10 Ways To Improve Advertising Revenue For Publishers
The Hunger Games told us, “May the odds be ever in your favor.” Right now, the odds for publishers to maximize their online ad revenue dollars are in their favor—big time. Don’t leave ad revenue on the table.
According to Statista, retail e-commerce sales are estimated to exceed $4.1 trillion globally. With this continued growth, publishers have an incredible opportunity to increase their monetization potential by optimizing ad performance, refining targeting strategies, and strengthening connections with advertisers and consumers.
But before we dive into the 10 ways to maximize ad revenue, let’s break down how ad revenue works, how it’s calculated, and what drives improvement.
What Is Ad Revenue?
Ad revenue is the income publishers earn by displaying paid advertisements across their digital platforms such as websites, apps, social channels, and email marketing. Monitoring and growing ad revenue is critical to the success and scalability of publishers and their online businesses. This income helps fund operational costs, tech advancements, and talent reinvestment and is used to attract more users.
Publishers who optimize their websites for online advertising transform them into highly profitable ad spaces—creating a win-win for both advertisers and site owners.
How Do Websites Get Advertising Revenue?
Websites generate ad revenue by displaying ads to users through direct deals with advertisers or ad networks. Publishers offer brands a wide range of ad placement options, such as pop-ups, banners, sidebars, in-article, and ad formats like display ads, video, and native ads. The more relevant the ad, the higher the engagement—and ultimately, the revenue. While ads must fit within the site’s framework, targeting can sometimes be misaligned. Leveraging algorithmic ad placement can enhance personalization, ensuring ads better match user interests and drive higher engagement. By embracing programmatic advertising, publishers can serve more personalized and relevant ads to users, increasing the potential for stronger returns.
To maximize revenue, publishers should track key ad metrics across their website—such as impressions, clicks, and conversions—using models like CPM (Cost Per Thousand) or CPC (Cost Per Click) to measure performance and optimize strategy.
How To Calculate Ad Revenue
When calculating ad revenue, publishers look at several key metrics based on advertising pricing models. One of the easiest ways to calculate ad revenue is by understanding the CPM (Cost Per Thousand) model:
How CPM is calculated: CPM = (Total Ad Spend ÷ Total Impressions) × 1,000
For example, a publisher with 5 million impressions and a CPM of $3.50 would generate $17,500 in revenue. Simple math, but powerful results.
Advertisers pay for every 1,000 ad impressions. CPM measures ad impressions to gauge ad efficiency. A high CPM with low engagement may indicate ineffective ad placement. High CPMs make publishers happy.
How To Improve Ad Revenue
Success in online advertising isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach—it requires a multi-faceted strategy. Maximizing ad revenue demands a proactive approach; there’s no room for half-measures. Publishers must identify and address underperforming ads to reach their revenue targets.
Here are 10 proven strategies to boost ad performance and increase online ad revenue.
1. Optimize Ad Placements On Your Website
One way to stay attractive to high-performing advertisers and ad networks is to explore how strategic ad placement improves visibility and encourages engagement. Think of your website as a prime-time TV show—where you place your ads matters. Strategic positioning, such as above the fold, within engaging content, and in high-traffic sections, can significantly increase visibility and engagement. Test different placements and formats to find the sweet spot between revenue and user experience.
2. Go Programmatic for Smarter Ad Delivery
Programmatic advertising is like having a matchmaker for your ad slots—it ensures the right ads reach the right audience at the right time. Using AI-driven real-time bidding (RTB) and algorithmic ad placement, publishers can enhance personalization, increase relevance, and ultimately, boost revenue.
3. Improve Ad Viewability (Because If No One Sees It, It Doesn’t Count)
If a site's page load speeds are bad, it doesn’t bode well for site stickiness, user experience, or ad viewability rates. Ads that load too slowly or appear in sections users rarely scroll to are wasted opportunities. Improve your ad viewability with some of these strategies:
- Optimize image file sizes, responsive design, appropriate formats, and compression
- Browser caching best practices
- Ad tags for loading without blocking page rendering
- Reduce or minimize HTTP requests
- Monitor ad viewability periodically and course correct to increase earnings
Here’s how to get advertisers on your website to drive revenue.
4. Diversify Your Ad Formats
No one can argue that online users have grown more sophisticated. Not all ads perform equally. Display banners are classic, but incorporating video, native, interactive, or sponsored content to reach new visitors can significantly improve engagement and ROI. Or, diversify platforms, such as social platforms, programmatic ad networks, Google, or other top ad networks. Diversification also helps cater to different user preferences while allowing you to capitalize on higher CPM formats.
5. Leverage First-Party Data for Better Targeting
With third-party cookies on their way out, publishers must prioritize first-party data. Collecting insights from user behavior, subscriptions, and engagement patterns allows for smarter audience segmentation, making ad placements more effective and increasing advertiser demand.
6. Balance Ads with User Experience and Engaging Content
Bombarding users with intrusive ads is like having pop-up salespeople at every corner of a store—it’s overwhelming and frustrating. Striking the right balance between monetization and user experience is essential for long-term success. To avoid ad fatigue, publishers should rotate ad creatives to keep content fresh. By using ad rotation, publishers can programmatically display a variety of ads to the same audience over time, keeping their experience dynamic and engaging. A/B testing allows publishers to systematically identify which ad variations perform best, leading to data-driven decisions that optimize campaigns for maximum impact.
Alongside this, engaging content is key to maintaining user interest. Your site should be more than just an ad space—it should be a destination. High-quality, engaging content like blogs, case studies, or video content can attract visitors and encourage them to stay longer, boosting traffic and creating new opportunities for ad impressions. For example, websites with engaging video content see increased traffic, with 87% of marketers reporting that video drives higher engagement (webfx.com). As your traffic grows, so does your potential for monetization, creating a powerful cycle of engagement and revenue.
7. Experiment with Header Bidding for Higher Bids
Header bidding is an advanced programmatic advertising technique. It allows multiple advertisers to bid on a publisher's ad inventory in real-time, increasing competition and maximizing revenue. Publishers offer their ad space to several ad exchanges to increase revenue potential from each ad slot by opening the inventory to multiple bidders simultaneously. Think of it as an auction where the highest bidder always wins—except you, the publisher, are the biggest winner with higher yields. Header bidding also helps facilitate improved advertiser access, ad latency, and ad fill rates.
8. Partner With Premium Ad Networks
You don’t have to walk this road alone. Partnering with premium and reputable ad networks gives you access to industry talent, kicking out higher-quality ads designed to produce better fill rates. Large advertiser networks that are more likely to pay premium prices, sophisticated targeting capabilities, and robust optimization tools are a few of the many perks for publishers. Find an ad network that aligns with your niche audience, has ad quality on par with your publications, and drives the premium results you demand.
9. Improve Mobile and CTV Monetization
With 15% of U.S. adults using smartphones as their sole internet connection and nearly 100% owning a mobile device (Pew Research), mobile optimization is no longer optional—it’s essential. Publishers must prioritize mobile-first strategies to improve engagement and create a seamless user experience through interactive ad formats like responsive display ads, banner ads, and interstitials. Mobile traffic is dominating, and failing to optimize for this growing trend means potentially leaving ad revenue on the table.
In addition to mobile, Connected TV (CTV) ad spend is also on the rise, offering another avenue for monetization. If your ad strategy isn’t optimized for both mobile and CTV, you’re missing out on significant ad dollars. By focusing on mobile-friendly formats, leveraging in-app advertising, and exploring CTV partnerships, publishers can tap into the increasing demand and maximize their revenue potential across these platforms.
10. Analyze Data To Refine Your Ad Strategy
Set-it-and-forget-it doesn’t work in advertising. Tracking multiple advertising metrics is crucial to maximizing ad performance on websites. Publishers can see what elements contribute to or hinder high-performance results by looking for data patterns. Regularly analyze metrics like CTR, viewability rates, and CPMs. Run A/B tests, adjust your strategies based on performance, and stay ahead of industry changes to keep your revenue growing.
How Can Programmatic Advertising Drive More Ad Revenue?
Programmatic advertising uses data and algorithms to deliver highly targeted ads to users. With better targeting, ads are more relevant, leading to higher engagement and conversions. That’s why 90% of display ad dollars are now spent through programmatic buying (Statista).
Programmatic makes ad buying more efficient, saving time and maximizing your ad revenue potential.
Next Millennium Drives Advertising Success Through Programmatic Advertising
As Thomas Jefferson once said, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” In the world of advertising, that “luck” comes from consistent, smart efforts. Sometimes it’s the machines doing the heavy lifting, but often it’s a combination of tools, data, and teams working together to drive the high-performing ads that lead to incredible results.
At Next Millennium, we make that “luck” a reality for you by consistently exceeding industry benchmarks through our direct and exclusive relationships with global brands. Don’t guess about your ad performance—let us help you reach your targets. Read our case studies to learn more about our successes and how we can help you maximize revenue today.
Book a Discovery Call today and find out if programmatic advertising is right for your business.
