474% Ad Revenue Boost with Prebid Manage Account | Case Study
How did Setupad increase ad revenue by 474% and eCPM by 73% over Google AdSense on STUDOMAT?
About STUDOMAT
STUDOMAT appeared in 2012 as a centralized and updated online hub for students and young individuals seeking to enhance their student life. As the STUDOMAT team remembers, before that, there wasn’t a place on the internet that had all the updated details about studies, scholarships, jobs, housing, and fun stuff for students in the Bosnian language.
STUDOMAT also acts as a helpful online community designed for students and young people. What makes it special is that it brings together everything students might need in a simple and easy-to-use space, with a dedicated forum section, YouTube channel, mobile app, and more.
The Challenge: Protect The User Experience
Since the start, STUDOMAT’s team has consistently prioritized the user experience as their primary goal. Before April 2023, the website wasn’t showing any ads. Then, the team decided to give Google AdSense a go but kept the number of banners minimal.
Because the team already had other websites they were monetizing with Setupad, eventually they decided to try Setupad’s solution on STUDOMAT, too. Setupad’s Technical Account Executive Kristiāna Biteniece has carefully addressed the client’s concerns and offered an ad setup that placed a higher emphasis on user satisfaction and ensured a comfortable browsing experience. With the assistance of Setupad’s Ad Operations Manager Sabīne Žilde, Setupad successfully optimized STUDOMAT’s ad positions, introduced new ad sizes, including adjusting the ad unit sizes to deliver direct campaigns, and was confident in the achieved improvements.
The Solution: Prebid Manage Account & User Experience-focused Approach
After a detailed analysis, Setupad recommended the client our flagship product – Prebid Manage Account. Setupad Prebid Manage Account is an exclusive product for Google AdSense publishers aiming to enhance their monetization performance by gaining immediate eligibility for Google AdX, a premium ad exchange with a high barrier to entry. With Setupad, websites of any size can access Google AdX, provided they have a proven track record of quality content and audience.
This strategy worked extremely well for the client.
As the STUDOMAT team recognizes, “The difference was noticeable after just a few days. We saw an increase in ad impressions, higher CPM, and ultimately an increase in revenue.”
The ad setup was created taking into account the website’s long-form blog nature. For example, placing the ad right after the first paragraph is the most inoffensive yet effective ad placement, because the ad naturally grasps users’ attention (like a hero image would), and users will be more likely not to oversee the ad and have a chance to interact with it.
Another interesting observation was how Google Discover became a huge source of additional traffic for the client.
While there are many things that can be attributed to a sudden spike in Google Discover traffic, we believe in the STUDOMAT case it was due to the following factors:
- Content Optimization: If the content is highly relevant, engaging, and aligns with currently trending topics or popular searches, it’s more likely to be featured in Google Discover.
- Quality Images: Google Discover emphasizes visually appealing content, including high-quality images and visuals.
- User Engagement: Content that receives high engagement, such as clicks, likes, and shares, is more likely to be recommended by Google Discover.
- Optimized Ad Placement: If the website has implemented effective ad placement strategies, it can enhance the user experience. Besides, if ad units have high viewability and engagement, it is a positive factor for Google Discover.
- Quality of Ads: The quality and relevance of the ads displayed on the website may contribute to Google Discover featuring content more prominently.
Finally, since the client has a lot of direct campaigns, it was important to find a way to safeguard the value of inventory and deliver the results for direct advertisers. Unlocking Google AdX demand has helped the STUDOMAT team successfully deliver direct campaigns and simultaneously boost competition from programmatic and Google demand. Besides, Google AdX has advanced optimization functionality such as Optimized Competition un Optimized Pricing, which the client successfully leveraged.
Setupad’s Google-certified AdOps can help set up direct campaigns depending on the client’s goals. These campaigns need to be optimized to participate in the same real-time auction with programmatic and AdX demand.
That’s how the STUDOMAT team rated their overall cooperation with Setupad: “Our cooperation with Setupad has been truly excellent. The communication is fast, and they are always there to help, give advice, or solve a problem. Communication with Account Executive Kristiana is amazing and we really get the impression that the entire Setupad team is personally dedicated to us in order to jointly achieve our goals.”
The Result: 474% Revenue Increase and 73% eCPM boost
To calculate the increase in revenue, impressions, and eCPM, we extracted the data from AdSense to compare it against Setupad in the time period from May 2023 to November 2023 when the two platforms were running simultaneously on the website. By dividing the data from two sources, we could observe the following remarkable results:
- A 474% revenue increase
- A 214% increase in ad impressions
- A 73% boost in eCPM
The STUDOMAT team was impressed with the results and described the cooperation with Setupad in the following words: “Setupad has helped us optimize our advertising positions, create better settings within Google Ad Manager, and this ultimately led to an increase in the number of visits and revenue. The CPM we have received since collaborating with Setupad is the highest in our 12-year history of business and existence.”
This case study highlights how careful optimizations and correctly chosen product have helped the client to achieve remarkable results. That’s why we at Setupad believe in an individual and unique approach to every client and always evaluate the website for the most suitable product and ad setup. Start maximizing your ad revenue today with a trusted website monetization partner like Setupad. Sign up today!
