Welcome to WebmasterWorld rentlaw, thanks for sharing what you heard. :)

I had to leave a tad early to make my three hour train ride back to Massachusetts. Thanks for expanding on what was said at the session! ;)

Great recap martinibuster - it was nice to meet you. I thought the conference was worth attending.

Also, they were pushing DoubleClick for Publishers HARD all day. Seemed like a good percentage of publishers use an ad server, but few were saying their results are better because of it. Meaning AdSense CPC's/RPM were better than almost all other ad networks.

Also, they were pushing DoubleClick for Publishers HARD all day.

now that's an interesting note.
why do they have to push doubleclick aka image banner network so hard but no one has a success story to tell? well, here's why: it's all crap compared to text ads.

here's an exercise:
two ad slots: one is pure text ads, one is pure image ads. compare the outcome.
any more questions?

thing is, if you have both text/image selected (like those who feel that this must be optimizing revenue and after all google says so), you most likely won't notice any considerable difference in earnings compared to text only. with a normal ctr and cpc for text ads, it doesn't necessarily hurt to put image banners in the mix and have the algo display them every now and then, it simply doesn't matter.

what matters is that if you care to look at it separately, you will see that the earnings for image banners are abysmal. in other words: sorry to say, but with doubleclick you let a bunch of freeloaders advertise on your websites. image advertisers would have to pay way more to make it worthwhile. but they don't.

that's some serious info google would never tell you. you will have to learn for yourself.

...sorry to say, but with doubleclick you let a bunch of freeloaders advertise on your websites.

You are misunderstanding what DoubleClick for Publishers is. DFP allows publishers to sell their own inventory of ads so you do not have to depend on Google alone. Having the ability to replace higher paying House Ads over AdSense ads is a good thing. Furthermore, there are no freeloaders in a system where publishers can set a minimum CPM floor.

Please, if you feel a rant coming on, do yourself a favor and read the entire discussion first. Otherwise you run the risk of making yourself look misinformed. I have misspoken and apologized a couple of times in the past myself and it was usually because I hadn't read the entire post. Moti, you stand corrected. Here's the post you evidently did not read:

DFP for small business

[google.com...]

More complicated than regular adsense. But allows you to show house ads and ads from outside networks etc. in addition to regular adsense

Allows adsense to compete against other networks for ad space

Slightly slower ad serving than regular adsense

- ad unit
defines size of ad unit and location

- Order - describes the negotiated deal

- Line Item
Defines the campaign you're running

Setting up dynamic allocation
Steps:
Create a new ad unit
Fill in the required information
Generate the ad tags

More info at google.com/dfp/sbacademy

Thanks for the report MB, wish I could've been there this time!

what would active publishers want there? listen to the ole pr bull?

I've been to one and they have very limited seating, hopefully for people willing to listen and learn something as I gleaned a few new tidbits when I went. Surprisingly, you may find others attending know something you don't and vice-versa, assuming you're willing to converse (network) with the other attendees.

When I went I found the one on one time with the Googlers was good because sometimes they let something slip that they probably shouldn't, which can often be very helpful. :)

On the downside, I found out that one of the special AdSense codes Google gave me to help narrow down the targeting way back when didn't even exist anymore.

You are misunderstanding what DoubleClick for Publishers is.

well, i wasn't precise enough. let alone the house ads that you put into the system yourself, what else would ad networks be adding to adsense than rich media / image ads?

Furthermore, there are no freeloaders in a system where publishers can set a minimum CPM floor.

that would be the case, if you could set a separate minimum cpm for image ads that come through their network, otherwise they sneak through and don't add earnings compared to text only. maybe you don't understand what the problem is: other, mostly image ads underperforming vs adsense text ads. you can't solve that with doubleclick.

That's not necessarily a Google problem; image ads do extremely well for me. I've tested and tested, because it goes against what everyone always says here, but nevertheless, my image ads kill. The CTR is slightly lower than text but the EPC is really really high.

I don't see how any of that has anything to do with DFP anyway, it's mainly a delivery system. I don't use it because I don't have time to deal with their ridiculous learning curve on it. But as far as I know, DFP only serves what YOU tell it to serve.

That's not necessarily a Google problem; image ads do extremely well for me. I've tested and tested, because it goes against what everyone always says here, but nevertheless, my image ads kill.

Same here. It may depend on niche, where most traffic comes from, etc., but in some cases at least, image ads rock.

It may depend on niche

I agree.

I think this makes sense, because in most cases 3 different text ads are competing against a single image ad. No matter how strong the image, it may only draw a few more clicks than the best of the text ads available. When competing against all 3 text ads, it doesn't win.

In other words, a single large image promoting a single advertiser, with a single offer, just can't outperform 3 smaller text ads from 3 different advertisers with 3 different offers.

But, at least in some niches, the right image can draw a lot of attention, or trigger a powerful emotional response. Thus, the single image can potentially offer a higher CTR, or higher payment per click, or both.

In any event, none of this is a reason to reject DFP. The better reason for ignoring DFP is the complexity/learning curve.

Thanks for the rundown Martinibuster and others. I was hoping to see how different it was than the Adsense in your City show I'd been to. Got the invite for the LA one back in December, and sent it right back and based on their response that there was a lot of interest, etc. assumed I was not picked. Did not get a confirmation until last Friday (the event is tomorrow, Thurs) so had to cancel due to prior commitments as well as too late to get a reasonable flight/hotel, so whoever got their confirmation for LA on Monday... that was mine :). Maybe next time.