Know your metrics
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| eCPM | Earnings per 1,000 ad impressions: revenue ÷ impressions × 1,000. |
| Page RPM | Earnings per 1,000 pageviews — the best single measure of page value. |
| Fill rate | Share of ad requests that are filled with an ad. |
| Viewability | Share of ads that were actually seen (at least 50% on screen for one second). |
| CTR | Clicks ÷ impressions. Never encourage clicks — it's against ad policies. |
1–3: More demand
- Use header bidding. Letting multiple buyers compete for each impression usually raises CPMs. How header bidding works.
- Add quality demand partners. Each new buyer with relevant demand increases competition — but only keep partners that win.
- Keep ads.txt complete and accurate. Buyers skip sellers they can't verify. Our ads.txt guide.
4–7: Better placements
- Place ads where people look: near the top of the article, within content and beside long reads.
- Add a sticky anchor on mobile. It stays visible as users scroll and is one of the best-performing mobile units.
- Use multi-size slots (for example 300×250 and 336×280) so more buyers can bid on the same space.
- Lazy-load and refresh responsibly. Load below-the-fold ads when they're about to be seen, and only refresh viewed ads where buyers allow it.
8–10: Traffic and quality
- Grow organic and direct traffic. Buyers pay more for real, engaged visitors than for cheap paid clicks.
- Avoid invalid traffic. Bots, traffic exchanges and incentivized clicks lead to clawbacks and bans.
- Speed up your pages. Faster pages keep visitors longer, which means more pageviews and more viewable ads.
11–12: Content and audience
- Target valuable topics and countries. Finance, technology and audiences in markets such as the US, UK and Canada attract higher bids.
- Increase pages per session with related articles, clear navigation and series content.
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