Ad Yield Ops 101: Managing Demand Sources Approval Best Practices

Learn several best practices for getting approved on major programmatic demand sources

 

 

Lesson Overview + Resources:

In this lesson, we will walk through several best practices for getting your website approved by demand sources. This includes the primary things programmatic demand sources are looking for when reviewing your website such as:

  • Traffic: What is the volume, geography, source, etc. of your traffic?
  • Ad Layout: Is there ad clutter or a poor user experience on your website?
  • Content: Is your content both original and valuable?

Here are additional resources pertaining to this lesson:

Read the Transcript:

Getting approved on major programmatic demand sources as a stand-alone publisher that is mid-size or smaller can be very difficult. Working with a partner or header bidding wrapper is often the easiest way for mid-size publishers to get approved across a variety of SSPs.

That being said, there are key best practices you can follow to improve your chances of getting approved on major demand sources (whether you are going it solo or using a partner).

Most SSPs are looking at similar factors when considering your website, however none have explicitly documented their criteria. Thus, we can’t give you hard and fast rules, but rather a series of recommendations that should help you across the board.

Generally, SSPs are looking at a few different things when reviewing your website:

  • Traffic
  • Ad Layout
  • And content
Let’s start with traffic considerations. When reviewing your website, most SSPs will look at the volume and quality of your traffic as a key consideration when determining if they should accept you.

Many have minimum traffic volume requirements, and if your traffic isn’t above a certain amount, they will automatically reject you.

They will also look at the geographies where your traffic is originating from, the sources of your traffic (e.g. organic vs. paid), and look for indicators that traffic might be coming from bots as opposed to real people.

While there might not be a ton that you can do to change your traffic patterns immediately, it is important to at least know what SSPs are looking for when considering you.

Next, let’s cover ad layout considerations. Many SSPs will reject sites that show signs of ad clutter, or sites where they feel the inventory won’t be valuable enough. 

We recommend implementing all of the best practices for avoiding ad clutter provided in the “Ad Unit Placements and Settings” module to prevent your site from being flagged for ad clutter.

And lastly, let’s cover content considerations. SSPs will also review the quality of your content when reviewing your website. Your content should be unique, original, and amazing for both audiences and advertisers alike to give you the best chance of approval.