Monetization - Freestar

Freestar Intelligence: We Handle The Complexity So You Don’t Have To

Miranda Hawkins — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 17:03:13 +0000

AdTech Unraveled: Solving the Complexity Puzzle

The early days of programmatic advertising were pretty straightforward – just a few bidders, minimal complexity, and fairly predictable results. In today’s landscape, it’s an entirely different story. The industry is now flooded with demand-side platforms (DSPs), supply-side platforms (SSPs), ad exchanges, identity solutions, and constantly shifting privacy regulations. The sheer number of acronyms, technologies, and optimizations can make it feel impossible to keep up.

Publishers are left asking:

Which bidders are the most effective?
Do I call them via Prebid client-side or server-side, Amazon TAM, or Google Open Bidding?
How do I balance user experience while still achieving revenue goals?
How do I optimize price floors and auction timeouts?
Which identity solutions actually drive results?

You probably already understand the value of managing all of these elements and tailoring them to your audiences, but even the most sophisticated publishers can’t manage everything across different geographies, device types, and audiences efficiently by hand.

Introducing Freestar Intelligence: The Engine that Powers Real-Time Optimization

Freestar Intelligence is our proprietary decision engine that provides real-time customization at a granularity you could only previously dream of. Combining over a decade of hands-on experience, the horsepower of artificial intelligence and machine learning(AI/ML), and relentless experimentation (over 25 million experiments a week, in fact), we have built an optimization machine that takes the guesswork out of maximizing revenue. Continually enhanced by our expert team of data scientists and engineers, Freestar Intelligence dynamically adjusts auction mechanics (the back-end) and user experience (the front-end), leveraging our ever-growing suite of solutions to remove the headaches of manual yield management.

But what does that actually look like in action? Let’s take a look under the hood and break down the key ways Freestar Intelligence works to effortlessly maximize revenue for publishers every day.

Dynamic Ad Stack: Smarter Auction Mechanics

Freestar’s Dynamic Ad Stack (DAS) ensures all the behind-the-scenes elements of the auction are performing at their full potential by leveraging the power of AI/ML to adapt to market dynamics in real-time. Unlike traditional static configurations, DAS ensures every aspect of auction mechanics is fully optimized in real-time. The following are some of the many great features of DAS:

→ Next-Gen Header Bidding: Faster, Smarter, Lighter

Freestar’s modular header bidding wrapper is designed to be as efficient as possible, loading only the necessary code components. This “micro wrapper” approach cuts memory usage by 40% and reduces latency by 500ms compared to traditional setups. By reducing the number of resource-intensive features by up to 30%, it improves page load times while minimizing the impact on device performance.

The result? Faster load times, reduced JavaScript bloat, and a smoother user experience. With fewer active modules, there’s less strain on a visitor’s device, reducing memory leaks and improving performance across all browsers.

→ Dynamic Bidder Configurations and Timeouts: A Personalized Approach

Not all bidders perform equally in every situation, which is why DAS customizes the auction mechanics for every ad request. By dynamically selecting the ideal mix of server-side and client-side bidders, fine-tuning auction timeouts based on geo, device, and network speed, and leveraging historical auction data for real-time optimizations, our AI/ML-powered configuration system ensures revenue from each impression is maximized.

The result? Unlike fixed configurations that treat all visitors the same, this more granular approach results in faster page loads, higher engagement, improved user experience, and on average, a 5 to 8% revenue uplift for publishers.

→ Staying Ahead by Testing Identity Partners

With the decline of third-party cookies, alternative identity solutions are essential as advertisers will pay more when they know something about your users. If you don’t have identity solutions in place, you’re leaving a lot of revenue on the table. However, not all solutions deliver the same results. Freestar’s Identity Testing Framework removes the guesswork by:

- Running side-by-side tests on multiple identity providers
- Tracking real revenue impact
- Optimizing for the best mix of partners

The result? Publishers using this framework have already seen a 25 to 50% higher performance on cookieless browsers and even a 3 to 5% increase in Chrome, ensuring they stay ahead in a privacy-first world.

→ Floor Pricing: Ensuring the Price is Right

Setting the right floor price safeguards your high-value ad inventory while avoiding overpricing that can result in low fill rates that hurt overall revenue. Our Freestar Intelligence -powered Dynamic Flooring technology takes the guess work out of striking the right pricing balance and automatically adjusts floor prices for each ad request based on factors like:

- Device type (mobile vs. desktop)
- Time of day
- Geography
- Historical bid patterns

The result? Publishers using this technology have seen a 21% increase in CPMs compared to manual floors and a 7% lift over Google’s automated floors.

Dynamic Ad Products: Smarter Ad Placement Without Extra Work

The front-end on-page experience is just as important as what happens behind the scenes. However, ad placement can be a challenge – too many ads disrupt the user’s experience, but too few leave revenue on the table. A dynamic versus static setup ensures that each user is served the right type of ad format at the right time.

Unlike many of our competitors, Freestar’s Dynamic Ad Products are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Our agnostic approach allows us to customize each publisher’s ad placements using our AI/ML engine to power smarter ads that take into account user behavior and device type.

Whether it’s showcasing multiple ads within a single ad placement, inserting the ideal video player, displaying high-impact formats, or customizing a desktop vs. mobile experience, our suite of dynamic ad products empowers you to do more with less. All while maintaining a positive user experience and adhering to the Coalition for Better Ads standards.

Our latest development, Intelligent Ad Insertion (IAI), uses Freestar Intelligence to:

Determine the optimal mix of in-content and high-impact ad placements
Maximize revenue without compromising user engagement

The result? Publishers using IAI have seen an additional 5% revenue uplift, all without lifting a finger!

AdTech is Complex: You Don’t Have to Manage It Alone

The reality is that today’s Adtech world is far too complex for publishers to navigate on their own. Monetization isn’t about simple plug-and-play solutions. It requires a team, a strategy, and cutting-edge technology. That’s where Freestar comes in. We provide both the engine that powers dynamic solutions at scale and the expert team to drive the technology. While Freestar Intelligence certainly leverages the power of AI/ML, you can rest assured, we don’t let AI run the whole show. At the end of the day, we know AI/ML will always require a real heartbeat to steer it in the right direction. And Freestar’s direction has always been and will remain “Publisher First”, creating solutions that empower publishers to focus on what they do best: create great content.

Want to learn more? Register now for our upcoming webinar to see how Freestar Intelligence is shaping the future of ad monetization.

The post Freestar Intelligence: We Handle The Complexity So You Don’t Have To first appeared on Freestar.

You’ve Got the Team, We’ve Got the Tech: Introducing Freestar Flex!

Caroline Romano — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 12:00:02 +0000

For the past decade, publishers have relied on Freestar’s fully-managed ad tech solutions to increase revenue, decrease headcount costs, and simplify monetization. But we know that fully-managed is not the ideal approach for all publishers. Some have sophisticated in-house ad ops teams that want more control over their ad stack but lack the time, resources, or expertise to build a world-class header bidding solution from scratch.

That’s exactly why we created Freestar Flex.

We have taken the best elements of Freestar’s award-winning monetization platform and added in self-managed publisher tools that provide the best of all worlds – full transparency and control coupled with Freestar’s proven technology and expertise that has been perfected over a decade of driving publisher success.

Designed for Publishers Who Want More Control

Until now, publishers wanting more control were faced with a difficult choice: invest significant time and money into developing their own monetization technology or utilize sub-par solutions from companies that either don’t exclusively focus on header bidding or lack Freestar’s vast knowledge, experience and technology.

With Flex, we’re bridging that gap by offering our battle-tested monetization platform in a more flexible manner that empowers publishers to seamlessly manage their own header bidding setup. Built for teams that want more autonomy, Flex delivers the transparency, efficiency, and advanced AI/ML optimization tools needed to maximize revenue without the hassle of building from scratch and trying to keep up with the ever-changing world of ad tech.

Technology That Works for You

Flex isn’t just another behind-the-scenes ad tech tool; it’s a powerful, intuitive platform designed to put publishers in charge. With both manual and AI/ML-optimized floors, timeouts, and bidder configurations, publishers can fine-tune auction mechanics in real-time to maximize performance. The advanced reporting and analytics suite unifies dozens of disparate data sources and provides deeper insights to help publishers make data-driven optimization decisions. Built-in A/B testing tools allow publishers to run experiments with different ad stacks to compare performance and optimize with confidence.

Additionally, Flex includes a comprehensive identity testing framework to future-proof publisher monetization in a privacy-compliant manner. The platform also seamlessly integrates a myriad of third-party technologies and partners through one simple implementation, making it an incredibly powerful monetization engine and not just a Prebid wrapper. Finally, while Flex provides self-managed tools and offers class-leading AI/ML optimization options, publishers will still have on-demand access to Freestar’s white-glove consultative support via an integrated chat feature that provides direct access to our expert teams if needed.

Tested, Proven, and Ready for You

Although Flex is only now being publicly unveiled to the world, it is far from brand-new, as we have been working on it for over a year. That time has included dozens of iterative sprints, hundreds of hours of rigorous testing, and a ton of invaluable feedback from industry-leading publishers who have helped test and refine the offering. We are incredibly excited to introduce many new features with Flex that will empower publishers in different ways than we have in the past; however, its core is the same monetization platform trusted by hundreds of publishers for the past 10 years that has allowed Freestar to become the number one ad management partner for large websites in the world. As a result, we know Flex can help take even the most sophisticated publisher’s monetization to another level while decreasing the time and effort needed to make it happen.

See Freestar Flex in Action

Curious to learn more about Freestar Flex? Check out our interactive highlight demo for a preview of the platform’s capabilities in action.

Ready For The Real Thing?

If you feel like you are beginning to outgrow a fully-managed offering, you are looking for a tool kit powerful enough to support your expert ad ops team, or simply want to learn more about everything Freestar has to offer, request a live demo by submitting your contact information and discover how we can take your monetization strategy to the next level!

The post You’ve Got the Team, We’ve Got the Tech: Introducing Freestar Flex! first appeared on Freestar.

How Partners Like Deepsee (and Others!) Have Helped Pave the Way for Freestar’s Next Era

Lindsay Valdez — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 20:47:01 +0000

Freestar is thrilled to announce our partnership with the publisher quality platform, Deepsee.io. Following a highly successful trial last year, we quickly recognized the significant value this technology brings to our operations. Deepsee now complements our suite of tools dedicated to maintaining and enhancing inventory quality, further strengthening our commitment to excellence.

This year, Freestar turns 10! Reflecting on the past decade, it’s incredible to see how much the industry has evolved—innovations we couldn’t have imagined then are now the norm. We’ve continually adapted our product offerings and pitch, staying agile and ahead of industry shifts. The digital ad ecosystem is a complex, ever-changing landscape, and we’ve embraced the need to evolve alongside it.

“Our early adopters are teams and companies whose commitment to quality is baked into their ethos, and our partnership with Freestar is a great example of that. They take their responsibility as a top web publisher seriously, and their dedication to doing right by publishers and buyers is evident in every conversation we have.”
— Rocky Moss, Co-Founder, Deepsee

Over the past decade, we’ve grown significantly! By partnering with innovative companies like Deepsee, Jounce, HUMAN, and others, we confidently stand by the quality of the websites we monetize and the inventory we sell.

How We’re Using Deepsee

Supply Quality
Inventory quality standards have evolved significantly to keep up with technology, consumer behavior, advertiser demands, and the need for accountability. Publishers must meet our guidelines before joining our network, and now, Deepsee allows us to run monthly scans to ensure ongoing compliance with these standards.

Transparency
Transparency is the foundation of trust and efficiency in our industry, benefiting advertisers, publishers, technology providers, and consumers alike. Deepsee scans check for essentials like ads.txt files, legal compliance (privacy policies, CMP banners), and other critical elements to uphold trust.

Advertising
At Freestar, we prioritize partnerships with DSPs, SSPs, brands, and agencies. By maintaining robust internal guidelines aligned with industry standards, we ensure seamless collaboration while delivering exceptional monetization performance. Deepsee incorporates signals related to ad-industry expectations, such as frequency, positioning, and quantity of ads.

Notably, Deepsee recently added UI functionality for monitoring refresh rates at the site level, and we adhere to the standard 30-second refresh rate.

Brand Suitability
As revenue from PMP, PG, and direct deals grows, so does our focus on advertiser concerns. Deepsee scans for sensitive issues like adult-oriented content, pirated material, made-for-advertising signals, and more, ensuring brand-safe inventory.

Audience Development
Freestar’s audience development services are a key differentiator. Alongside our in-house traffic experts and partnerships, Deepsee enhances SEO and audience growth strategies with powerful signals. These include page speed metrics, content quality analysis (e.g., low-quality AI content detection, reading time, author performance), and actionable insights to help publishers refine their strategies and boost engagement.

Partnerships That Matter

As we look ahead to Freestar’s next decade, we are energized by the strength of our industry partnerships. Deepsee’s cutting-edge technology and actionable insights empower us with greater efficiency and strategic direction, enabling us to deliver unparalleled service to our publishers. Together, these partnerships drive meaningful innovation and reinforce our commitment to industry leadership—proving that true progress comes from partnerships that matter.

The post How Partners Like Deepsee (and Others!) Have Helped Pave the Way for Freestar’s Next Era first appeared on Freestar.

Why January is a Chill Month for Publisher Ad Revenue: Seasonal Trends Explained

Lindsay Valdez — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 22:00:37 +0000

January has arrived and once again we face what is historically the slowest month of the year for publisher ad revenue. But before you seep into those new-years-blues, let us explain. We understand, and will feel the same pain to our bottom line throughout these next few weeks. However, January and the rest of Q1 don’t have to be entirely daunting. With the right strategies in place, there are effective ways to mitigate these losses and even turn this traditionally slower period into a time of growth and opportunity for your business!

Why Does This Happen?

To best understand this trend, keep in mind what has just ended – Q4! More ad dollars go to publishers in October through December than any other time of the year, making January’s CPM drop seem even more drastic.

Post-holiday Slowdown

The post-holiday slump in advertiser spending is a predictable trend each year. Aside from a few unique product verticals such as fitness equipment, and wellness products, brands anticipate people will buy less in January as they recover from any financial debt brought on by the holiday season. For the average consumer, January is also a time to regain control of the household finances and monthly budgeting. The goal is to spend less, not more, resulting in less time online searching for the latest luxury products.

Seasonal Advertising Trends

You know that holiday-hangover, when you awake from a sugar-induced coma only to find an empty wallet and a piercing headache from WAY too much wine and family interaction? Advertisers can also feel that way, as they enter the new year having just spent much of their budget on holiday campaigns spanning across multiple devices and consumer touch points! January often serves as a much-needed breather for publishers—a time to pause, reflect, and strategize for the year ahead to pump the brakes on spend, reassess the budget and analyze the performance of Q4 campaigns.

After January’s brief pause to spend, advertisers will reemerge with dedicated spend for tentpoles that fall later in Q1, such as the Superbowl, Valentine’s Day, President’s Day sales, tax season promotions, and spring break.

Less Competition = Lower CPMs

The result of less advertiser spend and reduced media consumption by users is lower CPMs. For publishers, this shift means lower RPMs and less total monthly revenue. Not only does less competition among advertisers for ad placements mean lower CPMs, but with fewer active campaigns, there is more ad inventory available, driving down prices further. It’s the perfect storm.

How To Capitalize on the Slower Season

Proactive steps can be taken in January to maximize revenue in the short-term, while also laying the groundwork for stronger performance in later months of the year.

Plan Ahead

Every January, publishers express concerns over the drop, but this decline is both predictable and manageable. As you build out annual revenue projections, budgeting for this drop ensures you are prepared and that will mitigate any panic that this revenue decrease brings.

Optimize For Seasonal Content

If applicable to your brand, publish content that aligns with popular January topics like fitness, health, budgeting, organization, and goal-setting. These topics attract advertisers focused on New Year’s resolutions. If more so reliant on trending content, use January to create or update evergreen content that can generate consistent traffic throughout the year.

Invest in the Long-term

With the stress of Q4 behind us, January can be used for those much needed A/B tests. Test article headlines, content formats, or layouts to improve user engagement and conversion rates. If you aren’t yet capitalizing on the growing amount of digital video spend, test the video player in Q1. Early adoption gives you plenty of time to optimize the experience and maximize revenue potential well ahead of Q4 2025. According to Google, “Video ads are on average earning 8.9x higher CPMs compared to standard banner ad CPMs on Ad Exchange.”

Diversify Revenue Streams

As in most cases, diversification is key. Our core competency may be ad monetization but we regularly consult publishers on revenue opportunities outside of that.

Data monetization
Subscription models
Content licensing
Affiliate marketing
E-commerce
Sponsored partnerships

Improve the UX

Some of the most common issues preventing publishers from brand growth are outdated website designs, unintuitive site navigation and confusing taxonomies. Newer companies with more modern design and friendlier UX are beating legacy sites who didn’t make the necessary changes. With lower traffic and slower pace, offers an ideal low-risk window to make these changes. Enhancing the website’s design and functionality now not only improves user experience but also positions your brand to compete more effectively down the year.

Direct Sales Strategy

Start building direct relationships with relevant advertisers in your space. You don’t need to hire an expensive sales team, but you can reach out to these advertisers to evangelize your website and inventory.

Update your media kit, create customized ad packages that align with annual tentpole events, assign pricing to ad units, and find ways to offer interesting things to advertisers. At Freestar, we follow the same pattern. We leverage our SSP and DSP relationships to ensure that our publishers are well represented in the private marketplace, PG and other premium environments. Annual revenue to our publishers from deal-based IDs and curated audiences is up over 50%. We also work directly with brands and agencies, evangelizing segments of high-quality inventory for relevant direct sales campaigns.

Focus On Audience Engagement

As we move into 2025 and beyond, audience success metrics are shifting to prioritize engagement, loyalty, and authentication. Metrics like total pageviews and sessions, once the gold standard, no longer tell the full story. Instead, deeper signals – such as engaged users, repeat visitors, and authenticated traffic – paint a more accurate picture of brand value and monetization potential.

Offer unique and customized ways for your audience to connect with you and with each other.

Leverage short-form video: Create engaging short-form videos that are shareable and captivating.
Optimize your Newsletter: Strengthen your newsletter strategy by offering customized content options, ensuring readers receive the information that is targeted and more relevant to them.
Build community spaces: Foster community through social media or forums to encourage audience interaction and connections.

Shake Up the Ad Strategy

Just like everything else in your business, the ad strategy should be looked at again each year to avoid growing stagnant. At Freestar, we pride ourselves on white-glove service and the strategic partnership we provide. We bring new ideas for ad layout, ad products and optimizations to our publishers throughout the year.

The amount of ad units per page doesn’t have to be the same year round. If you typically run a conservative layout, you can afford increasing in January. You can also be strategic about where you increase the amount of units. Instead of across the whole site, you can temporarily add units to a segmented group of top content performers.

Hang In There!

We understand the frustrations of low CPMs! The January drop occurs every year, across every ad network and provider. If you plan in advance, and use this month to complete some outstanding dev tasks or UX improvements, the labors of January can result in even more revenue in later months of the year.

The post Why January is a Chill Month for Publisher Ad Revenue: Seasonal Trends Explained first appeared on Freestar.

5 Key Takeaways from the Publisher Predictions Webinar: Traffic, Monetization, and Market Trends

Karthikeyan Kumaran — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 20:07:29 +0000

Our latest webinar of the Publisher Predictions was an insightful deep dive into the most pressing issues and opportunities shaping the publishing and adtech landscape. From decoding audience engagement to navigating the complexities of SSP consolidation, the session offered actionable strategies for publishers aiming to thrive in a dynamic market. If you missed it, here are the top takeaways you need to know:

1. Building Smarter Traffic Strategies with Identity Graphs and Audience Segmentation

Publishers are leveraging identity graphs to unlock deeper insights into their audience profiles, creating a bridge between anonymized data and identifiable user attributes. This enables more precise audience segmentation, allowing publishers to tailor content and advertising for higher engagement and ROI. SSO (Single Sign-On) has emerged as a pivotal tool for integrating these insights, ensuring a seamless user experience while safeguarding privacy.

Pro Tip from our experts: Use your content as a testing ground to refine audience segments – track what resonates and iterate to drive higher traffic quality. Look into data to drive your content strategy.

2. Video Monetization: Filling the Gaps with a Mobile-First Approach

Video continues to dominate the ad revenue conversations in 2024 and well into 2025, but it’s no longer enough to prioritize desktop placements. Mobile-first video monetization strategies are essential, especially as mobile traffic accounts for a growing share of publisher audiences, especially when targeting the younger mobile-first demographic. Publishers can improve fill rates and monetize short-form content by optimizing video placements and format, particularly on social platforms.

Pro Tip from our experts: Experiment with vertical and immersive video formats to capture mobile users’ attention in competitive feeds.

3. Monetization Diversification: The Power of Curation and Omnichannel SSPs

Publishers are strategically curating ad inventory and packaging premium placements to attract higher bids. By partnering with omnichannel SSPs, they’re diversifying programmatic ad spend across channels like video, display, and CTV, reducing reliance on any single ad type or buyer. Supply path optimization (SPO) is critical in creating transparency and efficiency for buyers, translating to stronger revenue for publishers.

Pro Tip from our experts: Regularly assess the performance of your SSP partners to ensure you’re maximizing omnichannel demand, being agile and adaptive.

4. The AI Evolution: Tracking User Behavior to Inform Strategy

AI/ML continues to transform how publishers understand and predict user behavior. Predictive algorithms enable content teams to anticipate trends and tailor experiences in real time, while monetization teams use AI to fine-tune programmatic auction strategies. However, successful implementation requires a balance of automation and human oversight to maintain brand integrity and user trust.

Pro Tip from our experts: Use AI to enhance first-party data insights but ensure editorial teams retain control over content narratives, thus maintaining competitive advantage regarding content refresh and contextual targeting.

5. SSP Consolidation: What It Means for Publishers

The ongoing consolidation of the SSP market is reshaping the adtech ecosystem. Publishers should proactively evaluate their SSP partnerships and diversify their demand sources to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.

Pro Tip from our experts: Look for SSP partners that align with your business model, offering transparency, innovation, and consistent support.

Connect with our Speakers:

Kurt Donnell
CEO

Heather Carver
CRO

Lindsay Valdez
VP, Audience Strategy

Jamie Murphy
VP, Product

The post 5 Key Takeaways from the Publisher Predictions Webinar: Traffic, Monetization, and Market Trends first appeared on Freestar.

Top 5 Key Takeaways from our Webinar: Maximizing Q4 Ad Revenue

Karthikeyan Kumaran — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 17:27:30 +0000

We had published a guide on how publishers can maximize revenue in Q4 in part 1 and part2 leading to the webinar and had some interesting conversations around this. You can watch the entire webinar from the link below. We’ll dive into the top five key takeaways from combining content strategy, ad partnerships, and optimization practices.

1. Authentic Content Experiences: Pivoting Based on Data

Generic, cookie-cutter content no longer cuts through the noise, especially during high-demand periods like Q4. To connect with your audience, it’s crucial to create authentic content that aligns with their needs, preferences, and behaviors.

How can publishers achieve this?

Start by looking at your existing data and using it to pivot your content strategies. Analyze metrics such as backlinks, organic search performance, and Page Speed Insights. These are not just metrics to check off but are critical indicators of how your content resonates.

By leveraging this data, publishers can ensure they are not only creating high-quality, relevant content but are also refining it to meet the evolving demands of their audience as Q4 progresses and into the next year as well.

2. First-Party Data: Your Secret Weapon

With third-party cookies slowly becoming obsolete, first-party data has emerged as a critical asset for publishers. This data—whether it’s demographic information, browsing behavior, or engagement patterns—is unique to your platform and provides deep insights into your audience. More importantly, it allows you to create personalized ad experiences, which is crucial for creating an engaging experience for your audience on the website.

Using first-party data strategically enables you to:

Segment audiences more effectively: By creating targeted audience segments based on first-party data, you can deliver highly relevant content and ads. This is especially useful during the holiday season when user behavior is more intent-driven.
Optimize ad placements: With first-party data, you can better understand which pages, formats, or times of day perform best, helping you optimize your ad placements to ensure maximum engagement and revenue.
Create custom audience packages: If you’re working with advertisers directly, offering packages based on first-party data can lead to premium CPMs and stronger partnerships.

Tapping into this data also allows you to demonstrate the value of your audience to advertisers, especially those looking for niche, high-quality traffic.

3. Partner with the Right Demand Sources for Diverse Ad Placements

Q4 is not just about maximizing pageviews—it’s about maximizing the value of those pageviews. As we have seen with our current publishers, video ads, in particular, are in high demand in Q4, with advertisers often willing to pay a premium for these placements.

Private Marketplace (PMP) deals: These can be a powerful tool in Q4, as many advertisers are looking for exclusive, premium inventory. Establishing PMP deals with advertisers can lead to higher eCPMs, especially when offering access to targeted, niche audiences backed by first-party data.

Freestar’s technology, for instance, provides access to a wide range of demand sources while also ensuring that the most lucrative opportunities are maximized across all ad formats. Reach out to us to learn more about this.

4. Review and Adjust Block Lists

Every publisher’s block list evolves over time. However, as Q4 approaches, it’s essential to review your block lists to ensure you’re not inadvertently blocking valuable demand sources.

Revisit ad categories: Certain ad categories (e.g., political, retail, e-commerce) experience a surge in demand during Q4. Ensure that your block lists are not excluding these valuable categories, unless absolutely necessary.

5. Constant Optimization of Ad Units

Ad placements and formats that worked well in Q1 may not be as effective in Q4. Therefore, it’s crucial to continuously optimize your ad units throughout the holiday season.

A/B testing: Conduct A/B tests on different ad placements, sizes, and formats to understand what works best with your audience. Minor changes in ad layouts or sizes can significantly impact engagement and revenue.

How Freestar Can Help You Monetize These Strategies

Freestar’s comprehensive approach to ad monetization makes it easier for publishers to execute these strategies effectively. With Freestar, publishers can tap into advanced optimized ad placements in real-time to maximize revenue.

As the Q4 season heats up, publishers who combine authentic content experiences with smart ad monetization strategies will have the upper hand. By leveraging first-party data, optimizing ad units, and working with the right partners, you can unlock the full revenue potential of the holiday season. And with Freestar as your ad monetization partner, you’ll be well-positioned to turn those strategies into real results.

WATCH THE WEBINAR ON-DEMAND

The post Top 5 Key Takeaways from our Webinar: Maximizing Q4 Ad Revenue first appeared on Freestar.

Maximizing Q4 Ad Revenue: A Guide, Part 2

Caroline Romano — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 21:56:18 +0000

In Part 1, we covered key strategies to optimize your ad monetization efforts ahead of Q4, focusing on ad inventory, formats, and working with demand partners. Now, let’s dive into additional steps publishers can take to capitalize on the highest revenue opportunities, particularly in updating content, analyzing data, and leveraging SEO to drive traffic and boost performance.

1. Updating High-Traffic Content

Refresh Last Year’s Top Performers
Your top-performing content from last year should be a priority for updates. Pages that previously attracted high engagement, like gift guides, product reviews, and seasonal travel recommendations, are likely to perform well again. Refreshing these pieces with updated trends, new links, or current recommendations can help boost their relevance and ranking in search results.

Leverage Seasonal and Event-Based ContentHoliday-themed content is incredibly valuable in Q4, but don’t forget about other key spending events that can drive traffic. In years with political elections, there’s an uptick in ad spend around political campaigns. Similarly, major sports seasons like the NFL and NBA bring advertisers looking to target engaged audiences during key sporting events. Make sure to align your DIY guides, travel tips, and holiday shopping lists with these pivotal moments to capture relevant ad revenue.

2. Analyzing Data for Strategic Insights

Dive Into Your Data
Looking at past and current traffic data can reveal critical insights for where your focus should be. Understanding what content is driving the most engagement and ad performance will help you replicate those successes. Use this data to optimize ad placements, refresh top-performing pages, and make informed decisions about future content.

Traffic Trends and Recovery
While some publishers are experiencing recovery in their traffic, especially quality publishers producing reliable and valuable content, others are facing challenges. Understanding the broader traffic trends in your industry can help you anticipate changes and prepare for fluctuations. Freestar can assist with analyzing these trends and suggesting actionable steps to optimize for recovery.

3. Optimizing for SEO

Focus on SEO Best Practices
Quality content goes hand in hand with strong SEO. Update meta descriptions, alt texts, and ensure your content is optimized for mobile users. Q4 is competitive, so making sure your site is search engine-friendly will help capture more organic traffic. Don’t forget to focus on keyword optimization around trending holiday search terms!

Boost Performance with Direct PMPs
Private Marketplace Deals (PMPs) are a powerful tool to secure high-value, targeted ad placements. By offering premium ad inventory to select advertisers, you can ensure higher CPMs and better fill rates. It’s crucial to position your site as a valuable, high-quality partner to direct advertisers, especially during this busy season when demand is high.

4. Capitalizing on Traffic Trends

Scale Issues and Efficiency
With scaling challenges still impacting many, now is the time to focus on doing more with less. Efficient ad layout, strategic partnerships, and traffic quality will become increasingly important in Q4. Quality over quantity is key – advertisers are looking for reliable, high-engagement audiences, and this can improve your value in direct campaigns and PMP deals.

How Freestar Can Help

Freestar continues to support publishers by analyzing traffic trends, offering strategic insights, and ensuring you make the most of your Q4 opportunities. Our header bidding technology and network of demand partners can help you unlock new revenue streams while ensuring high-quality ads and traffic recovery.

The post Maximizing Q4 Ad Revenue: A Guide, Part 2 first appeared on Freestar.

Maximizing Q4 Ad Revenue: A Guide, Part 1

Karthikeyan Kumaran — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 01:48:01 +0000

Q4 is a crucial period for any industry but more so for publishers looking to maximize revenue, as it’s often the most lucrative time of the year due to increased consumer spending and the holiday shopping season right around the corner. To make the most of this opportunity, publishers must adopt a strategic approach to their ad monetization efforts. Here is part 1 of some key areas to focus on:

1. Reviewing Inventory with a key focus on user experience

Identify High-Performing Content – Analyze your website’s traffic data to identify content that consistently attracts high engagement. Looking at both existing and legacy data sets/trends over the course of years will help gauge a pattern. Prioritize these pages for ad placement, as they are more likely to deliver better results and a superior user experience.
Optimize Page Layout – Ensure that your ad placements are not intrusive and do not negatively impact the user experience. Experiment with different ad sizes and positions to find the optimal configuration for your audience. Run a lot of A/B tests to get to an optimal website architecture.
Monitor Ad Quality – Regularly review the quality of ads appearing on your site. Remove any ads that are inappropriate, low-quality, or negatively impact user experience.

2. Formats and Sizes of Ads

Experiment with Different Formats – Explore various ad formats, such as display, video, and native ads, to see which ones resonate best with your audience. Consider the relevance of each format to your content and the goals of your advertisers along with their objectives of revenue optimizations.
Optimize Ad Sizes – Ensure that your ad sizes are compatible with different devices, platforms, and screen sizes. Test various ad sizes to determine which ones perform best work on your website.
Leverage Interactive Ads – Consider incorporating interactive ads to capture more attention and drive engagement. Interactive elements, such as quizzes, games, or calculators, can make your ads more effective and increase users’ engagement on the site.

3. Reviewing Your ads.txt Files

Ensure Accuracy – Verify that your ads.txt file is up-to-date and accurately lists all authorized sellers of your ad inventory. An incorrect or outdated ads.txt file can lead to lost revenue and potential ad fraud.
Regularly Update – As your advertising partnerships evolve, update your ads.txt file accordingly to reflect any changes in authorized sellers.

4. Revisiting Rules or Blocking

Evaluate Ad Quality – Review your ad quality rules and blocking settings to ensure they are aligned with your brand standards and goals. Consider adjusting these settings to optimize ad performance and revenue especially around this holiday season coming up.
Balance Revenue and Quality – Find the right balance between maximizing revenue and maintaining a high-quality user experience. Avoid blocking too many ad types or sellers, as this can limit your earning potential, but keeping in mind the brand safety and brand voice.

5. Working with New Demand Partners

Expand Your Reach – Partner with new demand partners to access a wider range of advertisers and increase your revenue opportunities. Research potential partners and evaluate their reputation, technology, and ability to deliver high-quality ads.
Negotiate Favorable Terms – When entering into new partnerships, negotiate favorable terms, such as higher CPMs or more flexible ad formats.

How can Freestar help?

Freestar can be a valuable tool and resources for publishers looking to maximize Q4 revenue. With our advanced header bidding technology and access to a vast network of demand partners, Freestar can help you:

Increase Ad Yield – Maximize your ad revenue by capturing the highest possible CPMs for your inventory.
Improve Ad Quality – Ensure that only high-quality ads are served on your site, enhancing the user experience and driving higher engagement.
Simplify Ad Management – Streamline your ad operations with Freestar’s intuitive platform, saving you time and effort and work with our dedicated teams to help and support you all along the way.

To learn more about how Freestar can help you optimize your Q4 revenue, look out for part 2 on the key areas of optimization and be sure to register for our upcoming webinar.

The post Maximizing Q4 Ad Revenue: A Guide, Part 1 first appeared on Freestar.

Optimizing Ad Tech with Freestar’s Modular Header Bidding Wrapper: Performance Enhancements, Memory Management, and Customization

Martin Hill — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 19:27:11 +0000

In the world of digital advertising, balancing revenue optimization and performance is a delicate task. Page load speed, efficient use of resources, and seamless user experiences are as crucial as maximizing ad revenue. Freestar has emerged as a leader with its innovative header bidder wrapper technology, built upon and extending the open-source Prebid.js framework. A key focus of Freestar’s technology is not just maximizing auction efficiency but also modularizing the code to optimize delivery and minimize memory leakage across browsers.

Dive deeper into Freestar’s approach in improving performance in dynamic ad environments which is centered around modularizing its proprietary wrapper and optimizing browser memory management.

Understanding Header Bidder Wrapper Technology

Freestar’s header bidder wrapper technology serves as an advanced intermediary between a publisher’s website and various demand sources, facilitating efficient asynchronous auctions. By selecting the highest bidder from multiple sources, Freestar ensures publishers receive optimal revenue for their ad inventory.

However, Freestar’s focus goes beyond revenue generation. It aims to equip publishers with a modularized, performance-optimized orchestration layer that minimizes the impact on page load speed and mitigates memory leaks. Freestar’s wrapper is engineered to deliver only the essential code specific to each publisher’s needs, making it lightweight and efficient.

What is Memory Management in Browsers?

Understanding memory management is key to appreciating Freestar’s optimization efforts. Modern web browsers like Chrome, Safari, and Firefox use heap memory to store data such as DOM (Document Object Model) elements, scripts, and styles. They rely on garbage collection (GC) to free up memory that is no longer needed by removing objects that are no longer referenced in the code. However, certain elements—particularly those that change frequently, such as ads—can cause memory leaks if they are not properly managed. Memory leaks occur when old objects, such as removed DOM elements, remain in memory even though they are no longer visible or used on the page. Other common causes of memory leaks include closures, event listeners, timers and intervals, and dynamic content.

This becomes particularly important in ad environments where ad units frequently refresh. If these refreshes aren’t handled correctly, the old ad creatives and their associated DOM elements may remain in memory, causing orphaned DOM objects. Over time, this leads to increased memory consumption, leading to greater page load times and a negative user experience.

The Impact of Ad Refresh Cycles on Memory Usage

A key component of modern ad strategies is the use of ad refresh cycles, which replace an ad creative with a new one after a set interval. While this boosts ad impressions and revenue potential, it also increases the risk of memory leakage.

Freestar’s technology takes this into account, offering an intelligent refresh system that ensures proper cleanup of DOM elements and event listeners tied to old ad creatives. This process reduces memory bloat and minimizes the risk of memory leaks during repeated ad refreshes.

Freestar’s Proprietary Header Bidder Wrapper Technology: Extending Prebid with Modularization

Freestar’s header bidder wrapper is built on top of the widely adopted Prebid.js framework, but it goes beyond Prebid’s capabilities to offer a proprietary, modularized solution tailored to each publisher, and to each experience. This approach ensures that the code delivered is highly optimized for each publisher’s specific use case and requirements.

1. Modularizing the Freestar Header Bidder Wrapper

Freestar’s proprietary technology is designed with modularization at its core. This means that, like Prebid, Freestar’s wrapper is broken down into individual components—each responsible for a specific function such as handling bids, managing analytics, or facilitating ad refreshes. However, Freestar goes a step further by allowing publishers to only load the modules they actually need. This results in a highly efficient, optimized payload that reduces the overall file size and execution time, improving performance significantly.

For instance, if a publisher is using only certain demand sources or ad formats, Freestar’s modularized wrapper ensures that the code for unrelated features—such as video ad units or demand partners that are unused is excluded from the build.

So, what does this achieve?

This precision targeting ensures that only the necessary code is delivered to the browser, resulting in faster load times, better performance, and reduced memory usage.

2. Device-Specific and Geo-Specific Optimization

Freestar’s modular approach also enables device-specific optimization backed by data-driven insights into device performance and resource limitations. Different devices—whether desktop, mobile, or tablet—vary significantly in processing power, memory capacity, and network bandwidth. By delivering device-specific builds, Freestar can ensure that mobile users, who account for approximately 50-60% of global web traffic, receive a lighter version of the wrapper with fewer resource-intensive features.This reduces the number of resource-intensive features by up to 30% (as shown from our internal tests), improving page load times and minimizing the impact on device performance.

In addition, Freestar’s header bidding wrapper can be optimized for geographic regions. Depending on where a user is located, certain demand partners or ad formats might not be relevant. Freestar’s modular builds allow the wrapper to be customized by region, ensuring that users only load what’s necessary for their locale, reducing unnecessary overhead.

3. Prebid as the Core, Freestar for Customization

While Prebid.js serves as the foundation for Freestar’s technology, Freestar’s proprietary wrapper extends Prebid’s capabilities by providing more advanced customization and performance optimizations. Although Prebid is inherently modular by design, Freestar adds substantial value by incorporating proprietary features that fine-tune the framework to publishers’ specific needs. Freestar’s wrapper focuses on reducing the memory footprint, streamlining ad refresh processes, and improving the efficiency of demand-side integrations.

Benefits of a custom modular build,

Minimal Code Bloat: By including only the required modules, Freestar minimizes the amount of JavaScript delivered, speeding up page load times and reducing execution overhead.
Optimized for Device and Region: Publishers receive custom versions of the wrapper based on the user’s device (desktop vs. mobile) and geographic location, ensuring maximum efficiency for each visitor.
Lower Memory Usage: Fewer active modules mean fewer memory-intensive operations, helping to reduce the risk of memory leaks or unnecessary memory consumption.

Freestar ensures that Prebid’s core functionality is tightly integrated with our custom performance optimizations, allowing publishers to leverage Prebid’s open-source advantages while benefiting from Freestar’s enhanced features and control over the header bidding process. This combination leads to higher ad yield and a seamless, memory-efficient experience.

Freestar’s 4-step approach to Performance Optimizations for Memory Management

Freestar employs several key strategies to manage memory more effectively within its modularized header bidder wrapper:

Efficient DOM Element Removal: When an ad creative is replaced, Freestar ensures that old DOM elements are completely removed from both the DOM tree and memory. This prevents orphaned objects from lingering in memory, which would otherwise lead to gradual memory bloat.
Smart Garbage Collection Coordination: Freestar’s wrapper technology works in harmony with browsers’ garbage collectors, ensuring that outdated elements (such as old ad creatives and event listeners) are marked as unreachable and freed up as quickly as possible.
Optimized Ad Refresh Logic: Freestar’s wrapper includes intelligent refresh logic that handles ad replacement in a memory-efficient manner. It cleans up event listeners and de-references old ad units properly, allowing browsers to reclaim the memory without delays or leaks.
Cross-Browser Testing: Freestar regularly tests its wrapper across different browsers to ensure compatibility and identify any discrepancies in memory handling. This allows the team to optimize for different garbage collection cycles and prevent browser-specific memory leaks.

Achieving the ideal balance with Freestar

Freestar’s proprietary header bidder wrapper, built on and extending Prebid.js, represents a state-of-the-art solution that combines performance optimization, modularization, and memory management. By delivering a custom, lightweight build tailored to each publisher’s specific needs, Freestar ensures efficient resource usage, fast page loads, and reduced memory consumption.

Freestar’s focus on preventing memory leaks, avoiding orphaned DOM elements, and minimizing code overhead sets a new benchmark in the ad tech space. This allows publishers to maximize ad revenue without sacrificing performance. By modularizing its header bidder wrapper, Freestar ensures that only the necessary components are deployed, resulting in an efficient and adaptable solution across devices and regions.

For publishers, this translates into a seamless balance between ad monetization and user experience. Whether you’re optimizing for desktop or mobile, Freestar’s technology can help reduce latency, streamline ad delivery, and enhance overall site performance – ultimately leading to higher ad yield, improved user engagement, and a more competitive edge in the market.

The post Optimizing Ad Tech with Freestar’s Modular Header Bidding Wrapper: Performance Enhancements, Memory Management, and Customization first appeared on Freestar.