5 minutes until event starts · publishers started swapping out ad tags to improve performance...

5 Minutes Until Event Starts

4 Minutes Until Event Starts

3 Minutes Until Event Starts

2 Minutes Until Event Starts

1 Minute Until Event Starts

PublisherThe

Forum The event is this way

In the Acapulco Room

Welcome to the Publisher Forum

John Cole Tyler BishopJohn is the Chief Customer Officer for Ezoic and is a successful veteran

of the online advertising industry. He’s worked closely with over 23,000 publishers over the

course of the last 6 years. John is also a tea enthusiast.

Tyler is an award-winning marketer and is the head of marketing for Ezoic.

He’s served as an SEO expert for start-up boards and has helped dozens of sites exponentially increase

organic traffic. He’s also a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt.

What is Ezoic and why are you two guys leading the event today?

The story of Ezoic

Bought sites and

improved ad

performance

Increased site

revenues

2-5x & refined

A.I.

Made layout testing & ad

testing

products available to

publishers

Google case study shows

increases in

revenue to pubs of over

400%

Platform contains

over 23K

sites and grows each

week

Site results are

holistic

Billions of variables affect

monetization

User behavior is constantly

shifting

Not All “AdTech” Is

Helping

Competition is good

These experiences fuel today’s content

Matthew Prince, CEO, Cloudflare

Sean Meng & Florian Müller-Behrendt, Google

Christian Amadasum, Google Product Team, Google

Dr. Greg Starek, Data Scientist, Ezoic

Gavin Bechtold & Roberto Fernandez, Ezoic

Bill Phelan, CEO, Bright Hub & College Factual

Q&A panel with all of today’s experts

Submit questions to today’s speakers

Use the box up front!

Who you will hear from today

We’ve come a long way, baby

2000’s

SwappingAd Tags

Creation of “ad stacks”

Publishers started swapping out ad

tags to improve

performance

Publishers started experimenting

with “waterfall”

method of ad placement

2007 2010 2015

Exchanges & Bidding

Exchanges & bidding

mechanisms

helped publishers balance efforts

Personalized Ad Experiences

Select publishers started

experimenting

with personalized ad placement

How are these ads impacting our future?

Personalized Ad Placement“The ability to show a user a completely individualized ad experience based upon unique factors and data specific

to that user’s behaviors, attributes, and history”

All the UX elements of your site affect each other dramatically

•Navigation•Background•Ad Density•Page Speed

Users tend to really hate white text on a black background. Navigation can be determined by cultural sensitivities.

HeadlineAD

AD

Is your ad density matching the threshold for what users will allow?

Is your ad density matching the threshold for

Unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet

Not all AdTech Is helping your site

What did The Guardianjust learn?

What You CAN Control What You CAN’T Control

• Inventory• Ad quality (content engagement)

• The users’ experience on your site

• Implementation of AdTech

• How AdTech affects other AdTech• The fairness of the digital landscape

You should be asking these questions…

How much money do I make per

user?

How are my bounce rates doing over time by device?

How do my top landing pages perform (UX, earnings, and more)?

Am I doing regular “health checks” on my own to see how the site is doing?

Is my website fast enough for users?

Is my site secure?

“Just another ad, right?”

Scenario #2RPM = $10.00

Scenario #1RPM = $8.00

$200.00 Ad Revenue

$150.00 Ad Revenue

CPM is a metric for advertisers, not publishers

Scenario #2RPM = $10.00

Scenario #1RPM = $8.00

$200.00 Ad Revenue

$150.00 Ad Revenue

EPMV (Earnings Per Thousand Visitors)

A true metric for publishers

Site Earnings Visitors/1000

÷

=

EPMV

Smart Reporting - Pages vs Landing Pages

How should you measure user experience

Bounce Rate Pageviews Per Visit Session Duration

Geo-Location Landing Page Device

Subjective Data vs Objective Data

Which is more appealing?

Subjective Data vs Objective Data

Which is more appealing?

What you think your site/page is about

What users think your site/page is about

How will you know if you’re going in the right direction?

Visitors RevenueKeep Score

How will you know if you’re going in the right direction?

You Deserve A 5 Minute BreakWe’ll be back at 10:45am with Matthew Prince from Cloudflare

Alex DynerHead of Special Projects

Tell us a little about yourself and your role at Cloudflare?

Can you explain to the audience what Cloudflare does?

What trends do you see driving business for publishers?

What new developments can you share with us here today?

What advice do you have for the publishers that are here today?

Tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be at Google?

What is the Google Certified Publishing Partner Program?

What is the certification process like?

How does the program benefit publishers?

Where’s the line between Google support and partner services?

What is the future like for the Google Certified Publishing Partner Program?

You Deserve A 5 Minute BreakWe’ll be back at 11:40am with Christian Amadasum from Google

It’s time for lunch…We’ll be back at 1:05pm with Dr. Greg the Data Scientist

Statistics

ComputerScienceScientificMethod

Data

Science

Data Science What is it?

Statistics

ComputerScienceScientificMethod

Data

Science

Maximizing desired

outcome by leveraging our

knowledge of the past to reduce

uncertainty

The Predictive

Power of Data

We

igh

t

Length

The Predictive

Power of Data

We

igh

t

Length

y = mx + b

The Predictive Power of Data

y=mx+b

Ma

kin

g t

he

Pla

yo

ffs

Number of Wins

Prob =!

!"#$%

We

igh

t

Length

Machine Learning and Algorithm Development

Dog Criteria?• Animal

• Mammal

• Barks

• Walks on 4 legs

Machine Learning and Algorithm Development

Animal?

Mammal?

Walkson

4legs?

Barks?

Machine Learning and Algorithm Development

Animal?

Mammal?

Walkson

4legs?

Machine Learning and Algorithm Development

Animal?

Mammal?

Walkson

4legs?

Accurate predictions require big data

Machine Learning and Algorithm Development

• Two steps:

• 1. Minimize error on decision tree

• 2. Maximize probability of desired outcome

Data Science in Action: Where to Place Ads?

• Chrome• Saturday• 10 am• Cellular tethering• La Jolla, CA, USA• (and much, much more)

Optimization Algorithm: Tree Model

United States?

Saturday?

10 am?

Cellular Tethering?

Earnings?

Optimization Algorithm: Tree Model

United States?

Saturday?

10 am?

Cellular Tethering?

Earnings?

United States?

Saturday?

10 am?

Cellular Tethering?

Earnings

United States?

Saturday?

10 am?

Cellular Tethering? Bounce

The Power of Big Data

Data Science Take Home Messages• Collect data across multiple

variables• Minimize Error• Maximize Probability

Quick caveat before we start

When it comes to Google AdSense and ADX terms of service (policy), we have more experience than almost any publisher

We’re very happy to share our experience

But, I don’t work for Google

This is not ‘official’ or in any way ‘legal advice’ – this is just my personal opinion based on what I’ve seen and learned…

Common Google Policy Mistakes

Why all Google

publishers should care….

Why do we have to keep to Google’s policy rules?

Legal Reason: You’ve already agreed J

Practical Reason: It’s in your long-term best interest to do so

How do Google’s policies help publishers?

• App Nexus Video Ad Exchange 2015

• Major Fraud Issue

• CPM’s rose from <20c to $1.60CPM after crack down

Navigating Google Policy

6 things to avoid if at all possible…

3 things you must avoid…

Don’t….. keep getting Policy Violation Warnings

• These come in via email or via your Google Certified Partner.

• You don’t want to be getting repeat warnings

Here’s how they happen:

Don’t…… lose your ‘nessie’ or arrow ads

• Losing Google ‘arrow ads’ happens without warning

• Not only might you lose your Nessie ads – you could also

end up with a violation warning…

Don’t… put a 300 x 250 above the fold on Mobile

Don’t put >1 ad per viewport on Mobile

Don’t put ads over content / content over ads

Don’t… produce ‘thin content’

Non Family Safe ContentAds or content – if it’s not family safe you could get a warning

Ad to Content Ratio

Policy mistakes to avoid at all costs

1. Clicking on your own ads - or getting other people to do that for you.

2. Generating (or receiving) Bot Traffic

3. Receiving traffic from incentivized sources

4. Manipulating how ads are served

5. Encouraging users… to click on ads to support your site

Top reasons for account closure:

Don’t - Duplicate Content

Don’t engage in deceptive ad placement or navigation

Traffic Sources / Buying Bad Traffic

Violations happen…(even on big sites)

What to do if you get in trouble…

• GetHelp

• Takeaction

Summary

Do’s:• Know the rules• Add tons of value to your users

• Pay attention to policy warnings – they’re

important• Seek help online or find a GCPP to help

Do Nots:• Lose your nessie ads

• Implement ads in ways that are confusing• Exceed 50% pixels to ads ratio

• Duplicate content across domains• Publish non-family safe content

• Clicks on your own ads or buy traffic from

poor sources

You Deserve A 10 Minute BreakWe’ll be back at 1:55pm with Gavin & Robert

Who will be sharing data from thousands of sites…

Multivariate Testing

“Multivariate testing is a technique for testing a hypothesis in which multiple variables are modified. The goal of multivariate

testing is to determine which combination of variations performs the best out of all of the possible combinations.”

Multivariate Testing Using Machine Learningvs

A/B Static Testing

vs

AD1 AD2

Multivariate Testing Using Machine Learning vs

A/B Static Testing

The difference is staggering!

Applying Machine Learning To Testing

Variables that must be continuously tested

Ad Locations

Ad Sizes

Ad Colors

# of Ads on the Page

Types of Ads

Who is the user?

Geolocation

Time of day

Traffic source

Device Size

New Vs

Returning

Themeowpost.com

Results

• Earnings increased on every device

• Increase in returning visitors

• A 9% decrease in bounce rate

What about the ads themselves?

• Competition is Good

• Ad partners + existing ad relationships = healthy competition

Results from Increasing the Competition

● 17% increase in EPMV

● Massive increase in earnings

Improve UX Through Ad Optimization

The Progression

of Testing

Testing Ad Combinations

Testing Layouts

Layout Tester aka Full Site Optimization

Layouts/

themesMenu

positions

Page columns

Fonts

Example: u-s-history.com

Optimize Your Layouts Too?

- Bigdata=BigPicture

- SubstantialImprovementtoUserExperience

- Increaserevenuegainsevenmore thanyou

couldoptimizingforadsalone

Layout Optimization- simplypsychology.org

• User Experience +

Revenue

Improvement

• Revenue increased

by more than 400%

• 30% + increase in

traffic growth

Revenue

Ad Optimization + Layout Optimizationanswersking.com

• User Experience

+ Revenue

Improvement

• EPMV nearly

quadrupled

“Patience you

must have my young padawan”- Yoda

Thank you

Bill PhelanCEOBright Hub

How did you get involved in the publishing industry?

What’s your history with monetizing your site?

Increases in Mobile Traffic and SEO Position (+104%)

Decreased Bounce Rate (+16.7%)Increases in Time On Site (+24%)

+180,000Added Ranked Organic Keywords

+2x Increase in EPMV

+3x Increase In Ad Earnings

How do you think about Ezoic in relation to your site?

What role should technology play in publishing businesses now and in the future?

You Deserve A 5 Minute BreakWe’ll be back at 3:05pm with John & Christian

Who will be announcing a new Google AMP-related application

Ezoic LaunchesUniversal AMP Converter For All Sites

Your Current Website(any CMS)(mobile-friendly or not)

AMPCONVERTER

App

New AMP-Compliant Pages Indexed In Search Engines

Take Pages & Make Them AMP-Compliant Without Losing Functionality

Opportunity for forward-thinking publishers & an easy way to test AMP

Early SERP Results Are Extremely Positive

If you’re interested in learning more, connect with anyone from our publishing team before you leave today

Final 10 Minute BreakWe’ll be back at 3:15pm to have our

experts answer your questions

Dwayne LaFleurCEO & Founder

Ezoic

Christian Amadasum

Product LeadGoogle

Bill PhelanCEO

Bright Hub

Dane Knecht

Head of Product Strategy

Cloudflare