Choosing an advertising network
Choosing an advertising network is a strategic decision that directly affects the return on investment (ROI) and the success of a marketing campaign. The wrong choice can lead to wasting your budget on non-targeted or bot traffic, while a competent approach ensures a stable flow of high-quality leads and conversions. If you need advice at the start to determine the right vector, you can always Write to the manager for a detailed analysis of your task. The market offers hundreds of platforms, and each of them claims to be the best. In order not to get lost in this diversity, the advertiser needs to approach the choice systematically, based on objective criteria.
A correctly selected advertising network for advertisers becomes not just a traffic supplier, but a technology partner. This partner helps to achieve the set KPIs, scale successful bundles and optimize costs. In this article, we will analyze the key factors to consider when searching for and evaluating an ad network for long-term and productive cooperation.
Understanding ad formats and payment models
The first and fundamental criterion is the correspondence of ad formats and payment models to your product and marketing funnel. Not every ad network for advertisers is universal. Some specialize in mobile traffic and CPI, others - in desktop and CPM.
The main ad formats you will encounter:
Push notifications. Native messages that appear on the user's device. Work well for audience retention and reactivation, as well as for offers with wide coverage.
Pop-under. Advertising windows that open under the active browser window. Considered an aggressive format, but can provide a large volume of cheap traffic.
Native advertising. Blocks that are organically integrated into the site content and mimic it. Provide a high level of audience engagement and loyalty.
Banner advertising. A classic format, the effectiveness of which depends on creativity and targeting accuracy.
Video advertising (In-stream, out-stream). One of the most effective, but also the most expensive formats, requiring high-quality video content.
The choice of format directly depends on your offer. For mobile games and applications, an advertising network for advertisers that works with the CPI model and offers video or playble ads is ideal. For a news portal or blog, native advertising with pay-per-click (CPC) or per thousand impressions (CPM) will work better.
Payment models also require careful analysis. The simplest is CPM (Cost Per Mille), payment for 1000 impressions. It is suitable for campaigns aimed at increasing brand awareness. CPC (Cost Per Click) - payment per click, a standard model for attracting traffic to the site. More advanced models — CPA (Cost Per Action), CPL (Cost Per Lead) and CPI (Cost Per Install) — imply payment for a specific target action. A quality advertising network for advertisers should offer flexibility and support several payment models, allowing you to choose the most effective for your economy.
Analysis of traffic quality and sources
Traffic volume is not the main indicator. A million impressions are useless if it is generated by bots or shown to an uninterested audience. The key task is to find a network with high-quality, live traffic that can convert.
How to evaluate traffic quality? First of all, pay attention to the presence and level of internal anti-fraud systems. A serious advertising network for advertisers invests in technologies to filter bots, click farms and other types of fraudulent traffic. Check with managers what tools they use. These can be either their own developments or integrations with market leaders such as FraudScore or Anura.
Transparency of sources is another important marker. A good network does not hide where its traffic comes from. It provides the ability to analyze sources and create blacklists and whitelists of sites. This gives the advertiser control over the campaign and allows you to turn off ineffective publishers, redistributing the budget to those that bring conversions. If an advertising network for advertisers claims "premium" traffic, but refuses to provide at least anonymized statistics on sources, this is an alarming sign.
Study the cases and reviews of other advertisers. Look for information on specialized forums and in chats. The real experience of other market participants is often more eloquent than any advertising promises. Remember that the same advertising network for advertisers can work great for gambling offers, but be completely useless for white goods.
Geography and targeting: the key to the target audience
The ability of an advertising network to deliver ads precisely to the target is what you pay money for. The more granular and precise targeting settings the platform offers, the higher will be your ROI.
Geotargeting is a basic level. Make sure that the selected advertising network for advertisers has sufficient traffic volumes in the countries you are interested in. Some networks are strong in Tier-1 countries (USA, Canada, Western Europe), others specialize in Latin America, Asia or the CIS countries. Ask your manager for current volumes for your GEO.
In addition to the country, deeper settings are also important:
Region, city. The ability to target specific areas or cities is critical for local business.
Device and operating system. You can target iPhone users with the latest version of iOS or, conversely, owners of budget Android smartphones.
Browser and browser language.
Connection type (Wi-Fi, mobile Internet).
Mobile operator. This type of targeting is indispensable for promoting mobile subscriptions (carrier billing offers).
The more targeting options an advertising network for advertisers provides, the more accurately you can customize your campaign and cut out non-target audiences at the start, saving your budget. Assessing the depth of available targeting settings can be a difficult task, especially without practical experience working with the platform. If you are unsure whether the network's capabilities match your campaign goals, it makes sense to Write to the manager and discuss your targeting needs in detail.
Technological platform and optimization tools
A modern advertising network for advertisers is a complex technological product. The convenience and functionality of its platform directly affect your effectiveness as an advertiser.
The interface should be intuitive, and the statistics should be updated in real time. If you have to wait several hours to receive a report, you risk wasting your budget before you have time to react to negative indicators. Be sure to check the availability of an API. API access allows you to automate campaign management processes, for example, automatically stop campaigns when a certain CPA is reached or update blacklists through third-party trackers.
A key element for any arbitrageur or advertiser is integration with trackers. The platform must support the transfer of all necessary macros (parameters) to the tracker via Postback URL (S2S). This allows you to track the entire user path from click to conversion and receive detailed statistics on sites, creatives, devices and other sections. Without proper tracking setup, any optimization is impossible. Make sure that the advertising network for advertisers provides detailed documentation on setting up postback.
Financial terms and technical support
Financial aspects are no less important. Find out the minimum replenishment amount. Some networks are focused on large advertisers and set the entry threshold at several thousand dollars, while others allow you to start with 100-200 dollars. Choose the one whose entry threshold is comfortable for your budget. Also important are the available methods of replenishing the account: bank cards, wire transfer, e-wallets, cryptocurrency. Flexibility in this matter is a sign of a customer-oriented company.
Technical support is your insurance. Problems can arise at any time: tracking failure, problems with creative moderation, a sharp drop in traffic. It is important to have a competent manager in touch who can quickly solve your problem. Check the support schedule. The ideal option is 24/7 support. Having a personal manager who knows the specifics of your campaigns is a huge plus. A good advertising network for advertisers understands that its success directly depends on the success of its clients, so it invests in high-quality service.
Try it in practice
Theoretical knowledge is important, but full understanding comes only with practical experience. Instead of just studying reviews, you can personally evaluate the functionality and quality of our platform's traffic. Write to our manager, and he will help you not only to understand the interface, but also to set up the first test campaign taking into account the specifics of your offer. You will be able to see live how our targeting and optimization tools work, and make an informed decision based on real data.
To get started, just Write to the manager.