Have you considered using Google DFP Small Publishers instead?

You can create an ad unit and make AdSense a default. Create line items and run your network targeting that unit. If you create the item as "Network" or any level below you can enter a CPM and let Google DFP decide if the network or AdSense will pay more for that impression - at the end you make more money because whoever pays more wins the round.

Most of us probably use Adsense as a catch-all default for other networks that can't fill a specific volume of allocated inventory.

Well first of all, I think this premise is wrong (at least in this forum) Some may be using AdSense as a catch-all, but not most by a long shot.

I am using as primary to lessen the number of http requests. I had good results from using pulsepoint, but stopped after http requests added were slow and some ads were of questionable quality.

Have you considered using Google DFP Small Publishers instead?

You can create an ad unit and make AdSense a default. Create line items and run your network targeting that unit. If you create the item as "Network" or any level below you can enter a CPM and let Google DFP decide if the network or AdSense will pay more for that impression - at the end you make more money because whoever pays more wins the round.

I do use DFP but creating a near perfect setup without any passbacks is next to impossible, particularly when dealing with visitors from across the world and networks that have differing fill rates for different countries.

Well first of all, I think this premise is wrong (at least in this forum) Some may be using AdSense as a catch-all, but not most by a long shot.

I would have assumed that most publishers are diversified and not reliant 100% on Adsense.

I use DFP on a site serving millions of pages across the globe (but majority is NZ/US/AU/UK in that order).

My setup is basically Google DFP with inventory supporting AdSense as default. We sell directly and those run as "Normal" line items.

We also run Tribal Fusion in some ad spaces - in this case there is no competition with AdSense as these are in addition to the three spots that COULD run AdSense if we don't have direct sales to print.

The fallback for Tribal Fusion is just a page showing hard coded Amazon aff ads.

I lamented to our TF rep about them removing real-time fill rates and CPM's for individual ad sizes and tags about 1.5 years ago. TF removing the ability to see those real-time stats really hindered our ability to keep on top of TF's daily fill rate and CPM trends across different geo's.

I would have assumed that most publishers are diversified and not reliant 100% on Adsense.

Nope.

I would have assumed that most publishers are diversified and not reliant 100% on Adsense.

Try as I may to diversify, Adsense is my best payer, and has become more so in the last few months.

So while I may not be 100& reliant on Adsense, it is still very important to me.

As for using Adsense as a fallback, I tend to use other forms of monetisation where AS is not ideal so it would not be a good idea to have AS as a fallback.

Also, I like to feel that I know exactly when and where AS is showing on my site.