Association of online publishers Helping media owners build better digital business
22 Mar 2012 

Guardian’s online ads optimised by 24/7 Real Media & Maxifier

24/7 Real MediaChallenges and Goals The Guardian identified several goals that, if achieved, it believed could significantly improve the performance of its online advertising programs. These included:
  • Managing digital advertising with new optimisation technologies
  • Increasing and more clearly demonstrating advertisers’ ROI
  • Maximising revenue opportunities, particularly with direct response initiatives
  • Empowering ad operations to streamline workloads, proactively improve performance, and support sales efforts with accurate reports
  • Improving overall yields and revenue by prioritising campaigns
Solution The Guardian selected 24/7 Real Media’s Open AdStream as its ad management platform. The integration between 24/7 Real Media’s technology and Maxifier’s adMAX optimisation engine enabled the Guardian to visualise, prioritise, optimise and maximise ad operations and revenue. The combined 24/7 Real Media and Maxifier solution – Open AdStream Optimisation delivered by adMAX – was customised for the Guardian to include a web access portal, new tools to help facilitate communication between sales and advertising operations, increased inventory structure and new security enhancements. In addition, Open AdStream Optimisation delivered by adMAX provided advanced revenue reporting for a more granular examination of data. The Results Open AdStream Optimisation delivered by adMAX enables the Guardian to clearly visualise metrics on a daily basis, prioritise adjustments on-the-fly, optimise performance and forecasts, and maximise an array of key metrics including CTRs, yields, on-time delivery and revenue. Highlights of the results mapped against the Guardian’s specific challenges and objectives include:
  • Managing digital advertising with new optimisation technologies: Open AdStream Optimization delivered by adMAX enables the Guardian to better manage the targeting, delivery and optimisation of display ads across its site, which enables improved inventory yields and incremental revenues.
  • Increasing and more clearly demonstrating advertisers’ ROI: With crisp insights and visibility into performance and advertiser ROI, the Guardian experienced an incredible 30.44 percent uplift in CTRs across all display campaigns. Supporting data generated via Open AdStream Optimisation delivered by adMAX enables the Guardian to demonstrate and highlight campaign successes and service levels to its advertisers.
“Open AdStream Optimisation delivered by adMAX very quickly demonstrated its value to our business. Within three months of operation we saw overall monetised impressions increase and a CTR uplift of more than 30 percent across all display campaigns. That figure alone is astonishingly strong and has helped us deliver improved ROI to our advertisers,”Guardian Performance Optimisation Manager Daniel Spears
Maximising revenue opportunities, particularly with direct response initiatives: The Guardian’s performance -based campaigns showed an 18.91 percent sell-through rate (STR) increase on the direct response business following implementation of Open AdStream Optimisation delivered by adMAX. The direct response eCPM for performance based campaigns also increased by 13.73 percent over three months. The Guardian was pleased with the improved performance on its premium inventory and continued to see excellent results that have satisfied advertisers. This data was instrumental to the sales team’s efforts to successfully pitch and secure additional business. Empowering ad operations to streamline workloads, proactively improve performance, and support sales efforts with accurate reports: With the additional support and increased visibility enabled by Open AdStream Optimisation delivered by adMAX, the Guardian saw an improvement of on-time delivery efficiency by an average of 37.31 per cent for all under-delivering campaigns. This improved Guardian’s ability to deliver beyond clients’ expectations and to strengthen business relationships. The uplift in performance metrics provides a higher service level to agencies, and new A/B testing reporting demonstrates optimised performance.
“Before 24/7 Real Media and Maxifier, ad operations were running pretty blind not knowing for certain whether our efforts would produce the results our advertisers expected and our sales team needed. After implementing Open AdStream Optimisation delivered by adMAX, we not only knew with high probability that we were making smart adjustments, but we also empowered our teams with relevant data to support renewals. With such increased and increasing pressure on campaign performance, this integrated solution has, to us, become essential.”Guardian Ad Operations Manager,
Improving overall yields and revenue by prioritising campaigns: With a focus on increasing overall campaign performance and revenues, The Guardian was able to better schedule campaign delivery according to the overall yield, resulting in millions of additional ad impressions delivered and a 3.08 percent increase in revenues achieved. These results are directly attributable to the Guardian’s prioritisation, optimisation and maximisation initiatives inherent in Open AdStream Optimisation delivered by adMAX.
“24/7 Real Media and Maxifier have met and exceeded all our expectations of their technology and have been enormously helpful in developing custom functionality to ensure that we have an edge in the market. The adMAX and Open AdStream integration is central to all our campaigns, ensuring advertising on Guardian. co.uk delivers superb performance. Our partnership has been an important part in driving our success over the last year, where our revenues are up over 50 percent year on year.”Guardian Head of Optimisation and Effectiveness Tim Gentry
Maxifier and 24/7 Real Media are both AOP Associate Members
Links & Tips