Key Points

  • Today, ad exchanges exist primarily within other tools rather than as a standalone entity, but the traditional features of an ad exchange can provide big benefits to publishers.
  • Benefits range from high fill rates to control over ad styles and available ad space.
  • A revenue partner can provide the benefits of an SSP or ad exchange platform without the hassle of management. 

Web publishing is a competitive game. Hundreds of thousands of websites are all fighting for the attention of internet users, and publishers like you are looking for any possible edge to stand out within the advertising space and drive their ad revenue higher.

One of the ways to ensure that you maximize your revenue is to work with tools that have the traditional function of an ad exchange. The benefits of ad exchange platforms within the ad space are numerous, but it's important to keep in mind that this is simply one part of your digital advertising strategy. Still, it's an important part. In this post, we walk you through seven key benefits of an ad exchange platform. Read on to learn more.

Looking to increase your ad revenue without all the technical work of turning your programmatic advertising strategy on its head? You're looking for a partner like Playwire - one that can manage every aspect of your digital advertising sales so you can focus on growing your audience. If you're interested, reach out.

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Ad Exchange GuideThe Complete Guide to Ad Exchanges

1. Broad Demand for Your Inventory

As a general rule, you want to have higher demand for your advertising inventory. That's because higher demand almost always translates to higher CPMs. This is a key benefit of ad exchanges: They give you instant access to a huge number of interested advertisers and agencies. 

The more interested buyers you have looking at your revenue, the higher your fill rates will be. But there's an additional benefit here: Having more demand also means you're more likely to get higher bids due to the sheer number of bids you receive when your demand soars. That means higher yield, which is always a good thing.

2. Control Over Floor Prices

Another nice thing about most tools that function as ad exchanges is that they allow you to set a CPM floor. It's not just open season on your ad inventory and everything sells no matter how low the price is. You have control here, and you can adjust your price floors as necessary to drive your CPMs up or down.

3. Custom Ad Placement

Working with a solution that functions as an ad exchange doesn't mean submitting to its will. As the publisher, you retain control over ad placement and frequency on your website or app. That means you get to designate not only the spaces where ads will show but how often they will appear to users. This is a particularly useful benefit of ad exchanges because it prevents ad oversaturation within your available ad space, which can turn your target audience away from you.

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Ad Exchange Resource Center

Check out all the available resources in the Complete Ad Exchange Resource Center

4. Ad Unit Control

Whether you're getting access to an ad exchange through an SSP or some other ad tech tool, you're likely to have at least some measure of control over both ad quality and ad unit type. You can filter out particular ad units, such as video ads or interstitials, to perfectly suit your website or app, and you can control the types of ads that are shown to your audience, which you have worked hard to build and curate.

Keep in mind that exchanges offer this kind of control in varying degrees, so you'll need to find one that is able to suit your organizational needs.

5. Automation

If you have ever tried doing direct sales, you have probably noticed two things: The CPMs are really high, and it's really hard to scale. That's because it isn't automated. In ad tech, automation is key to scale, and ad exchanges provide an automated way to sell a significant portion of your premium inventory. (Luckily, Playwire has found a way to provide customizable scale through our direct sales team!)

Yes, the initial technical lift to implement ad exchanges in your system can be a bit of work. But after that, it's all about high-level management of your efforts rather than intensive detail work. That means ad exchanges are a programmatic advertising revenue strategy that can scale with you as you grow your audience. 

6. Control Over Buyers

Your content and audience are worth protecting. That means you need to look out for ad fraud or ads that might be offensive or otherwise harmful to your brand if they appear on your website or app. Fortunately, many ad exchanges come with brand safety and related controls to allow you to do just that.

Taking that control a bit further, you can also work with a private marketplace (PMP) or preferred exchanges to maintain even more control over who can buy your inventory. PMPs are exclusive to only high-quality digital mediabuyers and publishers, and preferred exchanges allow you to create detailed lists of the buyers you would like to purchase your impressions.

7. Higher Fill Rates

It's often helpful to think of SSPs or ad exchanges as a way to fill in the gaps. They provide solid CPMs and an unbelievable amount of demand; if you have impressions that are going unfilled, you're losing money, and an ad exchange could fix that with ease.

Playwire: Making the Benefits of Ad Exchanges Even Better

The benefits of SSPs or ad exchanges are relatively standard across most of the best-known exchanges. They all offer some level of control over buyers and price floors, and they all have developed sizable networks that can lead to high demand for your ad inventory.

However, they don't all automatically send your CPMs up to maximum. That's because there are thousands of variables you can tweak to maximize your CPMs. And you have to manage them every day to make sure you're always at the max.

For most publishers, that's not feasible. And it's why Playwire exists. We manage every aspect of your revenue strategy, including working with ad exchanges, to drive it higher and higher every day. Ready to see what we can do for you? Contact us.

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