search management
conversions
mobile
Case Study DoubleClick Ad Exchange
ad serving & trafficking
ad exchange
CPC
CPM
cost per click
advertiser
real time bidding
reservation
cost per click
remarketing
cost per 100 imp
reporting
Publishers Clearing House
Lifts revenue, efficiency by monetizing up to 70% of its remnant inventory with DoubleClick Ad Exchange™ analytics (site analytics)
attribution
dynamic creative
Founded in 1953, Publishers Clearing House (PCH) is a multichannel, direct marketer of value-based merchandise, magazines and promotional offers, and a leading provider of digital “play and win” entertainment. While PCH has awarded over $227 million in sweepstakes prizes, it also serves up more than 300 million ad impressions monthly across its seven-site network. search
transparency
audience data
above the fold
publisher shopping
PCH began using DoubleClick Ad Exchange, a real-time marketplace to buy and sell into DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), which meant minimal effort from an operational efficiency
reporting and analytics
optimization cross format
operations.
Won over by strong controls PCH started cautiously with Ad Exchange, experimenting for more than a year before using it more intensively and strategically. “We really took it slow in the beginning,” says Denise, recalling some of PCH’s initial concerns around brand control and ad quality.
audience
giving up control of the ads or compromising our brand.” When starting out, PCH monetized up to 15% of its remnant inventory with Ad Exchange. Now, PCH monetizes up to 70% of its remnant inventory via Ad Exchange, and grew its share of revenue by five times in 2011.
Higher yields, better pricing decisions with Dynamic Allocation “One of the biggest benefits of Ad Exchange is Dynamic Allocation with DFP. Ad Exchange will only serve if it can beat the highest-paying ad at that exact time, ensuring optimal revenue,” says Denise. “Knowing Ad Exchange is working behind the scenes to provide us the highest yield at any given time is a great feeling, especially when you are working with numerous technology solutions and limited resources.”
agency
advertiser
cross channel
• Grow revenue from remnant inventory without channel conflicts • Maintain control over ad quality in indirect channels • Increase operational efficiency
analytics (site a
contextual targeting
video
Approach
“But Ad Exchange is easy to use and allows us a broad range of controls, like blocking competitive or undesirable ads from bidding. It lets us maximize revenue without
• Provider of digital “play and win” entertainment; multichannel direct marketer of value-based merchandise, magazines and promotional offers
Goals
display advertising space. “Ad Exchange seemed like a natural fit since it’s integrated verification
search manage
www.pch.com
In early 2010, after having tried various strategies to monetize its remnant inventory,
perspective, and no serving discrepancies,” says Denise Leggio, PCH’s director of ad
above the fold
view through conversions
funnel reporting
attribution
• Started with Ad Exchange in early 2010; • Began using it strategically in mid-2011 • Leveraged Dynamic Allocation with DFP to raise yields, optimize direct pricing • Continuously experimented with • Ad Exchange tools and control levers • Worked with Google team to optimize fill rates on international traffic control
search
verificatio
work flow
PCH has also seen instances in which Ad Exchange bids are higher than direct inventory bids. As a result, Denise and her team can make more informed pricing decisions on direct inventory.
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Case Study
Results
More insights and revenue with the right tools and levers Ad Exchange also features a full suite of tools to track and fine-tune performance. “The optimization options have been extremely valuable for our online business. The attribution
work flow
tools, reports and data provided give us insight into our inventory and buyer habits,” says Denise. “With those insights, we’re able to make changes extremely quickly.” For example, Denise relies on transparency from detailed reporting in Ad Exchange when analyzing and optimizing individual ad unit performance. ”We had one unit that was severely underperforming due to lower visibility,” she recalls. ‘We moved the unit to a different part of the page, and the eCPM doubled.” PCH also uses Minimum CPM Recommendations in Ad Exchange, which automatically suggests an optimal minimum CPM for each eligible ad slot in the Ad Exchange auction. “Using event tracking, we can see that this clearly increases the revenue when used,” notes Denise.
Not just a platform, but a partnership
verification
• Up to 70% of remnant inventory is now monetized with Ad Exchange • 5X growth in Ad Exchange’s share of revenue • 25% increase in revenue and up to 5X increase in fill rate from international inventory optimization • Grew revenue without compromising ad quality or losing publisher control • Increased operational efficiency frees up ad ops team, allowing better support for direct sales efforts efficiency
Denise and her team experiment frequently, and they often rely on guidance from their support team at Google to optimize inventory and performance. PCH’s Google team recently noticed that one of PCH’s properties had a large amount of international traffic with unfilled inventory, decreasing the publisher’s overall eCPM. To fill this inventory, Google worked with PCH to create distinct ad units with special restrictions for international markets, as well as new Ad Exchange tags targeting only international traffic. The result was a 25% revenue lift and a 500% increase in fill rate. “Since we have lower channel conflict for international traffic, targeting those markets allowed us to maximize fill on inventory that tends to go unfilled by traditional networks and yield optimizers. It also increased the quality for our US advertisers,” Denise explains. “Working with our team at Google allowed us to build a strategy that was inline with our
About DoubleClick
business needs. Without their help, we may have continued down the same path prior to
Google’s DoubleClick™ products provide ad management and ad serving solutions to companies that buy, create or sell online advertising. The world’s top marketers, publishers, ad networks and agencies use DoubleClick products as the foundation for they’re online advertising businesses. With deep expertise in ad serving, media planning, search management, rich media, video and mobile, DoubleClick products help customers execute their digital media strategy more effectively.
implementing this optimization with Ad Exchange.”
Operational efficiencies increase focus on direct sales Using Ad Exchange has also saved Denise’s team time and resources, allowing them to better support their direct sales team. “The ad operations team can now be more involved in optimizing direct sales campaigns—testing and building fun and creative packages involving rich media, takeover ads or site skins. The operations team can now be a strategic partner on that end, instead of just being on the back end doing yield optimization and trafficking.”
A proven solution for PCH PCH may have carefully tested the Ad Exchange waters before diving in, but thanks to a strong mix of technology and service, PCH feels at ease relying on Ad Exchange. “You have to work with a solution that you trust, and I think that’s why we like Ad Exchange,” Denise says. “For PCH, Ad Exchange is the solution of choice because of its robust technology, insights, control and ability to offer the highest yield and inventory fill in a highly competitive market. It’s very easy to use, and we’re able to maintain control as a
www.doubleclick.com
publisher,” she says. “For DFP publishers, it’s the most operationally efficient product, requiring little effort but yielding big results.”
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reporting and analytics
