Programmatic Advertising Quantitative Evaluation Revenue Indicator - eCPM

This article will share with you how to improve "eCPM", specifically analyzing from the following perspectives - improving click levels, improving conversion levels, and improving display levels.

e stands for "effective", which means to produce the expected effect. CPM refers to the cost per thousand impressions, which is a settlement method. eCPM refers to the expected revenue per thousand impressions and is the most critical indicator for quantitatively evaluating revenue.

In the complex and diverse advertising traffic sales system of programmatic advertising, the eCPM indicator is affected by many factors:

From the dimension of media user scale and quality, from traffic giants and alliances to small and micro media with less than 50,000 daily active users; from the dimension of advertising form, from search ads to information flow ads; from the dimension of advertising position, from splash screen ads to incentive ads; from the dimension of advertisers, from brand owners to game owners, there are corresponding eCPM levels.

• For advertisers, eCPM refers to the cost required to meet marketing needs. Before launching an ad, they can comprehensively evaluate the eCPM of various channels/ad formats, and develop a more cost-effective advertising strategy.
• For the media, eCPM is related to the ultimate revenue of the advertising business. How to sell limited traffic at a higher price and increase advertising revenue requires a lot of effort to improve eCPM.

In this issue, AdBright will show you how to improve "eCPM" for media.

First of all, the media's own installed base, registration volume, daily active users, monthly active users, average user usage time, user quality and other factors are the core factors affecting eCPM.

However, there is still much that can be done to improve eCPM. For media parties, whether they use CPM, CPC (cost per thousand clicks) or CPA (cost per thousand conversions) and other settlement methods to sell advertising space, they can work hard on advertising design and technology to improve the levels of display, clicks and conversions, and ultimately achieve an increase in the level of eCPM.

1. Improve the display level

1. Improve ad visibility and reduce ad depth

For example, although the inserted advertisements in WeChat official account articles affect the user experience to a certain extent, their display opportunities are far greater than the banner ads at the bottom of the main text page, and their visibility is higher. Some apps have even added advertising entrances, using incentive ads to encourage users to actively watch ads.

2. Set a reasonable preloading time to reduce invalid traffic

In the advertising display link, the media can cache the advertisements locally in advance. When the advertisements need to be displayed, they can be displayed directly without loading them from the network in real time, thus avoiding the inability to fill advertisements due to network problems and the occurrence of invalid traffic.

2. Improve click levels

1. Increasing ad size has a significant positive effect on click-through rate

For example, the click-through rate of splash screen ads is much higher than that of information flow ads. For non-full-screen ad spaces, such as banner and card formats, increasing the size is more conducive to visual appeal and ad clicks.

2. Add appropriate clickable elements to the ad space.

Taking Weibo posts as an example, in the information flow ads below, there are multiple clickable and interactive elements such as avatars, nicknames, attention, short link clicks, video clicks, favorites, etc. An exposed user can have multiple clicks and interactive behaviors, which improves the click level.

Therefore, for the media, they can try to consider designing some larger-sized advertising spaces and more clickable elements without affecting the user experience.

3. Improve conversion levels

Clients of performance-based advertising, such as gaming and e-commerce, are most concerned about conversion costs and improving conversion rates. The media must ensure that the conversion path is smooth and that users can jump to the store (iOS)/start downloading (Android), jump to the browser (content ads), or jump to the official store/product page (Tmall/JD.com, etc.) after clicking.

Compared with the closed Apple Store, media have more ways to improve Android app conversions. For example, in the advertising DSK, a network collection that allows direct downloads can be set to support Wi-Fi and 4G, and during the application download process, automatic prompts for installation and other guidance can appear.

It supports multi-network aggregation and provides installation guidance prompts, which can effectively improve the conversion rate of Android application advertising.

eCPM is also affected by the supply and demand relationship of the overall advertising market. As the supply side, if some advertisers on the demand side are affected by events such as p2p crashes and game license restrictions, they will cut their budgets and promotion schedules. There is oversupply in the advertising market, so the eCPM level has naturally declined.

The macro environment is uncontrollable, but in the programmatic advertising industry, media’s own advertising formats and technologies are controllable.

The media side makes adjustments in many aspects such as ad space elements, form, and size, and does a good job on its own to attract users' attention, improve users' advertising experience, and strengthen the effectiveness of advertising. Ultimately, it will be able to sell more CPM/CPC/CPA, and eCPM will rise, thus achieving good performance.

Author: AdBright

Source: Official Account (id: AdBright01)