How this arbitrage publisher achieved $5 CPM with native ads
Traffic arbitrage is a game for expert players. Buying and selling traffic in a way that makes significant profit requires an advanced understanding of traffic data and good intuition on sourcing the best kind of traffic. While traffic arbitrage players mostly choose display options when it comes to monetizing their domains, content recommendation is gaining momentum as an effective tool to increase revenue.
This case study reviews a specific traffic arbitrage agency that operates multiple domains. They first joined WhizzCo’s platform in February 2021. They started out with only one domain but have been increasing the number of sites monetized via WhizzCo ever since. Currently, 25 of their domains are monetized via the WhizzCo platform.
Goals
The publisher was looking for a platform with real-time CPM prediction capability to increase their native advertising revenue. They wanted to keep track of all processes via their own data-driven system and were not interested in closing themselves into an exclusive agreement with any single content recommendation platform.
eCPM graph showing the competition between different content recommendation providers
between June 1-July 31, 2021 in the US
Wins
1. Achieving a $5 average CPM
The publisher had been planning to add content recommendation to their monetization strategy for a while but had trouble finding a single vendor that fit their needs.
After joining WhizzCo, the publisher added under-article content recommendation widgets to its domains and selected which content recommendation platforms they wanted to work with for each of their domains. In just a few weeks, the publisher saw their average CPM jump to $5.
2. Advanced data and transparency
To balance their ROI publishers relying on traffic arbitrage need to have a data-driven system that gives them full overview and control over their inventory. The publisher already had a sophisticated system, developed in-house, but wanted to take advantage of WhizzCo’s algorithm and data. To answer this specific need, the WhizzCo team created an API-based solution, delivering accurate, real-time CPM predictions directly to the publisher’s own system.
3. Infinite scroll
To further increase yield, the publisher decided to switch to an infinite scroll layout on their domains for easier readability and higher CPMs.
Bottom line
Since February 2021 the publisher has significantly increased their ad revenue.
With the custom-engineered WhizzCo API the publisher now has full access to all data related to their native advertising and can make data-driven decisions about their monetization strategy across domains.