Video ads: are they worth it?

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Video ads: are they worth it?

janvitos

2:01 am on Jul 17, 2017 (gmt 0)

Hi,

So I've been asking myself a question lately, and hopefully someone has an answer, or maybe we can find one together.

I've been seeing a lot of video ads lately on my site, some of which you can't even click on (it only pauses the video when you click and doesn't actually bring you to an advertiser web site).

So I was wondering if they are worth showing or worth blocking and if you think they generate the same profit as other clickable ads when they end up winning the auction?

Because I also noticed that some of the ad networks associated with those video ads are showing a really low Impression RPM, like $0.10 or less, and CPC often 0%.

So my theory is that those ads are maybe winning the auction, but are paying much less in the end since they don't generate any clicks / CPC.

What do you all think about this?

Thanks!

janvitos

12:23 am on Jul 18, 2017 (gmt 0)

I thought this question might've been more prtinent than what it turned out to be :P

I'd still be happy to hear your opinions on this...

NickMNS

12:57 am on Jul 18, 2017 (gmt 0)

Some ads are based on CPM bids, that is the ads pay per impression (Cost Per iMpression), as compared to CPC Cost per Click. How Adsense decides which of these ad types wins the auction is not clear to me. But I imagine that it standardize the bids, revenue per impression. Example if you get paid $1.00 per click but generally have a CTR of 1% then the value of one impression is $0.01, so a CPM bid of $0.011 per impression would win the auction. (this typically scaled to per 1000 impressions).

So are you loosing out by displaying video ads? That is difficult to know for sure, but if the ads are displaying, then they are winning the auction and you are getting the highest price that the market is willing to give you.

FYI I get about 20% of my revenue from CPM bids. I know others get more, it is very much dependent on your niche and offering.

janvitos

12:42 pm on Jul 18, 2017 (gmt 0)

Interesting NickMNS, I'll have to see what I get as revenue % for CPM as well.

But I'm wondering if "unclickable" video ads could win an auction if they're set as CPC instead of CPM?

Then this would mean, in theory, that they can pay really cheap $$ since they never get clicked and only end up paying impressions.

Not sure if you get what I mean, but that's sort of my concern.

NickMNS

1:08 pm on Jul 18, 2017 (gmt 0)

I get what you mean but I doubt that that would be possible, as Google would not be getting paid either.

janvitos

2:21 pm on Jul 18, 2017 (gmt 0)

Wow that kind of clears it up for me, didn't think about Google on that one.

I checked my CPM bids and I get 30% impressions from them.

The impression RPM is really close to the CPC bids.

But I was kind of worried about the fact that the networks that seem to show video ads always have a really low Impression RPM, like 0.15$ or lower.

NickMNS

5:43 pm on Jul 18, 2017 (gmt 0)

Remember what you have is an auction. You are taking the highest price available to you. So if you block the video ads, then it will be replaced by ads that will be paying even less.

I think the question to ask is, are there any other negative impacts that are more qualitative and thus not reflected in the bid price. For example, how do your users perceive the video ads, are they annoyed by them? Are these auto play ads? What impact do the ads have page load times?

janvitos

6:28 pm on Jul 18, 2017 (gmt 0)

Thank you NickMNS.

That's some really valuable advice right there!