Higher Yields, More Revenue for UK-Based Parenting Platform

Overview

A long time Sovrn customer, Mumsnet wanted a better way to increase both its programmatic advertising yield and its operational efficiency. Mumsnet is the go-to online community for UK parents, with eight million unique users. Established in 2000, it offers support, advice, and a vibrant platform for parents to connect and share experiences.

Key Takeaway: Mumsnet captured a 10% average revenue uplift using Signal dynamic pricing.

Opportunity: Optimize Yield in Q4 (and Beyond)

Mumsnet monetizes some of their inventory via programmatic advertising channels using demand partners through Prebid, Amazon’s Transparent Marketplace, and Google’s Open Bidding and AdX.

Mumsnet ran static price floors across several supply-side platform (SSP) partners, updating manually on a semi-regular cadence to capture market movements. However, by the last quarter of 2023, Mumsnet was actively seeking a dynamic pricing solution to increase revenue during its peak season by optimizing ad pricing.

Solution: Sovrn Signal Dynamic Pricing 

The Sovrn team invited Mumsnet to participate in Beta testing the dynamic pricing tool embedded in Sovrn Signal, a data decisioning engine to understand and generate maximum value from every advertising transaction. Signal would measure, price, broadcast, and monetize the value of every ad unit to dynamically generate the best price and send it to bidders.

By adding a single line of JavaScript (JS) code to each Mumsnet.com webpage, Signal could dynamically:

• Measure the attributes of all impressions including visit details, viewability and attention, audience segments, and addressability.
• Price each ad using the attributes to predict and set the optimal floor.
• Broadcast the floor price in bid requests to SSPs.
• Monetize by routing requests to buyers most likely to bid at or above the estimated market price.

Throughout the testing period, Signal automatically updated pricing floors to maximize yield while alternative floors were tested concurrently to capture market changes. Signal-generated dynamic pricing was passed to the Sovrn Ad Exchange plus several additional SSPs during the test, while a control group comprising at least 5% of Mumsnet’s ad inventory was maintained to measure the revenue uplift. 

Results

• Overall revenue increase across all programmatic channels through testing period
• Yield increased across all ad units when dynamic pricing was passed versus the control
• Revenue uplift remained steady, even accounting for traffic spikes, dips, and cyclical demand trends
• Overall yield increased across all programmatic channels, including in Google AdX

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Methodology

During a three-week period between December 13, 2023 and January 2, 2024, Signal’s prediction and pricing algorithm continuously ran against a control sample, in order to determine both the effective market rate and the impact of dynamic pricing. In the control set no floor was passed at all to provide a true benchmark of the market rate without interference.

We determined revenue uplift by calculating the yield (or, total revenue divided by the total number of ads available) for ads with Signal dynamic pricing enabled or from the control group, and then compared the results. Yield for the control group was applied to the total number of requests that received dynamic pricing to determine what revenue would have been without Signal.

For the revenue uplift figures quoted above, custom targeting key values were passed through to Mumsnet’s Google Ad Manager to denote if dynamic pricing was set or whether the impression was part of the control group. 

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