big name advertisers that I've never seen on Adsense.

Their tech people are also super helpful.

So if you don't mind a big 300x600 sticky ad on the sidebar, plus a sticky footer bigger than 728x90, plus in-content ads about 970x250 every few paragraphs, then you'll probably make more money.

[Seppone]

Thanks for sharing your experience.
Quite interesting to hear - so I would guess RPM not more than 10% higher?

From my experience with other ad networks I wouldn't rely on the "learning curve" too much.
Either it works well in a couple of days or it doesn't at all. I have never seen anything like a steady climb of RPM because the network "knows my site better" after time.

[londrum]

they give you an RPM guarantee for the first month, which in my case was very low because they based it on my previous month with adsense (after my RPM plummeted to $2-$3 following google's CPM switch) -- so their guarantee was under $4. My normal with adsense was $5-$6.

When you read about Adthrive online you're hoping for more like $10-$15.
If I had an RPM above $10 then it would have been easier to put up with all the extra ads all over the place, but not for $4

[Pjman]

I am with Raptive and they definitely push out a 50% better RPMs than adsense on all sites. You need to give them about a month to reach their peak.

I find most people's (customers) Raptive and MediaVine's RPM claims are complete nonsense. Because most people don't know the difference between RPM metrics.

They base it on Session RPM. I have some sites (same general market) that get 3 page views per session and others that have 7-8 page views per session. You can't compare the 2 and the Session RPMs are vastly different, but the Page RPMs are within 5% of one another.

[Seppone]

How do you mean this? Raptive bases it on session RPM?
I don't get the point.

[Pjman]

Session RPM means that they look at the total revenue made by a full visit by a user. Session length vary by sites. Some sites, that I own, see 1-2 pageviews per session others get 6-8 pageviews per session. So immediately the site that gets 6-8 page is going to have a higher session RPM.

Adsense reports it as page RPM. Meaning that this is how much you make when a page is viewed 1,000 times.