Why Should I Care About Fill, Yield and Default Ads?

Catchy title, no? Although you may not be familiar with these advertising terms, they are very simple and being in-the-know can make you more money. Let’s start with definitions.

Fill and yield are basically the same thing. Fill is the percent of ad impressions that yield an ad. For example, if your site serves 1000 ads impressions, but the ad salesmen have only sold 800 ad impressions, your fill rate is 80%. What is served the remaining 20% (often called remnant inventory) is the default ad.

It can be disappointing to learn that your favorite ad network (be it BlogHer Publishing Network or Tribalfusion, etc) is not selling enough ads to meet your needs. And sometimes it can just be that not all your traffic (such as visitors from overseas) meet the needs of the advertisers they are representing.

You may already be familiar with CPM (cost per thousand) as a way of calculating how much you are earning on your page views, but let me explain that the TRUE amount you are earning is actually fill rate times CPM.

e = f * c
where
e is eCPM (effective or net CPM)
f is fill rate
c is CPM

Going back to our earlier example, if your ad network pays you $2 CPM, but has an 80% fill rate, then your effective earnings rate (eCPM) is $1.60 (not $2.00).

So what can be done? That’s where the default ad code comes to the rescue. When they don’t have a paid ad to serve, ad networks will serve either a PSA (public service announcements from the Ad Council) or a house ad promoting their ad network. Most ad networks, however, will serve any ad of your choice as the default instead of the PSAs.

So what makes a good default ad? A network with a high fill rate both here is in the states and internationally, such as Google AdSense or (cough, cough) the Feldman Blogger Ad Network (which is actually the Google AdExchange network.)

To implement a default ad, create the ad codes (in the control panel for AdSense or whatever ad network you choose) for all the different ad sizes you use. Most big ad networks have online control panels where you can then paste in the ad codes you just generated. If not, call or email your rep and tell them you want to give them default ad codes.

One of the markets I am servicing with the (brand new) Feldman Blogger Ad Network is providing default ads for BlogHer Publishers. If you are using BlogHer Publisher Network, and would like to discuss default ads with me, just fill out this simple form or message me on Facebook.