What ad networks mean from advertisers and publishers
All the major ad networks ask you to choose the type of account and sign up as an advertiser or a publisher. But not all of them explain what they mean by these two statuses and what the purpose of each account is. Here we will clarify that.
Who are advertisers in an ad network?
Let’s start with a real case? Let’s say you want to advertise and earn money from someone else’s goods or services. You might think that you need an advertiser account. 99% of the time, this would be the wrong choice. On average, major networks understand “advertising” to mean creating ads and choosing tactics for how, where, and to whom to display them. What advertisers do:
- Create an offer (a new iPhone, a Christmas Sale, a dating app).
- Create ads that illustrate that offer (ex: a 780×90 banner, a popunder with images and text, a short video)
- Design a landing page with this offer (a landing page or a website).
- Plan how to attract thousands of visitors to this page so they see the offer and buy goods, services and software.
Here we are. Advertisers are those who have some products they want to sell (goods, services, software, etc.). They can be “direct” which means they own and sell the product they produce. Like Sony is selling its new playstation series series. They can also be agents: Advertising agencies acting on behalf of a direct advertiser, resellers, supply chains (retailers, merchants) and many many more.
If you want to make money selling goods or services, you will necessarily have to advertise them online. Then you need an advertiser account.
Advertiser – Definition
How advertisers earn
We now know that companies and agencies pay to display their offers, which are peppered with useful goods and services. In fact, they put large budgets into advertising. It is predicted that global internet display advertising will reach $176 million by 2022.
When users come across an offer they find interesting, they may want to buy something from an advertiser. That’s when a merchant gets the money. Profit is made when goods and services are sold. Advertisers use ROI to measure whether their activities are really profitable, or whether they have spent more on advertising than they have ultimately earned.
Sometimes the goal is brand awareness, but still all commercial organizations aim to make a profit.
Let’s now address the same issue with publishers.
Who are the publishers within an advertising network?
We have found that advertisers buy audience attention, which can be views, clicks, opt-ins, or downloads. It is logical to assume that they buy these from publishers. Who are they? What are they selling?
Here is the key to understanding the difference between advertisers and publishers. Publishers are those who own websites and are willing to display the offers to their audience.
Publishers find the best place on a website to place an ad unit. They sign up to an ad network and choose the ad format they are willing to place on the website. Experienced publishers skillfully combine different ad formats to generate higher revenue from ad rotation and not annoy users.
Publisher – Definition
How publishers make money
When retailers sell goods, publishers trade their audience, that is, their traffic. Webmasters sell the number of times their audience will see or interact with an ad. That might be one thousand banner impressions, for example. Then the well-known CPM rate (cost-per-mille) comes into play. This term literally means a price for one thousand impressions.
Webmasters care a lot about CPM as it tells how valuable their traffic is and affects their revenue. In our previous article, we explored the main reasons for the decline of CPM.
Advertising behind the scenes: Where, how and when ads can be placed.
After registration, all advertisers can start their first campaign. A campaign is a complex of activities, which we will reveal in a moment.
At Monezilla, advertisers can choose where, how often and at what price they want to display their offers. That is, they decide how much they are willing to pay publishers and which ones. How does this work? There’s no magic, just math plus algorithms.
All advertisers have tools to set up and launch campaigns. With these settings, they can choose where to run ads, who to target, what the ads should look like, and how much they’re willing to pay for the ads. They also decide on the action they want to pay for; this could be 1000 impressions, a click, a purchase, a subscription or some other action. Pricing models like CPM, CPC and CPA.
Advertisers determine the income of publishers
As you may have guessed, advertisers aim to reach the most relevant audience – those willing to increase their ROI: buy, subscribe, download or play.
If they see that Website A is continually feeding them users willing to pay, they will bid higher for that traffic. Therefore, some of the traffic costs more, and some publishers earn more because they deliver the most appropriate traffic to advertisers.
Ad networks have algorithms that monitor and control bids. When they see an increase in demand for traffic from certain GEOs or publishers, they increase the CPM rate.
And that brings us to the most exciting part of the article. Let’s now take a look at how publishers monetize their websites and blogs.
Publishing Backstage: How to monetize website traffic
A publisher’s account is a kind of control center where they monitor and manage their website’s performance and revenue. Once registered, all publishers add the URLs of their websites and offer them as traffic sources for advertisers.
Publishers can choose which ad units/placements they want to display on their websites and how often. Banners, popunders, VAST pre-rolls – these are all units or placements. To find out the most requested ad units, read this guide.
Then get a unique code to put on the website. This code will stream ads from advertisers. Actually, the whole process takes less than 10 minutes.
Ad network can monitor all the URLs and ad placements of each publisher to increase CPM if the traffic from these sources is excellent. In the same way, they can block placements that bring fraudulent traffic or lower CPM rates if the traffic has not brought results for the advertisers.
Publishers make ads work
Just as advertisers determine how much publishers earn, publishers provide the most valuable resource – high-quality traffic that converts into clicks and purchases. In addition, publishers are priceless because they give visibility to goods and services, which is critical in digital marketing.
All commercial organizations are eager to attract as much high-quality traffic as possible to engage with their offerings. They are willing to bid higher for the most prominent GEOs and audiences.
Advertiser vs. Publisher FAQs
No matter how detailed this article is, dozens of tricky questions will always come up for both advertisers and publishers. Let’s clear up at least a few of them.
Can publishers buy traffic?
Of course they can! It’s not the advertiser’s prerogative. Publishers may need to refresh the demographics of their website users or attract more new visitors. In these cases, they will run search ads to attract the most desirable visitors. As you guessed, they will act like advertisers.
Any time you deal with advertising and monetization on the Internet, difficult questions will arise. But fear not! Our team will stand by your side and help you build strong relationships with your partners, whether they are advertisers or publishers.